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

Browse through an archive of columns by Michael Barone.

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.

[bdeaner]

Good analysis. Barone may have captured here the essence of Bush's brand of conservatism. Of course, some may argue that this "conservatism" isn't conservatism, even if "it is in line with changes in the character of the country."

[sinkspur]

Governmnent has grown under every single modern-day president, Ronald Reagan included. It is a fantasy to imagine that ANY president is going to "shrink" the size of government.

Voters are going to have what they want, or you'll be replaced with someone who will give them what they want.

[evad]

hmm..tell ya what. I'll go along with 'pragmatic conservatism' or 'moderate conservatism' or whatever you want to call it but it's not 'pure conservatism' by any stretch of the imagination.

Regardless, President Bush is the best man for these times and I'm proud to have him as my leader, conservative or not.

[mylife]

I love the idea of personal accountability. I just wish he'd leave me some money to in my account to be accountable with.

[NormsRevenge]

evolving the government, one program or policy at a time. interesting take..

[sinkspur]

By the way, shelter animals are fine, but what of the baby humans?

Two entirely different things.

[hchutch]

FYI ping.

Michael Barone is quite on target with a lot of things.

[IronJack]

Bush has defined conservatism.

Hardly. Bush doesn't have an ideological bone in his body.

[bdeaner]

Regardless, President Bush is the best man for these times and I'm proud to have him as my leader, conservative or not.

I agree with you there. I find it hard to imagine a better person for the job.

[CGTRWK]

Governmnent has grown under every single modern-day president, Ronald Reagan included. It is a fantasy to imagine that ANY president is going to "shrink" the size of government.

In dollars it has, but that is more a function of a growing economy than of ballooning programs. A more realistic way to look at government spending is as a percent of GDP, and there things are not quite so depressing.

Under Reagan's watch, non defense related federal spending dropped from 14.7% of the GDP to 12.4%.

By the end of Clinton's term that number was 13.3%.

And with the drunken sailor we have in charge now, that number has swollen to 16.3% for FY2004, the highest it has ever been.

[bdeaner]

Hardly. Bush doesn't have an ideological bone in his body.

You really think so? The way I see it, you have an ideology, whether or not you explicitly know what it is. Maybe Bush doesn't have a well-defined, explicit ideology, but he has one, regardless.

[bdeaner]

When you say non-defense spending, does that include Homeland Security? We're also fighting a different kind of war at home, these days.

[sinkspur]

And with the drunken sailor we have in charge now, that number has swollen to 16.3% for FY2004, the highest it has ever been.

No money for homeland security, huh?

Leave out the homeland security money, and Bush's spending has been going DOWN.

[RLK]

Bush and I don't apprea ro inhabit the same solar system. I don't seem to recognize the world or president he is describing.

[IronJack]

I don't think that amorphous ideology is driving his political agenda. I suspect he is the ultimate accommodationist, an appeaser without peer. Contrast his tepid, protean performance with the doctrinaire conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

[Batrachian]

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. Barone is very disingenuous in this piece. 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.

[FirstPrinciple]

Does personal accountability mean that seniors have to be accountable to provide their own healthcare? Does personal accountability mean that parents should educate their kids in the way they deem necessary? Does personal accountability mean that one should provide for his own retirement? This article is an exercise in sophistry. It makes mockery out of the term "personal accountability." To the author, the term means something that government should provide.

[bdeaner]

If Bush is an appeasor, then I would assume this means he is appeasing someone else who has an ideology, in which case he has a de facto ideology. :)

Really, though, I don't see Bush as an appeasor, quite the contrary. He's got backbone, and he sticks by his word, even when the polls are against him. He may not be Reagon, but he is getting there.

[FirstPrinciple]

So, you really think Homeland Security is fighting to prevent terrorism? It is another big govt prgoram to make us feel we are doing something. Right after 9/11, Bush made a big deal to create this big govt program. As if all the other para-military federal agencies were not enough. If we had one more, we could prevent future terrorist attacks. Yeah right! Supporters claim that Homeland Security provides the coordination between all these other para-military agencies. Well, that job is already the responsibility for the office of the National Security Advisor. And, what was Tom Ridge's remark to protect the homeland by securing the borders? "Well, sir, we cannot do it for social and political reasons." Yeah, I feel really secure.