>"The individual mandate for purchase of private insurance + subsidy system adopted as "Obamacare" was first proposed by the Republicans and insurance industry lobbyists in opposition to healthcare reform efforts under the Clinton administration. [...] I don’t recognize this new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not conservative in many respects. "
That's exactly right.
The Republican party of today has found itself only reacting to liberal policies. We're basically forced to put forward alternative, smaller, liberal policies to stave off the big ones. Rather than arguing to draw down Medicare, we're sitting here talking about establishing alternative socialist policies.
>"The right's also unsuccessfully pushed vouchers and drastically cutting public school funding, but when your pushing for multiple and mutually-exclusive things, "
Vouchers are in many cases cheaper than public schools -- they are not mutually exclusive.
>" you got to abolish AFDC, one of the biggest social programs in the country, and replace it with the more-restrictive TANF."
Taking a $22b/yr (out of ~$240b in social welfare programs), and replacing it with a $17b/yr program doesn't seem the big win to me that you make it out to be.
>"Religious Freedom Restoration Act"
That law limited religious freedom. It says that if you can prove a compelling interest, and can prove a law is the least restrictive way to do something, you can do it even though it steps on a person's constitutional right to free exercise.
The pro-religious freedoms version of that law, which would have been supported by a liberal reading of the constitution, would have read "The government may not limit a person's free exercise of religion, unless that freedom kills or maims another human being, or severely damages their personal property."
That was yet another example of a statist law put in place with the hope that it would stop additional statist laws from coming down the pike (of course, to no avail).
>"NFIB v. Sebelius "
Medicaid and Obamacare are not legal programs to begin with in a strictly constitutional sense. Their constitutionality was predicated on a very strange, and wishy-washy reinterpretation of the Commerce clause. (Albeit a popular one, for obvious reasons.)
Commerce, as written, was clearly denoting treaties of trade between governmental bodies (read tariffs and trade restrictions), not saying that the Federal government has a right to establish any new laws they desire, so long as they relate to money -- even requiring someone to purchase something they don't want:
[Congress has the right...] "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." That's all.