Reporting from Washington — Former President George W. Bush doesn’t miss being in office, and he wishes the “Bush tax cuts” of the early 2000s didn’t carry his name — at least that’s according to a series of quips made by Bush during a rare public appearance on Tuesday.

Bush, who has stayed out of the spotlight in his post-presidential years, was addressing the Tax Policies for Growth conference, an event dedicated to discussing a Bush Institute project to promote policies aimed at achieving sustainable annual growth of 4%. That goal is the topic of a new book published by the institute.

“It’s got to be a staggering thing for some of the cynics up here; I publish a book, and now the Bush Institute’s publishing a book,” he said. “They didn’t think I could read, much less write a book.”

In his 15-minute opening speech to the gathering of prominent conservative politicians and economists, Bush pushed heavily for a pro-growth economic strategy.

“Much of the political debate — and I guess rightly so — is about our balance sheet,” he said. “That makes sense. I mean, when you look at the debt to GDP,  it’s pretty high.”

Yet he made no mention of the country’s ongoing economic troubles that began during his presidency. Instead of discussing cutting federal spending — a priority currently among Republicans in Washington — Bush repeated the economic philosophy that dominated his years in office.

“We believe that in order to solve the balance sheet, first and foremost, you’ve got to grow the private sector,” he said. “And therefore, the focus ought to be on private-sector growth. And that private-sector growth will yield increased revenues, [as] the pie grows the debt relative to the pie shrinks, and with fiscal discipline you can better resolve your current account deficits and your entitlements.”

Warning that “if you raise taxes on the so-called rich, you’re really raising taxes on the job creators,” Bush joked about the tax breaks that were enacted under his administration.

“I wish they weren’t called the Bush tax cuts,” he said. “If they were called some-other-body’s tax cuts, they’re probably less likely to be raised. But if you raise taxes, you’re taking money out of the pockets of consumers.”

Perhaps coincidentally, the quip came just hours before President Obama was to make a major speech promoting his “Buffett rule” proposal to raise taxes on the mega-rich.

“I don’t think it’s good, frankly, for our country, to undermine our president, and I don’t intend to do so,” Bush said.

He said the Bush Institute is “an opportunity to be engaged in public policy in a positive way.”

“When you get out of office, it’s kind of a daunting feeling. I mean, you serve, you’ve given it your all, and all of a sudden, you’ve got some years ahead of you,” he said. “And I have decided to stay out of the limelight.”

Bush said he is asked often if he misses the presidency.

“Really, I really don’t. I mean, I enjoyed it. It was an unbelievably interesting experience ….Yeah, it was inconvenient to have to stop at some stop signs — stop lights here coming over here,” he joked.

“But I do miss being commander in chief,” he said. “A lot.”

To keep contact with the troops, Bush said he hosts mountain biking and golf outings for veterans.

“You know, I love to mountain bike ride,” he said. “What I don’t like to do is be beaten on a mountain bike ride by a one-legged veteran, but it’s likely to happen.”

W discussing economics…this should have appeared nine days ago…

Completely forgot to post this article.  You know how Walgreens earnings dropped almost 8% because of the loss of prescription business from Express Scripts, right?  Well, Express Scripts got the green light from the FTC to acquire Medco…the other major player in the Rx biz.  Here’s the story from the business section of Tuesday’s Chicago Tribune:

By Peter Frost, Chicago Tribune reporter

Express Scripts Inc.on Monday completed its acquisition of rival Medco Health Solutions Inc. in a $29.1 billion deal that could have major implications for Walgreen Co.

The deal was announced after the Federal Trade Commission lent its formal approval after 8-month antitrust investigation of whether the merger would hurt competition in the pharmacy benefits management sector. PBMs administer prescription-drug insurance coverage for employers and insurers.

The new company, which will be called Express Scripts Holding Co., becomes the largest pharmacy benefits manager in the nation, filling a combined 1.4 billion prescriptions a year for employers and insurers, according to Express Scripts.

In 2011, about 213 million of those prescriptions were filled at drug stores operated by Walgreen, representing more than a quarter of the Deerfield-based company’s total.

For Walgreen, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, the deal takes on added significance because of its ongoing spat with St. Louis-based Express Scripts over pricing. The two companies parted ways on Jan. 1 after they were unable to come to terms on a new contract that would cover more than $5 billion in business.

As a result, Walgreen lost roughly 85 percent of the prescriptions it filled for Express Scripts customers through the quarter ended Feb. 29, contributing to a 7.6 percent slide in Walgreen’s earnings.

On an annual basis, Express Scripts accounted for about 88 million of the 819 million prescriptions Walgreen filled in 2011.

Now that Express Scripts has Medco in the fold, Walgreen could be looking at an even bigger loss of prescription volume. Walgreen filled 125 million scripts for Medco last year and is on pace to fill about 108 million in 2012 and 74 million in 2013, according to Walgreen figures.

If Walgreen ends up losing the Medco business following the merger, Walgreen investors should “expect further damage to sales and profits,” Carol Levenson, an analyst for Gimme Credit LLC wrote last week in a note to clients.

Shares of Walgreen rose 2 percent, or 67 cents, to close Monday at $34.16. Express Scripts’ stock jumped 2.4 percent, or $1.32, to close at $55.50.

