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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (501994)	12/2/2003 9:07:46 AM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 769667

American Spirit Revealed - wsu.edu

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (501994)	12/2/2003 9:08:16 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Bald, the government borrows the money and transfers it to the consumers in the form of tax cuts and deficit spending. The national debt goes up and the people spend the money on products made in China so the trade deficit goes up and the budget deficit goes up.

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (501994)	12/2/2003 9:33:40 AM
From: jackhach	Respond to of 769667

POLITICAL CAPITAL By ALAN MURRAY Alan Murray is Washington Bureau Chief of CNBC, and cohost of Capital Report, which airs Tues.-Fri. at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Bush Seems to Lack Will to Shift Course To Correct a Deficit Actor James Brolin, who starred in Sunday's CBS/Showtime movie "The Reagans," did a lousy job portraying former President Ronald Reagan. But then, Mr. Reagan is a hard act to get right -- as George W. Bush is now learning. Mr. Brolin's portrayal was limp from the beginning. President Bush's version started out stronger, as he pushed tax cuts, spoke of clear distinctions between good and evil, and championed a strong defense. But what's missing from President Bush's Reagan act is the ability to admit mistakes with grace, and to make mid-course corrections without sacrificing principles. For President Reagan, the biggest mid-course correction on economic policy began just weeks after he celebrated passage of his tax cut in August of 1981. With new budget projections showing deficits headed into unexplored territory, the White House began that September to work on a package of tax increases and spending cuts to stem the red ink. The result was a $100 billion tax increase, combined with modest cuts in government entitlement programs, which passed Congress in the summer of 1982. That was followed by an effort to bolster the financing of Social Security. Operating under the cover of a commission headed by now-Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Reagan team engineered a bipartisan agreement to reduce cost-of-living adjustments for senior citizens, to gradually raise the retirement age to 67, and to boost payroll taxes. Neither law did much for Ronald Reagan's popularity; but both showed he was able and willing to push through tough measures when the circumstances demanded them. President Bush now faces similarly daunting fiscal projections. "The U.S. budget is out of control," the economists at Goldman Sachs pronounced in a report last week. "The sharp shift from surplus to deficit in recent years is by far the biggest setback in 50 years, and it isn't over." The report predicts the fiscal 2004 deficit will surpass $500 billion. And it offers no hope that growth alone can eliminate deficits in the future. "Any thoughts of relief ... are a pipe dream until political priorities adjust," the report concludes. The nation, in other words, is overdue for a Reagan-style, mid-course correction. But Mr. Bush still shows no sign of adjusting his course. Instead of tax increases, President Bush is pushing another round of tax cuts, this time back-loaded so that the budget effects can't be measured and won't be felt for more than a decade. Instead of reducing entitlements, he has just pushed through the biggest increase in Medicare in decades. President Bush also allowed a Republican-led Congress to turn his energy bill into a cornucopia of tax subsidies for energy-producing and farm states. And he has allowed a remarkable orgy of pork-barrel spending without ever using his presidential veto. Increasingly, President Bush resembles not Ronald Reagan, but another GOP forbear: Richard Nixon. At the end of his first term, Mr. Nixon brushed aside concerns about swelling deficits and an explosion in government spending, and pushed through Congress a $30 billion program of "revenue sharing" with states and cities. He also acquiesced to a 20% across-the-board increase in Social Security benefits. In his book "Presidential Economics," the late Herbert Stein, who served on the Nixon Council of Economic Advisers, tells how the president shocked his cabinet by telling them early in 1972 to go out and "spend more money." "By many measures," Mr. Stein concluded, "the Nixon years were a period of retrogression from the conservative economic standpoint." Unless a midcourse correction comes soon, the same will be said of the Bush administration. Presidents Nixon and Bush may turn out to be bookends to the conservative era, with their big-government drift simply reflecting the mood of the nation. The first governed at the end of a liberal era, when the nation wasn't yet ready for the small-government policies that he claimed to personally favor. The second governs at what may prove to be the end of a conservative era, and faces a nation that is not only troubled by war and a sluggish economy, but also fatigued from a quarter century of efforts to rein in the size and scope of government. It is also possible that what really links Presidents Nixon and Bush is something else: an unbounded desire for a second term, even at the expense of taxpayers. Continuing to cut taxes and increase government spending in the face of runaway budget deficits isn't a good way to run the country. But it may still be a great way to win elections. Write to Alan Murray at alan.murray@wsj.com Updated December 2, 2003