Endgame for the president?
By Robert Kuttner, 2/4/2004
AFTER AN excruciating delay, chickens are finally coming home to roost for George W. Bush. For over a year, critics have been pointing to the president's systematic misrepresentations of everything from Iraq to education to budget numbers. But the charge hasn't really stuck, until very lately. .
This past week, however, Bush seems to have hit a tipping point. Chief arms inspector David Kay testified before Congress that the intelligence reports were entirely wrong about Saddam's supposed weapons and that the much maligned UN inspectors were right.
Kay loyally blamed the failure on intelligence professionals, not Bush. But that argument didn't fool those who watched last year as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld strong-armed the CIA, sifted through raw, unconfirmed reports, and massaged the data until he got the story he wanted.
Bush initially resisted the pressure for a full-scale investigation, but soon agreed to appoint a major bipartisan inquiry into the "intelligence failure." The real story here is the political manipulation of intelligence, and it isn't going away. A second investigation -- about the outing of CIA official Valerie Plame -- will also shed embarrassing light about the true White House concern for intelligence professionals. Yet another investigation -- into the lapses that occurred on Bush's watch in the events leading up to 9/11 -- could also unearth awkward facts.
All of the administration's mendacity comes together in the latest Bush budget. According to the White House, the deficit, now $521 billion, will be cut roughly in half over the next five years. But the administration achieves this feat by excluding future costs of occupying and rebuilding Iraq, by claiming large savings from waste and fraud as yet to be identified, and by proposing general program cuts so unpopular that Congress is sure to reject them.
Even as Bush proposes making his 10-year tax cuts permanent, the budget projects only over the next five years. Deficits, of course, dramatically increase after year five. Even in the fifth year (FY 2009), the budget leaves out about $160 billion in costs that the administration favors and is expected to propose in future budgets, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Bush's Medicare cost estimate was off by hundreds of billions.
Social spending rises only 0.5 percent a year (which means real, inflation-adjusted cuts), while military spending goes up 7 percent yearly, and homeland security outlays a full 10 percent.
The voters may well agree that we need these security outlays -- some Democrats want even more preparedness spending. But they may wonder why we had to trade tax cuts for the upper brackets for huge deficits and the slashing of popular programs. Some three-quarters of the fiscal deterioration since 2000 is caused by lost revenues.
In this budget, Bush offers a few tiny tokens -- more money to promote marriage, all of $23 million for drug testing in schools, a symbolic $100 million "compassion capital fund," but the compassion act is wearing thin.
Some conservatives have tried to blame the rising deficits on increases on social spending. But federal program spending, outside of the Iraq buildup and the increased outlays for homeland security, has grown at less than the rate of inflation. We had no choice but to increase outlays on homeland security, But the war in Iraq, as we now know, was entirely optional (and needless). Without the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq war, the deficits would be well under 2 percent of GDP, and entirely manageable.
And despite the usual rosy characterizations, the latest economic growth numbers were not what the White House hoped. Four percent growth in the last quarter is not enough to generate very many good jobs. The Federal Reserve added insult to injury at its latest meeting by hinting at interest-rate increases later in this election year -- caused by rising deficits.
Even Bush's appalling Vietnam record -- pulling strings to get into a National Guard unit and then neglecting to show up much of the time -- is now fair game. What started as a gotcha game against General Wesley Clark's refusal to disavow Michael Moore's choice of rhetoric (Moore called Bush a "deserter") has refocused press attention onto the legitmate issue of just what Bush did.
Before the New Hampshire primary, Bush's reelection seemed assured. It's funny how the conventional wisdom sometimes turns abruptly, even though the basic facts were hidden in plain view all along. I'd bet we are about a week away from Time and Newsweek covers pronouncing "Bush in Trouble?" or some equivalent. It's about time.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.
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