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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (20576)	12/20/2003 5:27:47 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793855

"the deposed former President of Iraq". That is absolutely outrageous.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (20576)	12/20/2003 5:33:45 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793855

The Ownership Society By DAVID BROOKS Not long ago, a man who runs a construction company came to the White House to meet with a senior Bush administration official. He talked economic policy, then was asked how his business was going. He said things were going well. Orders were up. He'd revamped his I.T. system, and he'd re-engineered his production process so he'd been able to reduce his work force to 7,200 from 9,800. You can imagine the reaction as he dribbled out this final bit of good news. For here in a nutshell is the administration's problem. The economy is doing well, but because of enormous productivity gains, it is not yet producing enough jobs to sharply reduce unemployment and ensure President Bush's re-election. This situation means that the name Arthur Okun is once again reverberating off White House walls. Okun, an economist, is the author of Okun's Law, which predicts how fast the economy has to grow to reduce unemployment. Back in the early 1990's, economists expected that the economy had to grow faster than 2.6 percent to create jobs. Today, because of productivity gains, growth rates have to be much higher. "This is going to change the entire economy," one senior Bush official observed. "How do we deal with it?" There are essentially three answers to that question. The first is the pure free-market answer, which says the market will take care of itself. Productivity gains will eventually lead to job creation, and workers will learn to adapt. The second is the unions' answer, which is that the job picture is stagnant because of unfair global competition. Rewrite the trade rules, and jobs will be more secure. The third response has been championed most ardently by centrist organizations like the Democratic Leadership Council: embrace the more productive and fluid economy, but make sure government aggressively moves to give workers the tools they need to cope. Over the past three years, the Democratic Party has shifted behind the unions' approach. When Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean are asked about manufacturing job losses, they talk first about unfair trade. The Bush administration, meanwhile, is embracing its own version of the centrist Democratic approach, occupying the ground abandoned by the leftward-veering Democrats. In his State of the Union address, the president will announce measures to foster job creation. In the meantime, he is talking about what he calls the Ownership Society. This is a bundle of proposals that treat workers as self-reliant pioneers who rise through several employers and careers. To thrive, these pioneers need survival tools. They need to own their own capital reserves, their own retraining programs, their own pensions and their own health insurance. Administration officials are talking about giving unemployed workers personal re-employment accounts, which they could spend on training, child care, a car, a move to a place with more jobs, or whatever else they think would benefit them. President Bush has a proposal to combine and simplify the confusing morass of government savings programs and give individuals greater control over how they want to spend their tax-sheltered savings. Administration officials hope, in a second term, to let individuals control part of their Social Security pensions and perhaps even their medical savings accounts. The Ownership Society idea allows Bush to be centrist and conservative at the same time. It is centrist because it means actively using government to solve problems. In 2000, Bush declared: "I do not believe government is the enemy. But I do not believe government is always the answer. At its best, it can help people find the tools they need to build for themselves. At its best, it gives options, not orders." The Ownership Society platform is designed to update that message for 2004. But the platform is culturally conservative. Talking with staff, Bush emphasizes that he wants to use these policies to move from an "anything-goes culture" to a "responsibility culture." By giving individuals control of their own retraining, their own savings and their own homes, he hopes to inculcate self-reliance, industriousness and responsibility. With events like the State of the Union address, an incumbent president has the power to change the subject and reshape the domestic debate. The Bushies haven't done it yet, but they are about to. nytimes.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (20576)	12/20/2003 7:17:29 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793855

