Unfinished Business
by James Hall, Associate Editor
February 6, 2002
"Leaning Left"
"We can't declare war on the world." -- Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
-sm.jpg)
.jpg)
When
candidate Bush ran for Governor of Texas, and later for President of the United
States, he used a simple strategy: promise very few things, but deliver on them.
Step One was to push for his tax cut, and he did and got it, though not as large
a cut as he would have liked. Step Two was to pass a national educational plan
requiring states to test students for reading and math skills and this he also
got, albeit with more money for education than he wanted to spend. But Bush's
other major campaign agenda items--a prescription drug benefit for seniors and
an overhaul of the Social Security system--remain unaccomplished.
It's
therefore not surprising to hear that aides of President Bush are meeting with
aides of Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA, with Bush, left) to work on a prescription
drug benefit. It was Kennedy, after all, who loaned his clout in education to
Bush in order to make the education plan work, and who earned the president's
praise for his efforts to pass a workable bill. Senate and House Republicans,
however, complained that the bill was too expensive and favored the Democratic
approach to education too much.
They may feel the same way about a prescription drug benefit. The Democrats' plan, modeled after the Gore proposal, would make a prescription drug benefit part of the Medicare entitlement. The Bush proposal was for a private plan run by the drug companies themselves. The sticking point for the Bush plan was in finding any drug companies interested in participating in his plan--most companies were not enticed by the amount of money Mr. Bush was willing to spend on the program. His 2003 budget offers $190 billion over ten years, but that is likely not enough to entice private enterprise.
In order for Bush to deliver on his promise, he may be forced to agree to the Democratic proposal, or add a significant amount of money to the private program to make it worthwhile to private industry. Either approach puts pressure on a budget already in the red. Along with large increases for Defense and Homeland Security, and perhaps an economic stimulus package, Bush may find himself in the position of proposing a greater budget increase than any in the Clinton era. Or he may have to undertake broad cuts in currently funded programs and face plowback from that.
Making headway in Social Security will be even more difficult. The Bush plan for Social Security was to privatize a portion of it for Generation X and those who came later. That idea seemed good to some after eight years of constant growth of the stockmarket, but in light of the current recession many people have seen their 401k's shrink precipitously, so the idea no longer holds as much luster. Complicating matters further is that Bush must use Social Security tax dollars to pay for other programs.
Unfortunately, any fix of Social Security, privatizing it or otherwise, will involve pumping more revenue into the system. This, along with the state of the economy, makes it very unlikely that anything will happen to Social Security before the 2002 Congressional elections. Bush's best bet for a fix comes afterward--if Republicans control Congress.
His big problem, however, is not who controls Congress as much as what money's available to fix prescription drugs and Social Security. The Congressional Budget Office recently scaled down its budget surplus estimates from over 5 trillion dollars in the next ten years, to a little more than one trillion dollars. Part of that is due to the recession, but at least a third is due to the Bush tax cut. Can Bush raise expenditures in Defense and Homeland Security, add another tax cut, and still pay for the prescription drug program and fix Social Security as he promised?
No way. It seems like Bush is going down the path of his beloved predecessor, Ronald Reagan, who defeated the Red Menace but only at the cost of Red Ink. Deficit spending is back. ***
© 2002 James Hall
COPYRIGHT © 2002 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.
Home | About Us | Archives | Forums | Links | Resources | Submissions | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer