Bush's dismal policy failures are being sold as achievements

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

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Bush's dismal policy failures in tax cuts and Iraq are being sold as

achievements

 

Sunday, September 26, 2004

 

By WALTER WILLIAMS

GUEST COLUMNIST

 

During his first term, George W. Bush has inflicted more damage on the

nation's people than any other president in the post-World War II era.

Not only has the Bush administration failed, it has been far and away

the most dangerous presidency in this period.

 

No other administration has seen itself above the law or so

disregarded the Constitution by attacking the venerable institutions

created to uphold democracy. In addition, the Bush presidency pushed

through its policies by employing a calculated lawlessness that

featured both deception and secrecy. A couple of examples help

illustrate the administration's use of subterfuge.

 

The wanton level of deception became clear early on when the first tax

cut was sold with the claim that those with the lowest earnings did

better than the highest-income families. As data and analysis became

available, however, it was clear that claim depended on statistical

trickery. The biggest beneficiaries were the top 1 percent of the

population, who received more than twice as much from the total amount

of tax reductions as the bottom 60 percent.

 

Another example involves the Medicare bill. To pass the legislation,

the administration promised reluctant conservatives that the

legislation would cost less than $400 billion over 10 years. After

enactment, the administration admitted that Medicare would cost $530

billion.

 

It also came out that the Medicare actuary, a career civil servant,

had earlier projected the cost at around $550 billion. After Congress

requested the actuary's numbers, the administration threatened to fire

him if he turned over his projection. He did not.

 

Later the administration's threats that blocked the actuary were

adjudged illegal. Yet the lawless behavior won the day, with the

legislation acclaimed as a great triumph for the president. Deception

became the administration's primary weapon.

 

The Bush administration's two most important policy thrusts -- the

three tax cuts and the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq -- were sold with

similar tactics, including the withholding of critical information

needed by Congress and the public to make informed judgments.

 

The nation thereby was duped into buying two flawed policies that

quickly resulted in devastating failures.

 

Tax cuts disproportionately benefited the rich, turned a budget

surplus into the largest deficits in history, produced weak economic

and job growth, and brought the worse income disparities since the '20s.

 

Invading Iraq was a questionable call from the beginning because that

country had become a mere shell after the Gulf War. In contrast, North

Korea and Iran, the other two members of the president's " axis of

evil, " posed much greater nuclear threats. Even more incomprehensibly,

the administration turned its attention away from Afghanistan before

capturing Osama bin Laden, the architect of 9/11.

 

The shift in policy generated a frightening rise in Muslim hatred of

the United States, caused incalculable harm to America's reputation as

the world's moral leader and increased the threat of world terrorism.

 

Why did these disastrous policies come on George W. Bush's watch?

 

The answer is the administration's gross mismanagement stemming from

ideologically driven incompetence and lawlessness. The lawlessness of

this administration far exceeds that of any postwar presidency,

including that of Richard Nixon.

 

Two dogmas drove the Bush administration. The first involved the

return to Ronald Reagan's embrace of anti-governmental market

fundamentalism. The second was the unshakeable neoconservative belief

that Iraq was the epicenter of worldwide terrorism.

 

Not even Reagan was as ideological as Bush has been in his holding so

unswervingly to the two dogmas in the face of strong contradictory

evidence. In a direct comparison, no Reagan policy had a higher place

on his agenda than deep reductions in the top tax brackets. He threw

all his political power into pushing through by far the largest tax

cut in history at that time, with the biggest gains going to the

wealthiest citizens.

 

But the consequent reality of surging budget deficits then persuaded

the administration to raise taxes three times, albeit, not enough to

stop the flow of red ink.

 

Bush, like Reagan, forced through a huge first-year tax cut mainly

benefiting those with high incomes. It too exploded into massive

budget deficits. But unlike the Reagan administration, the response of

Bush and his close advisers has been to cling to their ideological

beliefs.

 

They have ignored the overwhelming evidence that the first tax cut had

been too deep and repeated the error with more tax cuts the next two

years. Bush's tax policy turned a budget surplus in 2000 of $236

billion, or 2.4 percent of GDP, into a Congressional Budget

Office-projected deficit of $477 billion, or 4.2 percent of GDP in 2004.

 

In their April 2004 report " Tax Returns, " Isaac Shapiro and Joel

Friedman, senior fellows at the Center on Budget and Policy

Priorities, wrote: " The swing of 6.6 percentage points of GDP is the

sharpest deterioration in the nation's fiscal balance since World War II. "

 

Together with an almost total lack of spending restraints, the tax

cuts have created a gaping imbalance between federal revenues and

expenditures, and thus massive budget deficits.

 

Even so, Bush chose not to follow his three predecessors -- Reagan,

George H.W. Bush and Clinton -- in increasing income taxes, or the

latter two in working with Congress to develop and maintain strong

expenditure controls.

 

Turning to Iraq, two costly errors exemplify and summarize myriad

other mistakes. First, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld decided to

field a relatively small invading force in order to demonstrate the

superiority of the more mobile army he saw as the wave of the future.

 

This decision ignored strong warnings from experts, such as the former

head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, that far more

troops would be needed in the occupation stage. Even when the problem

of insufficient troops became clear, Rumsfeld refused to abandon his

concept.

 

Second, Rumsfeld invaded Iraq without a strategy for stabilizing that

nation, dismissing completely a well-thought-through State Department

plan developed in the Future of Iraq project. The State Department

effort spelled out many of the difficulties that would arise and that

likely could have been avoided or mitigated had the administration

followed it.

 

Rumsfeld's unwillingness to change direction proved to be particularly

costly. The occupation continues to be plagued by a lack of troops and

planning.

 

One deep institutional result of the stubbornness of Rumsfeld and the

president is highlighted by Stanley Kutler's review of the Stephan

Halper and Jonathan Clarke book, " America Alone " :

 

" Halper and Clarke denounce the Bush administration for effectively

co-opting 'important allies and entire government agencies in a

pattern of deceit.' The administration, they believe, created 'a

synthetic neurosis,' which it buttressed by exploiting the Sept. 11

attack. The price was enormous, they say, with 'substantial damage' to

both core American political institutions and to 'American legitimacy.' "

 

Among the nation's postwar foreign policies, Iraq is likely to rank

with Lyndon Johnson's tragic course in Vietnam as the two efforts

causing the most long-term damage to the United States' national

security, internal political cohesiveness and international standing.

 

In both the tax-cut and Iraq cases, whatever the reasons --

stubbornness, arrogance or ideological rigidity -- the decisions

reflected a common administration response in the face of sound

contradictory evidence.

 

One aspect of administration policy has worked, however.

 

Amazingly and unfortunately, the dismal policy failures in pursuing

the tax cuts and the invasion and occupation of Iraq are being sold as

achievements during the presidential campaign and apparently being

bought by large numbers of the public.

 

The Bush administration's strong suit has been its political

propaganda machine. From the first tax cut introduced at the outset of

the presidency, the administration has exploited every trick in the

books to win the public to its side.This makes it imperative that the

electorate has hard evidence readily available showing the dimensions

of the failed presidency. What's needed is to provide a solid base for

refuting the administration's deceptive presidential campaign, which

has used alchemy to change the hard reality of its disastrous policy

performance into untruths that proclaim a successful four years.

 

If not, the most polarizing and likely the most important election in

the 60 years since World War II ended will be decided on

misinformation and a distorted imagery that covers over a failed

presidency.

 

The reasons to vote against Bush in the upcoming election go beyond

partisanship. The nation has become an entrenched plutocracy ruled by

immensely wealthy individuals and the leaders of corporate America. It

closely resembles the Gilded Age of a hundred years earlier with its

concentrated wealth and robber barons. I truly fear for my country --

not because of the threat of terrorist attacks but because the

nation's constitutional framework is being destroyed.

 

I do not believe the destruction is purposeful on Bush's part.

Nonetheless, that he sees himself as a patriot defending the nation

does not refute the hard evidence that his misguided policies, based

on now-disproved theories, are in fact destroying the American

republic created by the Founders.

THIS WEEK ON THE P-I EDITORIAL PAGE

 

Monday: Under George W. Bush, the United States has become a

government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the

corporation, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

 

Tuesday: The decision-making process in Bush's first term has been

driven by ideologically driven incompetence.

 

Wednesday: Today there exists more imbalance in the three-branch

federal system of government than at any time in the post-World War II

era .

 

Thursday: Two main factors distinguish the performances of Ronald

Reagan and George W. Bush: the skill of their top policy advisers and

the differences in the political environments in which they operated.

 

Friday: Bush's first term should rate near the bottom among all the

presidents since 1789.

 

Walter Williams is a professor emeritus at the University of

Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs and is the

author of " Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy. "

 

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