I guess this means the Arabists over at State are wetting their pants. washingtonpost.com Sharon Threat Seen as Major Problem Unilateral Steps by Israel Could Disrupt U.S.-Backed Peace Plan, Analysts Say By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A15 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat this week to unilaterally separate Israelis and Palestinians, if negotiations falter, poses a new and significant challenge to U.S. diplomacy in the region, administration officials and analysts said yesterday. While Sharon professed that he is committed to the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map -- which he has disdained for months -- the long-stalled peace initiative could well be buried by the steps he outlined in the speech, analysts said. In fact, Sharon significantly shortened the timetable for action -- "a few months" -- on a plan that is supposed to take effect over three years. Sharon carefully hinged his support for the road map to actions by the Palestinians on security. But the Palestinian Authority for months has appeared incapable of taking those steps. The Bush administration, moreover, has limited contacts with and leverage over the Palestinians, particularly since travel by U.S. officials into Palestinian territories was restricted by a deadly attack in Gaza in October. Officially, the administration pronounced itself "very pleased" by Sharon's speech Thursday, because he announced that he would take a number of actions to ease Palestinian living conditions and would dismantle settlement outposts. Sharon also signaled that he would evacuate some settlements and had come up with a formula for freezing the growth of the settlements -- important goals for the United States. One senior official suggested Sharon's gambit could well be the spark that reignites action on the road map. But, in a sign of the difficult balancing act ahead, the administration was uncharacteristically off-message about the speech shortly it was delivered. White House spokesman Scott McClellan first appeared to criticize it, and then a senior administration official offered a much more upbeat assessment in a briefing to reporters. McClellan then echoed the positive view yesterday. In a sign of the divisions within the administration, a number of officials said privately that they were troubled by Sharon's speech. They are skeptical Sharon will really take the positive steps he has outlined, and they worry that any potentially damaging unilateral actions might happen in the middle of next year, when President Bush will be in an election campaign and unable to forcefully respond for fear of offending the Jewish vote he has worked hard to cultivate. Sharon also disturbed some members of the administration with his statement that any unilateral actions will be "fully coordinated" with Washington in order not to harm "our strategic coordinations with the United States." U.S. officials have frequently argued to Arabs that they do not have much leverage over specific moves by Sharon -- that the administration does not control some sort of traffic light. Now, Sharon has implied that Israel checks repeatedly with the administration on its actions. One senior U.S. official closely involved in Middle East issues said he found little in Sharon's speech that could be described as positive or noteworthy. "Am I excited by it? No," he said. Sharon's backing of the road map "was not new," the official added. "It's less important that he says that than for Israel to start doing the things they need to do." Another official said the risk is that Sharon will take these potentially dramatic steps when the administration is paralyzed by the looming election. "He may say, 'Here's my number, and if you are still in the White House give me a call,' " the official said. Many parts of Sharon's speech were vague and open to interpretation. Sharon's proposal on a settlement freeze -- no construction beyond the existing construction line, no appropriation of land, no economic incentives and no building of new settlements -- was considered new and significant by some U.S. officials and a potential trap by others. The road map calls for a freeze on settlements, as well as on what is called "natural growth," which generally means births and family moves. But the Israelis have repeatedly pressed for a definition of a freeze that would allow construction within existing boundaries, essentially saying settlements could expand upward but not outward. The senior administration official briefing reporters Thursday night said the purpose of a settlement freeze is to make sure additional settlers would not impede Palestinian life or prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state. It makes no difference, he said, if the Israelis add another house within a block of existing homes. "We have not taken the position there has to be an end to natural growth in settlements," he said. That statement was controversial to other administration officials, who say the United States in the past clearly opposed natural growth in the settlements. One official scoffed at Sharon's proposal, saying it is filled with loopholes. He said it was unclear whether the ending of economic incentives for settlements would apply to the building of roads and infrastructure, for instance, or whether the "construction line" would incorporate individual settlements or be expanded to include groups of settlements. "This is not the way a settlement freeze is defined by the road map or the president," said Shibley Telhami, a Middle East specialist at the University of Maryland. "This is new language that is inconsistent with what's on the table." Dennis Ross, a peace negotiator in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, took a more positive view. "There is a lot in there that Sharon has not said before," he said, noting that "he spells out for the first time Israel's definition for control of settlement activity." Ross said a problem with the road map is that it creates "an illusion of specificity" where none exists. Ross said that even if Israel withdraws from much of the territories in a unilateral action, "it is not a solution but maybe creates an environment in which a solution is possible over time." "The reality is that none of us knows what is in Sharon's head," Telhami said. "You have to look at the pattern of his behavior. Given that, we would have to think he has had in the back of his mind the idea of implementing a unilateral plan all along." washingtonpost.com