Bush Might Win (And That Ain't Half Bad)

President Bush still has the inside track on the election. He is a wartime President (and that's pretty hard to ignore or deny at this point, whether a person does or doesn't agree with the war effort) and that gives him some immediate points. The economy is tracking in the right direction. There will always be people that paint the economy in grim tones, even when things are going well, but the voters know the truth: we've weathered the storm and are heading back in the right direction (mostly). Bush has also used our military forces in remarkably effective ways.

Though Afghanistan and Iraq are far from being completely rebuilt and resolved, the fact is that in the last few years, Bush has done far more to directly hurt militant Islamic terrorists than any of the three Presidents that came before him. His aggressive execution of the war on terror has resulted in not only the toppling of two governments well deserving of their fate, but also in a change of tone in the conversation with the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, for instance, seems to be growing more sincere in efforts to combat terrorism--something that happens when the militants stop bombing the Godless Westerners and start bombing your own government offices. Is the United States hated and reviled in the Middle East? And is that Bush's fault? Well, our popularity has plummeted, but we are also feared and respected right now in ways that we weren't eight years ago. If you agree (big "if", I know) that the actions were necessary, then it isn't a matter of fault, but a matter of whether we've done what was needed to help preserve our security. And let's be honest, we weren't really popular in the region before.

Right now, our requests and demands are taken far more seriously than they were just a few years ago, and there is value in that. One of the unspoken reasons for invading Iraq was as a proving ground for ourselves and the world that we could dismantle an enemy efficiently. While we may have long miles to go in the rebuilding of that nation, we certainly proved that we could move our military with an unequalled precision and ability. There aren't too many militaries in the world that could hope to withstand our forces, and none of those militaries reside in the Middle East.

So, for a hawkish Republican like me, Bush has been pretty effective (though far from perfect) in that arena. Elsewhere, his record has been a bit spotty.

I wish he had stayed at arms length on the marriage amendment; regardless of his own personal views, I liked his earlier distancing from the subject. The marriage amendment will fail if it's brought to a vote, and the support of it is largely a political maneuver to shore up his conservative credentials. For someone like me, though, it's just highlighting an area of disagreement in a way that I find harder and harder to ignore.

I wish he were stronger on free trade--but his protectionist leanings aren't particularly strong or particularly out of line with what I've come to expect from leaders on both sides of the aisle. It's a bit milder compared to the hard-core left that appeals to unions with scare talk about the evils of imports and how every working American is threatened by the influx of foreign goods (regardless of any quality or cost issues that make consumers happier with some foreign goods). While Bush isn't my perfect candidate on trade, he also doesn't represent a change from decades of American policy.

On tax policy, he has what I consider to be excellent instincts. He not only lowered taxes across the board, but also targeted some particularly odious taxes (like marriage and inheritance taxes) that really needed to be revised. I don't know that the tax cuts were really directly responsible for our short term recovery--there is good reason to believe that much of our growth would have come as we moved naturally out of the down cycle), but those cuts were good for our long-term tax policy.

But then he has to go and propose new social spending and new social programs left and right. New Medicare programs, heavily increased African AIDs assistance, and a raft of new spending opportunities came with each and every State of the Union address. Ouch. I would much rather have seen the elimination of spending and the streamlining of government.

I'm not a deficit hawk--government debt isn't always an evil thing--but the long-term pressure created by newly expanded entitlements (like drug benefits) are a horrible idea when we haven't even come to grips with how we'll pay for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in fifty years without resorting to huge tax increases. It is irresponsible to pile on what will amount to trillions of dollars of new spending over that period of time, and even more irresponsible to hide the real figures from the public while proposing the program.

So, in many ways, Bush is a mixed bag. He wants to be seen as the heir of Reagan, and in some ways he fills the bill. He is more principled, and has a stronger vision of what he wants to see happen in the Middle East, than his opponents give him credit for. He has been a strong leader post-9/11. And, in some parts, his economic ideas come directly from the Reagan wing of the Republican Party: many of us never met a tax cut that we didn't like.

But he wants to use government to expansively solve problems that the government really can't (or shouldn't) resolve. The high cost of health care has mirrored the controls and subsidies that government has placed on the industry--that is, the more government puts controls on the industry, and the more care that the government provides, the more the services cost. The health care "crisis" isn't a matter of too little regulation, but a matter of too much regulation and too little market control. More government doesn't solve the problem, it just makes it worse.

When telecom was deregulated (in a comparative sense), it was a traumatic and frightening moment for people who believed that regulation makes things more affordable for the public. But now, a few decades later, we have more options, more services, more capabilities, and companies absolutely scrambling to get our business. A few years back, I changed my long distance carrier a few times over the course of a summer just to get the free Blockbuster video cards and special deals that the competing companies were offering.

Good for me.

That level of competition and the prices that we see now for services wouldn't exist without the government stepping a little further away from the table.

(Note: I realize that the above few paragraphs are a little simplisting in that there have been rounds of re-regulation and deregulation in telecom, and the Reagan tax cuts also made it possible for computer and Internet revolution to take place. Still, the point stands that what spurred growth was when government stepped back and let industries and customers decide what worked for the market.)

What would I expect from a second Bush term? More of the same, for the most part. I would expect new proposed spending that would make me roll my eyes, and I would expect that some of those programs would fade away without ever hitting the books or the coffers. I would expect some areas of strong disagreement with his social policies coupled with an overall respect for the man.

I also expect that he will do his best to follow through on a promise to revamp Social Security. Partial privatization and a change in benefits for us younger folks could work wonders in moving the program toward sustainability. Kerry won't do that, and Bush might not be able to pull it off, but I know that only one of them will try.

Most importantly, I expect Bush to continue to be just a few steps shy of belligerent when it comes to foreign policy--and that doesn't bother me. His job is to protect the interests and security of the United States, and I expect an American President to actively pursue American interests. Where Kerry will focus on exit strategies, Bush will focus on long-term strategy and pushing liberalism and stability in the Middle East with whatever carrots and sticks he has at hand.

Where Kerry will focus on trying to bring the UN around to us, Bush will realize that the UN has never been much of a friend to the US or stability in the world. The talk of multilateralism ignores two things: that the US didn't go alone when we moved into either Afghanistan or Iraq, and that no President has made much in the way of strides in bringing the UN into line with American interests and thinking. The Gulf War was a bit of a departure in that the UN did act in a generally supportive manner--but if we had overstepped the mandate and toppled Hussein back then, the tone of their support would have changed instantly.

And bucking the UN then would have saved us a lot of blood and trouble over the last few years.

A second Bush term would be very like the first: a mix of both the good and the bad, with, in my mind, the good far outweighing the bad. It would likely be a more eventful four years than a Kerry presidency

I have no idea what the outcome will be. Which man will mobilize his base to actually show up at the polls? Where Bush has lost some of his base on fiscal issues, for example, Kerry has probably lost some of the left on his move to the right on the war. Where Bush isn't the most natural public speaker, Kerry is devoid of charm. Where Bush alienates the anti-war left, Kerry appeals to neither the strong anti-war crowd nor the strong war effort supporters.

Some people are predicting a sweeping Bush victory, a handful of staunch supporters are saying that Kerry will probably win, and I completely expect it to be a nail-biter of a finish just like last time.

Posted by zombyboy at June 16, 2004 10:57 AM | TrackBack