Choice and Accountability: "Bush has redefined conservatism." (Barone)

U.S. News & World Report | 12/15/03 | Michael Barone

[bdeaner]

Nation & World 12/15/03
By Michael Barone
Choice and accountability

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Many conservatives are complaining that George W. Bush is a big-government conservative--or not a conservative at all. They complain about the Medicare prescription drug law he and the House and Senate Republican leadership pushed through, the first major expansion of Medicare since 1965. They call him a big spender, noting that discretionary spending has been rising more rapidly than under Bill Clinton. They complain that he pushed through the first education bill giving the federal government a role in setting standards. They complain about the farm bill he signed in 2002 and the energy bill he championed this year.

All those complaints have some substance. But for the most part Bush did not really campaign as a small-government conservative. A different theme runs through the major policies he advocated in the campaign and the major policy changes he has pushed through as president, a theme that can be summed up in two words: choice and accountability. The Bush tax cuts let you have the choice of how to spend more of your money, and you are, as always, accountable for the results. The education law forces the states to hold students and teachers accountable and gives them some choice in deciding how to do so. The Medicare prescription drug bill contains health savings accounts and competition experiments in 2010, which are attempts at providing more choice and more accountability.

Cold decisions. To be sure, Bush has made compromises. Congress was unwilling to vote for all of the tax cuts he proposed; he and the Republican leadership made cold decisions and got what they could. (House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas like to say that if you pass a bill by more than one vote, you have given away too much.) Bush gave up early on school vouchers, and it's unclear how strong the state standards will be. The Medicare prescription drug bill contains much less provision for competition than Bush wanted; DeLay at one point excluded Thomas from the conference committee to whittle the provision down. It's not clear that the bill will lead to the choice-and-accountability healthcare system that conservatives like Thomas and former Speaker Newt Gingrich want.

Bush has redefined conservatism. It is now not the process of cutting government and devolving powers; it is the process of installing choice and accountability into government even at the cost of allowing it to grow. This is an attempt to move government in the same direction as the private sector, which now offers much more in the way of choice and accountability than it did in the 1950s and 1960s, when big corporations and big unions established wage rates, when you worked for one company until age 65 and then depended on that one company and Social Security for your retirement income.

What is next on Bush's list? Social Security. In the past quarter century the private sector has moved from defined-benefit pensions to defined-contribution pensions. Defined-benefit pensions gave you little choice and no accountability: If the LTV Steel pension fund or the United Mine Workers hospital fund went belly up, you were out of luck (or lobbying Congress for a federal bailout). With defined-contribution pensions, you make the choice of how to invest the money in your 401(k), and you are accountable for the results.

Bush campaigned for Social Security individual investment accounts in 2000 but, with many congressional Republicans queasy, has not mentioned them much since. I think he is going to return to the issue next month and make Social Security a major issue in the campaign. Most proposals have talked of letting you invest 2 percent of your 12.4 percent Social Security tax in the market. But the nonpartisan chief actuary of the Social Security Administration has just costed out a proposal to let you invest 6.4 percent and concluded that it would leave the system sound "through 2077 and beyond." Bush's Social Security appointees have been keeping in close touch with the leaders of the AARP, whose support was critical in passing the Medicare bill. Individual investment accounts would move America toward more choice and accountability, away from dependence on big institutions and toward more independence and self-reliance. That is Bush's brand of conservatism, and it is in line with changes in the character of the country.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

"Republicans can do no wrong.
Republicans can do no wrong.
Republicans can do no wrong."

[IronJack]

Gillespie characterizes fiscal conservs as extremists.

Yeah, funny that. We used to be the heart of the party. I guess a party without a heart doesn't need us anymore. We're just dinosaurs, amigo.

Just one question: since I haven't changed my orientation, but I'm now so far to the right that my own colleagues consider me an extremist, wouldn't that mean that they have shifted to the left? And isn't that the same as saying that they've betrayed the very principles that used to define them?

Oh, that's right. They have to do whatever it takes to win. Mea culpa. I'll say 50 "Hail George's" and pray for salvation.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

The rep party shifted to the center, and the Dems shifted to 'progressivism'.

