Posted on 03/27/2006 2:54:07 PM PST by Irontank
President George W. Bush took office to the sustained applause of America’s conservative movement. In 2000, he defeated the liberal environmentalist Al Gore, abruptly terminated the legacy of the even more hated Bill Clinton, and gave Republicans control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A few cynics were suspicious of Bush’s understanding of and commitment to conservative principles, but most on the Right welcomed his inauguration.
Five years later, the traditional conservative agenda lies in ruins. Government is bigger, spending is higher, and Washington is more powerful. The national government has intruded further into state and local concerns. Federal officials have sacrificed civil liberties and constitutional rights while airily demanding that the public trust them not to abuse their power.
The U.S. has engaged in aggressive war to promote democracy and undertaken an expensive foreign-aid program. The administration and its supporters routinely denounce critics as partisans and even traitors. Indeed, the White House defenestrates anyone who acknowledges that reality sometimes conflicts with official fantasies.
In short, it is precisely the sort of government that conservatives once feared would result from liberal control in Washington.
Still, conservative criticism remains muted. Mumbled complaints are heard at right-wing gatherings. Worries are expressed on blogs and internet discussions. A few activists such as former Congressman Bob Barr challenge administration policies. And a few courageous publications more directly confront Republicans who, like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, have morphed into what they originally opposed.
The criticisms are about to get louder, however. Bruce Bartlett has been involved in conservative politics for a quarter century. He authored one of the leading books on supply-side economics, worked in the Reagan administration, and held a position at the National Center for Policy Analysis—until the Dallas-based group fired him, apparently fearful of financial retaliation arising from his sharp criticisms of the administration.
That the truth is so feared is particularly notable because Bartlett’s criticism is measured, largely limited to economics. Bartlett notes in passing his concern over Iraq, federalism, and Bush’s “insistence on absolute, unquestioning loyalty, which stifles honest criticism and creates a cult of personality around him.” These issues warrant a separate book, since it is apparent that Americans have died, not, perhaps, because Bush lied, but certainly because Bush and his appointees are both arrogant and incompetent.
Although modest in scope, Impostor is a critically important book. Bartlett demonstrates that Bush is no conservative. He notes: “I write as a Reaganite, by which I mean someone who believes in the historical conservative philosophy of small government, federalism, free trade, and the Constitution as originally understood by the Founding Fathers.”
Bush believes in none of these things. His conservatism, such as it is, is cultural rather than political. Writes Bartlett, “Philosophically, he has more in common with liberals, who see no limits to state power as long as it is used to advance what they think is right.” Until now, big-government conservatism was widely understood to be an oxymoron.
For this reason, Bartlett contends that Bush has betrayed the Reagan legacy. Obviously, Ronald Reagan had only indifferent success in reducing government spending and power. For this there were many reasons, including Democratic control of the House and the need to compromise to win more money for the military.
Yet Reagan, in sharp contrast to Bush, read books, magazines, and newspapers. (On the campaign plane in 1980 he handed articles to me to review.) He believed in limited government even if he fell short of achieving that goal. And he understood that he was sacrificing his basic principles when he forged one or another political compromise. George W. Bush has no principles to sacrifice. Rather, complains Bartlett, Bush “is simply a partisan Republican, anxious to improve the fortunes of his party, to be sure. But he is perfectly willing to jettison conservative principles at a moment’s notice to achieve that goal.”
Which means Bush’s conservative image bears no relation to his actions. Indeed, reading Impostor leaves one thinking of Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, as if the administration’s real record is depicted in a painting hidden from public view.
Bartlett’s analysis is devastating. He begins with process rather than substance, Bush’s “apparent disdain for serious thought and research to develop his policy initiatives.” In this way, Bartlett helps explain why Bush’s policies are almost uniformly bad.
As someone who served on a presidential staff, I can affirm that developing policy is never easy. Departments push their agendas, political allies and interest groups fight for influence, and legislators intrude. But the best hope for good policy, and especially good policy that also is good politics, is an open policy-making process.
That is precisely the opposite of the Bush White House, which views obsessive secrecy as a virtue and demands lockstep obedience. Bartlett reviews the experience of several officials who fell out with the administration, as well as the downgrading of policy agencies and the “total subordination of analysis to short-term politics.”
The biggest problem is Bush himself, who—though a decent person who might make a good neighbor—suffers from unbridled hubris. His absolute certainty appears to be matched only by his extraordinary ignorance. His refusal to reconsider his own decisions and hold his officials accountable for obvious errors have proved to be a combustible combination. As a result, writes Bartlett, “Bush is failing to win any converts to the conservative cause.”
