The essence of the education reform package he sent to Capitol Hill was that schools and school administrators had to be held responsible for their successes and failures. He supports Social Security privatization in part to give citizens greater responsibility for their retirement funds. He supports tax cuts to give taxpayers more control over their own earnings. This theme has surfaced even in ways that are unexpected for conservatives. He hasn't spent much time attacking Hollywood for polluting culture.
Parents are responsible for controlling what their own kids see.
The impulse to hold people responsible extends even to unexpected areas like the current debate over energy policy and the environment. Reporters are now running around trying to figure out which category is given greater emphasis in the Bush plan. No business and no individual thinks this way. If you are going to devise an energy policy, of course it is going to include both production and conservation, which indeed the Bush plan does. The distinctive thing about the Bush approach is that it tries to introduce a responsibility ethic into energy and environmental thinking.