    
mfpark
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 128
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Friday, January 2, 2004 - 10:11 pm: |     |
Better for Bush, if not the nation
Friday, January 02, 203
President Bush is in considerably better shape politically as 2004 begins than he was this time a year ago. Whether the same can be said for the country he leads is another question.
When 2003 began, Bush was mired in a two-year-long recession that had erased more than 2 million jobs, with no recovery in sight. His huge tax cuts seemed misbegotten giveaways to the wealthy just when a tax-starved treasury could least afford them, with no evident boost to the economy.
The 9/11 disaster was little more than a year in the past, and fear of terrorism transfixed the country. But the Bush response seemed directionless. The much-touted Homeland Security Department was a hodgepodge regrouping of existing agencies unsure of its authority or focus. Osama bin Laden had escaped into the tribal wilds of northwestern Pakistan and continued to issue calls for violence against Americans. There were few victories to proclaim.
Democrats were tripping over each other to challenge Bush for the presidency. The guy was vulnerable.
That was then. Now, as the new year begins, Bush boasts of a reviving economy. The third-quarter growth rate ballooned to 8.2 percent, the best in 20 years. The war in Iraq (if not the peace) has been mostly a success, crowned by the bagging of Saddam Hussein. Many of bin Laden's al Qaeda cells have been rolled up and several of his top lieutenants taken, some of them talking as if their lives depend on it. Several terrorist plots reportedly have been foiled, and there have been no further attacks on U.S. territory.
More important, Bush has the assortment of tyrants, secular and religious, who rule the Arab Middle East and breed terrorism nervous about their futures -- witness the sudden desire of Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi and the mullahs of Iran to welcome nuclear arms inspectors into their midst. They've had a road to Damascus -- or is it Baghdad? -- experience.
Then there are the Democrats. If all else fails, Republicans usually can count on Democrats for aid and comfort. This year is no exception. Democratic presidential nominees are busy besmirching the character and credibility of the front-runner, Howard Dean. If indeed Dean is the nominee, Bush need do little more than recycle what Democratic rivals say about the former Vermont governor.
So is the country doing as well as its president? Not really. Bush's interests are short-term -- this year's election. But the nation's interests are best measured by longer-term tests that don't look so promising.
Take terrorism. Bin Laden is still at large, a rallying force for jihadists. Moreover, he's loose and fomenting Muslim extremism in Pakistan, whose possession of nuclear weapons makes it the most important Muslim nation and the most dangerous should it fall into the hands of extremists. All bets on security and U.S. power as a force for remaking the Arab Muslim world are off if Islamist jihadists come into possession of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal.
The impact at home would be immediate and dramatic. Think we've sacrificed some civil rights in the war on terrorism to date? Well, watch out if Pakistan falls into the wrong hands.
The rosy glow about the economy that helps Bush in the short run could prove a false dawn longer term. Jobs still are not being created in sufficient number to cut unemployment significantly; more are being shipped abroad. Christmas shopping reports appear to confirm complaints that Bush's tax cuts benefited only the rich: Spending exceeded expectations at Saks Firth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, those cathedrals of wretched excess, but fell below expectations at Target and Wal-Mat, outlets for the great unwashed.
Then there's the pessimistic pre-Christmas report of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Titled "The Long Term Budget Outlook," it foresees a fiscal train wreck if the federal deficit -- it's headed for $500 billion this year -- is not reversed soon.
The decline in federal revenues (aggravated by Bush's tax cuts) and rising federal spending can't be sustained, the CBO concludes -- especially with a tidal wave of baby boomer retirees about to hit Social Security and Medicare at the end of this decade.
Bush argues that his tax cuts, by jump-starting the economy, will generate enough new revenue to roll back the deficit substantially. Maybe so. But experience suggests he's drawing to an inside straight. The strategy works sometimes, but the odds are against it. It sure didn't work for tax cutter Ronald Reagan; despite a sharp economic upturn during the 1980s, Reagan ran budget deficits every year and doubled the federal debt during his tenure.
Democrats fare a bit better on the economy but not much. They'd roll back all or part of Bush's tax cuts. But they're not inclined to cut federal spending, a key component of the deficit dilemma. Neither is Bush; he has yet to veto a single dime of the billions in special-interest spending voted by a Republican Congress.
Bad as it is, it's a scenario Bush can live with for one overriding reason: Even if re-elected, he'll be long gone before the bills come due. But woe betide his successor.
There is, alas, a third villain in this sad saga. It's American voters. They like tax cuts. And federal spending, too. For most share something eternal with the politicians of both parties -- a short- term outlook on things.
John Farmer is The Star-Ledger's national political correspondent.
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