http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/192327_williams26.html
Bush's dismal policy failures in tax cuts and Iraq are being sold as achievements
By WALTER WILLIAMS
GUEST COLUMNIST
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.
THIS WEEK ON THE P-I EDITORIAL PAGE
Monday: Under George W. Bush, the United States has become a government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
Tuesday: The decision-making process in Bush's first term has been driven by ideologically driven incompetence.
Wednesday: Today there exists more imbalance in the three-branch federal system of government than at any time in the post-World War II era .
Thursday: Two main factors distinguish the performances of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush: the skill of their top policy advisers and the differences in the political environments in which they operated.
Friday: Bush's first term should rate near the bottom among all the presidents since 1789
You are fast becoming the number one reason I wouldn't vote for Kerry.