President Bush's Domestic Agenda: Freedom and Dignity
President Bush's performances in the three scheduled debates have become progressively better, culminating in tonight's superior effort. I think the key to his success in this debate that focused on domestic issues is his clarity about the virtues of American citizenship. The President was asked some tough questions about health care, Social Security, the minimum wage and unemployment, and he deftly tied them all to citizens' taking responsibility for their lives and their own self improvement. He made health care clearer than anyone in a presidential debate I can remember by emphasizing the direct correlation between third-party payments and higher medical costs. This questionable system is facilitated by employer health care plans and government programs which impose no discipline on or require practical choices by doctors or patients. The solution is to encourage people to establish medical savings accounts for the catastrophic costs and resume personal control over routine care. By contrast, Kerry's government-dominated health plan would, as the President said, discourage private insurance companies from competing and do nothing to restrain costs. On Social Security, the President courageously defended the wisdom of permitting young workers to purchase their own retirement plans outside of the confining limits of the increasingly precarious system in which a declining number of workers are supporting a growing number of retirees. He made it clear, quoting commissions which have studied the subject, that Social Security is unsustainable in its present form and can be fixed only by permitting worker investments in more profitable systems, free of government raiding for other purposes. Bush steered attention away from the blind alley of endlessly raising the minimum wage to the need for a better education for those lacking competitive job skills, including finishing high school and attending community colleges or getting job training. He knows that the minimum wage is a big job killer because it keeps the least employable young people out of the entry-level jobs they need to get them into the habit of continuous employment. He would have appalled many if he had said the obvious, which is: if $7 an hour rather than $5.15 should be the minimum wage, why isn't $10 or $20 or even $50 an hour even better? The market is and ought to be what determines wages, not legal fiat. The President chose to emphasize real solutions rather than band aids. Similarly, Bush spoke sensibly on the unemployment issue, not promising any quick fix but directing public attention to the need for developing, improving or changing job skills. The international market for labor, as well as consumer products, is a fact of life, and Americans can compete only if they develop the ability to perform the tasks that an increasingly technological world demands. He did not say that we have priced ourselves out of much of the labor market, which we have to a large extent; nor did he say that many foreigners are better trained than Americans, which is why many jobs are outsourced. But he certainly implied that our educational system has not done enough to prepare young people for the challenges. As far as I am concerned, the No Child Left Behind Act presumes too much about the ability of our often ineffectual public school system to deliver the goods, but it is legitimate for the President to call attention to the deficiencies. Washington D.C., of all places, has adopted a voucher system that will give parents with high expectations for their children the opportunity to enroll them where they can get the best instruction possible. But that is a subject for another day. I must add that I am growing weary of Sen. Kerry's abuse of the precious word "respect." Howard K. Smith once said that, when Sen. Sam Ervin proclaimed that he was just a "poor country lawyer, his first impulse was to reach for his wallet. When Kerry says he "respects" someone or something, you can be sure that he is utterly opposed to it. He said last week that he "respected" the views of those opposed to embryonic stem cell research (which requires the destruction of human embryos) and abortion, which of course meant that he has no intention of agreeing with those views since he "believes in science" and is committed to "a woman's right to choose." Tonight he said again that he "respected" the religious views of those opposed to abortion, but that he would never do a thing to stop it, even if he is a Roman Catholic. He also said he "respected" the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that upholds the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That means he has no intention of enforcing it. This is a snapshot of Kerry's idea of constitutionalism, which is to pretend to take the constitution seriously, but certainly not obey it as if it were "the supreme law of the land." He has more respect for previously unknown "rights," such as a right to privacy, that was conjured up to facilitate abortion, which fed the sexual revolution, women's liberation and abandonment of parental responsibility. Whether or not Kerry knows legalized abortion has had these secondary consequences is beside the point; if he doesn't, he should; if he does, he is heedless of the social fabric. In any case, he is wrong. |