Bush and Democratic leaders have reached some preliminary agreements on his education plan, although he is getting nowhere with his call for vouchers, the public money parents of children in chronically failing schools could use to send their kids to private or parochial schools. Social Security and Medicare reform have yet to get going. Bush's calls for a retooled military and a national energy policy are similarly stalled, aswhile studies move forward. Still in the starting gate is Bush's faith-based initiative, which would give federal money to churches and other religious groups that deliver social services. Overall, presidential scholar Martha Kumar sees a president in control.
Polls indicate that the public agrees.
Questions on individual domestic policy areas, however, produced less satisfaction among respondents. Bush's first 100 days have offered evidence that he is as ideologically conservative a president as America has had in a long time. His Texas record offered definitive hints, but a campaign that featured education reform and racial inclusion might have given some voters reason to believe that Compassionate Conservatism is code for Conservative Lite. At the Brookings Institution, presidential scholar Stephen Hess says it all was predictable. Candidate Bush made it clear that he was pro-business, was suspicious of regulation and was willing to blur the line between church and state.