The consequences have been dire. Bartlett, long an advocate of supply-side economics, is critical of the Bush tax program. A rebate was added and the program was sold on Keynesian grounds of getting the economy moving. The politics might have been good, but the economics was bad. Unfortunately, writes Bartlett, the rebate “and other add-ons to the original Bush proposal ballooned its cost, forcing a scale-back of some important provisions, which undermined their effectiveness.” Although rate reductions have the greatest economic impact, rates were lowered less and less quickly.
Bartlett also criticizes Bush on trade, on which he views him as potentially the worst president since Herbert Hoover. “Since then, all presidents except George W. Bush have made free trade a cornerstone of their international economic policy. While his rhetoric on the subject is little different than theirs, Bush’s actions have been far more protectionist.”
Many TAC readers may view Bush as insufficiently protectionist. However, the obvious inconsistency—rhetorical commitment to open international markets mixed with protectionist splurges—is not good policy. Here, as elsewhere, Bush’s actions are supremely political, where the nation’s long-term economic health is bartered away for short-term political gain.
However, it is on spending that the Bush administration has most obviously and most dramatically failed. Bartlett entitles one chapter “On the Budget, Clinton was Better.” Not just Clinton but George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and even Lyndon Johnson, depending on the measure used.
In this area Impostor makes for particularly depressing reading. The administration is not just spendthrift. It is dishonest. Given the administration’s foreign-policy deceptions, it should come as no surprise that the administration cares little about the truth in fiscal matters. Writes Bartlett:
As budget expert Stan Collender has pointed out, the Bush Administration had a habit of putting out inaccurate budget numbers. The deficit in its 2004 budget appears to have been deliberately overestimated just so that a lower figure could be reported right before the election, thus giving the illusion of budgetary improvement. The following year, the deficit projected in January 2005 was also significantly higher than estimated in the midsession budget review in July. This led Collender to conclude that budget numbers produced by the Bush administration ‘should not be taken seriously.’
Like the typical Democratic demagogue, Bush has used spending to buy votes whenever possible. In this, of course, he has been joined by the Republican Congress. But his lack of commitment is evident from just one statistic: Bush has yet to veto a single bill. One has to go back almost two centuries to find another full-term president who did not veto even one measure.
In fact, the Republican president and Republican Congress have been full partners in bankrupting the nation. The low point was undoubtedly passage of the Medicare drug benefit, to which Bartlett devotes one chapter. The GOP majority misused House rules and employed a dubious set of carrots and sticks to turn around an apparent 216 to 218 loss. Worse was the administration’s conduct. The administration shamelessly lied about the program’s costs, covered up the truth, and threatened to fire Medicare’s chief actuary if he talked to Congress. The bill is badly drafted and, more importantly, adds $18 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liability.
In Bartlett’s view, this might be the worst single piece of legislation in U.S. history, which would be quite a legacy. Writes Bartlett, “It will cost vast sums the nation cannot afford, even if its initial budgetary projections prove to be accurate, which is highly doubtful. It will inevitably lead to higher taxes and price controls that will reduce the supply of new lifesaving drugs.” In short, an allegedly conservative president inaugurated the biggest expansion of the welfare state in four decades.
Bartlett believes that tax hikes are inevitable, and he offers some decidedly unconservative observations on these issues, including the desirability of imposing a Value-Added Tax. He also speculates on the political future and a likely “Republican crack-up.”
But the core of his book remains his analysis of the Bush record. Bush, Bartlett believes, is likely to be seen as another Richard Nixon:
There has been an interesting transformation of Richard Nixon over the last twenty years or so. Whereas once he was viewed as an archconservative, increasing numbers of historians now view him as basically a liberal, at least on domestic policy. They have learned to look past Nixon’s rhetoric and methods to the substance of his policies, and discovered that there is almost nothing conservative about them. So it is likely to be with George W. Bush.
It is almost certainly too late to save the Bush presidency. Impostor demonstrates that the problems are systemic, well beyond the remedy of a simple change in policy or personnel. There may still be time, however, to save the conservative movement. But the hour is late. Unless the Right soon demonstrates that it is no longer Bush’s obsequious political tool, it may never escape his destructive legacy.
Bush was the only one who could have won, and that's how he got nominated
Good luck with that.
Thanx for helping me remind the forgetful right once again.
