Bush's dismal policy failures in tax cuts and Iraq are
being sold as achievements
By WALTER WILLIAMS
GUEST COLUMNIST
Sunday, September 26, 2004
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
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