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May 26, 2006
It's tough being George W. Bush these days. His poll numbers are low, liberal media sharks taste blood in the water, and some elected Republicans - primarily concerned with their own survival - are separating themselves from their president. Some of this is Bush's own doing; much of it is unfortunate happenstance.
Americans tend to give their presidents too much blame or credit for things that simply happen on their watch. Bill Clinton was lucky. His timing was fortuitous. He took office just as the nation emerged from a mild recession. He was the beneficiary of a long-term economic expansion nurtured by the bold supply-side fiscal policies and inflation-slaying monetary policies of Ronald Reagan (a president who really did make a difference) that drove the stock market to record heights and tax revenues along with it.
Breakthroughs in computer technology and the onset of the Internet era contributed to a surge in productivity, a high-tech boom and a dot-com revolution.
The end of the Cold War (thank you, again, President Reagan) produced a "peace dividend" in the form of sharp reductions in defense spending. The election of Republican majorities in the House and Senate in 1994, for the first time in 40 years, imposed some restraint on social spending, abetted by the booming economy. And a bargain-basement sale on world oil all combined to produce a "perfect storm" that led to four years of federal budget surpluses between 1998-2001.
During the period, we had a minor military setback in Somalia and a modest deployment of U.S. troops to Bosnia, but avoided a major combat commitment. You could argue that Clinton's failure to forcefully confront earlier terrorist attacks against U.S. assets both at home and abroad only deferred payment and made the cost of 9/11 and its aftermath even higher. But it certainly prolonged our period of peace and prosperity in the 1990s.
Ironically, Clinton's biggest difficulties arose from personal indiscretions strictly of his own making.
Bush's timing, on the other hand, couldn't have been worse. The gathering storm he inherited was perfectly terrible.
All hell broke loose on 9/11, an attack in the planning for years. This helped trigger an overdue bursting of the dot-com and high tech bubbles, and a stock market plunge. The economy was already sliding into recession even before he took office. Consequently, tax revenues dropped sharply and social spending associated with a soft economy, declining employment and increased services rose. A confrontation with Islamofascist terrorism could no longer be deferred and military and homeland security spending soared as a result.
Prudent national security considerations required that reasonable compromises be made with personal freedoms. The ACLU and The New York Times don't like this. Aging Americans demanded a costly prescription drug benefit added to Medicare and Bush had all he could handle to fight off Democratic demands in Congress to push the price tag even higher.
The nation is pummeled by a once-in-a-century hurricane blitz. The world price of oil and natural gas escalated, compounded by increases in demand from China and India. Gasoline topped three bucks a gallon at the pump and home utility bills went through the roof. The wave of illegal immigration exacerbated by the Simpson-Mazzoli legislation of 1986 reached critical mass.
So Bush is president, now, and all this happens on his watch. It's amazing his popularity is as high as 30 percent. You'd think it would be zero.
Yes, I've been a Bush supporter, on balance, and still am. The alternative was Al Gore, John Kerry and the Democrats. If they'd been in charge I have no doubt things would be even worse. My first choice would have been Ronald Reagan but he wasn't on the ballot in 2004.
I've disagreed with some of Bush's policies and selections, and I'd have liked to see him veto some bills he didn't. But on the really big issues, I've been with him. He tried for meaningful Social Security reform, for example, but the Democrats obstructed it. On immigration reform, he's constrained by what's doable in a compromise between competing bills in the House and Senate. Bush isn't king; he's only president. Legislating is up to Congress.
I don't expect any of this to register with Bush haters (as opposed to those who are simply rational critics of the president). Bush haters border on the psychotic. They're beyond reason, consumed with revulsion and loathing for the man. I disagreed with many of Clinton's policies but I never felt remotely that way about him.
It's a lot easier being president in good times than bad, especially when we're at war. Abraham Lincoln would have understood.
Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.
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