Why is it BAD for BUSH to fail to VETO big spending bills and GOOD for Reagan to fail to VETO huge spending bills.
There is no way the Democrats had enough votes in the House to overide a Reagan VETO. Reagan and Tip O'Neil were good buddies. Tip's job was to give Reagan cover for his spending.
Reagan was a huge FDR fan and refused to say he disagreed with the Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy economic policies. In fact Reagan bragged that his economic policy was identical to JFKs. That policy was to cut taxes and increase federal spending to improve the economy.
Roosevelt called it priming the pump. It worked for Truman, JFK, Reagan and it is now working for Bush. It did run a big deficit.
Bob Dole said it. Republicans spent 40 years complaining about the big deficits that Democrats ran up. All it accomplished was to elect more Democrats.
My memory doesn't suck. I was referring to when Reagan first took office, which is what I was commenting on.
The illegal aliens and the criminals who hire them and the criminals who harbor them are getting out in the street making their desires known. It is way past time those of us who support the rule of law and secure borders did the same.
Join Veterans for Secure Borders, The Minuteman Project, Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, and other groups protesting amnesty for these criminals, and demanding the government protect our borders.
http://www.areckoning.com/
FReepers should be at this rally in strength. Saturday, May 6, in Crawford, TX.
So typically far right conservative... To you presenting the cold hard facts is considered an attack.
So typically far right conservative... To you presenting the cold hard facts is considered an attack.
Actually a big increase in defense spending was done in the next to last Carter Budget.
Let's see Deficit spending to take out the Russians who never attacked us is OK. Deficit spending to take out Islamists who attacked our capital and largest city is not justified.
Reagan did not have the testicles to veto spending. Under Reagan the defense budget did not grow nearly as much as welfare spending did.
And while the house was under democratic control for all of Reagans years, for the first six years of his presidency the Senate was under Republican control. And spending bills have to pass both houses.
If Reagan had wanted to cut spending for the first six years all he had to do was have the Republican Senate refuse to pass the House's big spending budget.
But the senate can amend the spending bills and then has to be resolved in conference committtee and then passed again by both houses.
If the Republican senate did not agree with the spending and if Reagan did not agree with the spending the money could not have been spent.
When Reagan first took office the Republicans already controlled the Senate.
Your memory certainly does SUCK!!!!
I KNOW !!!! I mistyped. I meant to say when he left office !!!!
DUHHHHHHHHHHHH on me !!!!!
You can't come on this thread and state facts......
Very true. He simply had thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads aimed at the United States, insurgencies in Grenada, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, revolution in southern Africa, war in Afghanistan, chaos in Lebanon, the constant threat of war spreading throughout the Middle East. Yep, ol' Ronnie had nothing much to deal with.
A dramatic and unexpectedly large fall in the rate of inflation was also part of the reason for the large deficits. This caused a greater real, rather than nominal, disparity in the budget numbers the Reagan economists had used in projecting the effect of the tax cuts.
McCain would've killed Gore, but we would've have wanted him (lesser of two lousies). Quayle would've demolished Gore as he did in prior debates. Bush squandered a huge summer lead and nearly lost it. Could Forbes have beaten Gore? Doubt it, anything is possible, he had the money for the long fight.
But, of course, you can always vote for the guy who is the "only one who can win", but then you're stuck with what you settled for. Unless you're a Democrat, in which case, you abandoned Dean for Kerry who "could win" but didn't, and get stuck with Dean who is a mouthpiece that won't go away.
Of the 2000 field, Bush was the only one.
Your memory still sucks. Reagan had a Republican Senate for the first 6 years of his 8 years. Now you have proven you're not smart enough to research what you don't know when others correct you. LOL!
Reagan took office Jan 81. The first budget he could sign was for 82.
In 1982 the federal debt increased by 16.36%
In 1983 the federal debt increased by 17.85%
In 1984 the federal debt increased by 17.88%
In 1985 the federal debt increased by 17.02%
In 1986 the federal debt increased by 9.22%
In 1987 the federal debt increased by 10.59%
All of these budgets for these years were passed by a Republican Senate and signed by Reagan.
In 1988 the federal debt increased by 10.72%
In 1989 the federal debt increased by 9.80%
These are the product of budgets passed by a rat house and Senate. See the difference?
Only a fool continues to argue the truth when it is revealed to him. You are ignorant and you choose to remain ignorant. There is no reason for intellegent people to read your posts. They can only become less intellegent in the process. You are, however, good for a laugh and making me look good...so thanks for your reply
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