While Walgreen last week defended its decision to walk away from Express Scripts, it insisted it plans to honor the terms of its contract with Medco post-merger unless the new company moved to sever the contract or alter its terms.

Express Scripts Chief Medical Officer Steve Miller said Monday that the company plans to honor the Medco-Walgreen contract — at least in the short term.

“As of today, we’re honoring that contract, but we’ll have to see going forward,” Miller said.

Express Scripts has not had access nor was it able to discuss the Medco-Walgreen contract until Monday per FTC rules, Miller said. Now that the merger has been approved, the company plans to begin examining contracts with drug manufacturers and drugstores, with Walgreen “high on the list of first review.”

Express Scripts hopes to complete the integration of the companies over the next 18 months, Miller said.

Michael Polzin, a Walgreen spokesman, said the company was “pleased that Express Scripts said (Monday) that it, too, intends to honor Medco’s contract with us.”

Neither Walgreen nor Express Scripts would say how long the contract extends.

“The question is what happens when that contract is up,” said Matthew Coffina, an analyst withMorningstar Inc.”Generally speaking, it is very unlikely that Express Scripts would for a very sustained period of time allow Walgreens to work with Medco and not Express Scripts.”

In other words, the future relationship between the two companies is an all-or-nothing proposition.

Walgreen and Express Scripts either have to come to terms on an the entire book of business or cut ties altogether, Coffina said.

The prospect of a deal between the two companies, he said, “depends in large part on whether Walgreens is willing to accept reimbursement terms that are worse than they hoped for.”

The following article was lifted verbatim from the Chicago Tribune. While my social life is boring enough that strip searches would be a mitzvah, most people would not be amused…

By Andrew Trees

With its recent decision to allow strip-searches for any offense before admitting someone to jail, the U.S. Supreme Court gave us a stark reminder of just how conservative, indeed reactionary, it is. What makes this decision even more jarring is that it comes only days after the conservative bloc of the court made it clear how unpalatable it finds the personal mandate to buy health insurance, the linchpin of President Barack Obama’s health care plan. So, for those of you keeping score at home, a majority of justices view a strip-search for something as trivial as failing to use a turn signal as perfectly acceptable, but requiring a citizen to buy health care is an unwarranted intrusion on personal liberty.

You may think I’m joking about the turn signal, but I’m not. Here are a few examples of the “offenses” that led to strip-searches in recent years: violating a leash law, driving without a license, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell. And don’t think that your upstanding reputation will protect you. A nun was strip-searched after an arrest for trespassing during an anti-war demonstration. Presumably, the police were trying to locate that dangerous weapon that goes under the street name “crucifix.” It gets better — the court’s decision explicitly states that there does not have to be a reasonable suspicion that the arrested person has any contraband secreted on his or her person.

To justify this position, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that “people detained for minor offense can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals,” noting that the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was first arrested for driving without a license plate. The ridiculousness of this argument is almost breathtaking. I used to teach American history, and I would have found this risible in a student paper, let alone coming from a Supreme Court justice.

In the first place, a strip-search played no role in McVeigh’s arrest or conviction (and it’s difficult to imagine how it might have since it is no mean feat to hide several thousand pounds of explosives on your person). More important, Kennedy’s argument has no basis in fact since there is no evidence that minor offenses, such as failing to use a turn signal, are a sign of anything more dangerous than forgetfulness. But his reasoning is an excellent rationale for a police state in which any offense, no matter how minor, can be treated as a sign that the person is a “devious and dangerous criminal.”

In contrast, the conservative bloc of justices took great offense at the notion that individuals might be forced to buy health insurance. Justice Antonin Scalia compared it to forcing someone to buy broccoli. Unfortunately, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli tripped all over himself responding to this, probably because it was tough to imagine that he would be asked to compare health insurance to broccoli. But let me help him out. My decision to forgo broccoli does not raise the price for someone else. In fact, it lowers the price. In addition, a sick person cannot be refused his right to buy broccoli. Finally, the grocery store cannot charge different prices for the broccoli depending on how much negotiating leverage a shopper has.

According to statistician Nate Silver who has analyzedU.S. Supreme Courtvoting records going back to the 1930s, this is the most conservative court during that period (and is apparently more conservative than the famously liberal Warren Court was liberal). Although they generally claim that their bedrock principle is protecting personal liberty against government intrusion, the conservative justices seem to have settled on an odd definition of liberty. Apparently, their conception does not include the liberty of keeping your clothes on. But it does include the liberty of forgoing health insurance, even though that will mean a corresponding loss of the liberty to have health insurance for tens of millions of other Americans.

Today’s justices seem as out of touch with day-to-day life as any court in recent memory. The decision to allow strip-searches strikes me as perhaps the largest judicial assault on human dignity since Buck v. Bell justified eugenics or since Plessy v. Ferguson gave us “separate but equal.” Of course, these justices have spent the bulk of their lives in the rarefied and decorous world of the federal court system. I am confident that if any of the five justices who voted in favor of the recent decision had actually been subjected to a strip-search at some point in his life, he would have voted differently.

Perhaps if the court votes down the health care law, the justices can at least be required to live with what they have wrought. They can voluntarily give up their generous government health care plan and see what it’s like to buy a policy on the open market. In that case, I suggest that Scalia start eating his broccoli.

Andrew Trees is the author of “The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character.”