In other words, there are two new parties: The Socialist Democrats and the Liberal Republicans.

The con game is over now. This is the reality.

The only solution is to not vote for the bastards that sold us out. A round of Hil or Dean and more socialists in Congress are the only answer for reversing this new reality within the next 10 years. I am sick of fighting. If we want socialism, let's try it in earnest for a few years, and let the voters decide in 2008 if they want to keep it or elect conservatives.

I, and family members I spoke to today, will not be an accessory to a silent coup. No checks to the RNC for 2004, either.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

...The Republicans have charged ahead of the herd, in order to declare themselves leaders...

All that is required to be considered centrist, is to stand between Marx and Engles and wave the flag.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

I'm with you.

[William McKinley]

Are you still babbling? You're like an endless stream.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

...I am sick of fighting...

I have not yet begun to fight!

-Some old, dead, hatemongering, elderly starving, homophobic, rabble rousing, gun loving, ultimate weapon possessing, white guy, ancestor, defender of freedom and the Republic.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Growing the budget and creating new entitlements and increasing the existing ones is not conservatism. It may be Republicanism, but that's not the same thing any more. In fact, it's liberalism. President Bush and the Republicans are buying votes, plain and simple. I still support Bush because the alternatives are so horrible, but I won't pretend that this is some new kind of conservatism. Conservatism is what it is, and you don't redefine it to fit your agenda, at least not if you're honest.

I share these sentiments. What I cannot understand, is why anyone who does not buy into this new "liberalism" here on FR is tarred and feathered as an anti-Bush/just-as-good-as-a-Democrat/carpetbagger. Counter arguments speak of things such as: "this is all part of a strategery" or "we have to give a little now so we can get the whole barn later" or even better "its not Bush's fault, its the fault of (X)". I thought conservatism was about reducing the size of the government largesse...not increasing it; and certainly not increasing it in order to get votes from a special interest group, or even worse...in order to get votes from the left. Is this what conservatism has been reduced to? A battle pandering for votes with socialism instead of receiving votes because of conservative ideaology! Have we given up the battle for the minds of America? I wonder.

Unfortunately, I have no other choice but to vote (R) when election time comes around...I will never vote (D); but this is reaching the point of futility IMHO. Within the next 20 years, I'll be raising my children, maybe put them through college, plan to retire, hope to have grandchildren, etc., etc. It angers me when I think of the type of America my children and grandchildren will have to live in if the present course continues. It angers me even more to know that I'm paying for all this increased socialism and my kids will prolly have it worse. My criticism and anger towards president Bush (as I'm sure most other anti-Bots) stems from those sentiments, not from some evil hatred for the man. I do thank God that he is a man of faith, is faithful to his very lovely wife, and has brought more character and integrity back into WH than X42, however...while that may be good enough for the Republican party right now...it may not be good enough for America now, and in the future. /rant off

[William McKinley]

Anarchists just aren't what they used to be.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

I blame the public(government) schools.

Today's aspiring anarchist couldn't ever even learn to spell "Czolgosz."

[William McKinley]

That's just as well. Anarchists are so last century anyways.

[IronJack]

Anarchists just aren't what they used to be.

Yeah. Neither are Republicans.

[STARWISE]

Pretty much the whole post was a putdown of one of my posts, in case you didn't read back. But, no matter. My emphasis is on the BIG PICTURE .. not dissecting every little turn of a phrase or speech pattern. FReep on.

[William Wallace]

Anarchists are so last century anyways.

They call themselves “principled conservatives” nowadays.

[Batrachian]

I have been one of President Bush's biggest fans, but with the new Medicare entitlement and with the signing of the Campign Finance Reform abomination and with the massive growth of domestic spending in the last 3 years and with his pandering to Hispanics by supporting illegal immigration I can no longer pretend that this is a conservative president. He may be a conservative man but he sure as heck isn't running a conservative administration. He's disappointed us so many times now. It's heartbreaking. Honest people will have to admit that he's betrayed everything conservatives hold dear.

None of that means that I hate Bush or plan to run out and vote Democratic, I'll die first, but, to quote a certain midwest politician: "I'm deeply saddened".