Workers' two-faced friend
By Leonard Steinhorn
Originally published February 26, 2002
The Baltimore Sun
Sunspot. Net
WASHINGTON - Almost daily, newspaper readers are
greeted with vivid photos of President Bush surrounded
by firefighters, police officers, soldiers, young people or
blue-collar workers, all of whom are beaming in the
presence of a confident president who is leading us in
the war to avenge Sept. 11.
But I wonder if they would continue beaming if
President Bush told them his economic policies are
sticking them with the short end of one of the greatest
transfers of wealth in American history, from working
Americans to the very rich.
Would these proud and loyal Americans keep smiling if
they learned that only the very rich will benefit
substantially from the president's tax cuts, that the
money used to pay for them is coming from the Social
Security trust fund and that the resulting IOUs will
come due when baby boomers start to retire in about 10
years?
Would they continue beaming if they learned that the
only way to pay it all back is by raising their taxes,
shrinking their retirement benefits or forcing them to
work more years and retire later in life - a back-door tax
the rich will never have to pay?
Would they keep beaming if they learned that Mr.
Bush's deficits may push up interest rates, which
translates to higher mortgage, car loan and credit card
rates that will wipe out the measly few hundred dollars
that most middle Americans will receive from the Bush
tax cut?
So while the wealthy bathe in dollars they didn't need,
the firefighters, police officers, soldiers, young people
and blue-collar workers beaming with the president will
be handed the bill.
To be sure, the Bush White House isn't the first to make
such cynical use of photo opportunities.
President Bill Clinton surrounded himself with
African-American women when signing a welfare reform
bill that many civil rights groups opposed.
President Ronald Reagan was famous for creating warm
and glowing images that contradicted some of the
sharper edges of his policies - such as visiting the
Special Olympics after slashing programs for the
disabled, or cutting the ribbon at a senior citizens'
home after reducing funds for the elderly.
Indeed, Mr. Bush's handlers would be remiss if they
failed to create images of the president surrounded by
young people and patriotic Americans. As
communications experts, that's their job, and after all,
the president is a politician who craves public support
and wants to appear as Middle America's friend when
he runs for re-election in 2004.
But it's a cynicism that will haunt American politics
when the good and faithful people who believed the
president was on their side wake up in a decade or so
and realize that the joke was on them. President Bush
campaigned for president saying he would do things
differently in Washington. In truth, he's simply doing
them better.
Leonard Steinhorn, a former political speechwriter, is
an associate professor of communication at American
University.
Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun
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