Myths and Realities of the George Bush Presidency
By Arnold Kling : 17 Jul 2007
"conservatives are unhappy because the president allied himself with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) over an immigration deal that leaned too far toward amnesty for illegal immigrants. They're unhappy because Bush has shown little interest in fiscal responsibility and limited government. And they're unhappy, above all, because he hasn't won the war in Iraq."
--Byron York
Near the end of his shows, humorist Mort Sahl used to ask, "Is there anyone I haven't offended yet?" These days, I find myself asking the same question about President Bush. Economic libertarians gripe about high government spending. The "base" was offended by his handling of the immigration issue. The left is offended by every step he takes and every move he makes.
As I listen to people discuss the Presidency of George Bush, I find myself hearing the same things over and over. He has been too ideological, too closed-minded, too partisan, and too incompetent, resulting in a disastrous Presidency. I am not sure that this analysis will survive a more sober, detached perspective. Later in this essay, I will spell out what I see as the myths embedded in the conventional wisdom.
George Bush and Me
I have never felt comfortable with George Bush. I voted for Al Gore--although I never felt comfortable with him, either. I felt even less comfortable with John Kerry, so that I voted for Bush in 2004.
Neoconservatism is not my ideology. As I pointed out four years ago, the economic ideology of neoconservatism is willing to accept a large and ever-growing government, whereas I am not. Neoconservatives are comfortable turning religious values into hot-button political causes, while I prefer to keep my conservative moral values in the background. Finally, neoconservatives are somewhat more grandiose and moralistic than I am on foreign policy.
I think that President Bush has got one thing very much right, which is that Arab-Islamic terrorism is a symptom that something is rotten in the Middle East. If anything, his failures in Iraq and Palestine are due to underestimating the degree of rot. For all the allegations of his lack of intellect, George Bush is a brainiac compared to people who want to see terrorism as a symptom of something rotten in the United States or Israel.
Myth 1: Bush lost in 2000
It is a myth that George Bush lost the election in 2000. He lost the popular vote, but that is not how elections are decided. Both George Bush and Al Gore based their electoral strategies on the rules in place at the time, which determines the winner on the basis of electoral votes. Saying after the fact that the Presidency should go to the winner of the popular vote is like saying that the 1964 World Series Championship belongs to the Yankees because they scored more total runs, although the Cardinals took four games out of seven.
It is a myth that George Bush stole the vote in Florida. Every recount has given the victory there to Bush. There is no doubt in my mind that the real villain of 2000 is Al Gore. His challenge of the electoral results was blatantly unfair (recall, he wanted to recount only in certain precincts where he hoped to gain votes) and served only to transform a close election into an illegitimate one. Instead of working to unite the country, Gore set an example of deep partisan bitterness that maximized the long-term damage of the 2000 election for American politics.
Myth 2: Bush economic policies were disastrous
It is a myth that the economy performed poorly under President Bush. In my view, Presidents have much less control than we think, President Bush's policies were mainstream given the economic conditions that he inherited, and the key economic indicator of productivity growth performed well.
Claims that ordinary workers fared poorly under President Bush are suspect. Data on the "distribution of income" are often abused by people making the claim that only the rich are getting ahead. Even the abusers, however, see the trends as pre-dating the Bush Administration. Moreover, I contend that the escalation of income is more meaningful than the distribution of income.
Myth 3: Bush was too right-wing
Another myth is that President Bush followed a partisan, right-wing agenda on education and entitlements. Instead, he attempted centrist reforms, and even on those he was often rebuffed.
On education, President Bush compromised in order to pass the No Child Left Behind act. In order to obtain Democratic support, he increased Federal spending. In order to claim a conservative victory, he established nationwide testing. In my view, this was lose-lose for believers in individual liberty and educational quality. As I wrote here, nationwide testing is a step backward, not a step forward.
On Social Security, President Bush took a very cautious approach to implementing personal retirement accounts. The Democrats refused to compromise, which means that we will have to bite our nails and hope that productivity growth is high enough to overcome the system's actuarial unsoundness.
On health care, President Bush added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, hastening the pace at which the growth government spending on health care exceeds growth in the economy. The drug benefit's mechanical operation was the sort of managed competition beloved by Democratic wonks. However, the Democrats still gripe because the drug industry was left standing.
President Bush has made proposals to decrease the tax advantage of super-generous health care plans that are more likely to be enjoyed by the well-off and to offer tax cuts for individuals to obtain health insurance. These sensible, progressive proposals were shot down, because the Democrats want to make sure that nothing good happens on President Bush's watch.
Myth 4: Bush was too partisan
Another myth is that President Bush was relentlessly partisan and never willing to compromise. Instead, he caved in on a number of occasions when I wish that he hadn't. One occasion was the post-Enron panic, when he signed into law the ill-considered Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This redistributed income to CP-Yays, but harmed economic growth at least a little and perhaps a lot (my money is on "a lot").
Another occasion was his creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The notion that the way to improve big, clumsy bureaucracies is to combine them into a bigger, clumsier bureaucracy is an idea that would only occur to someone as out of touch with reality as a U.S. Congressman. Anyone else would know better.
Myth 5: Iraq reflects Bush's personality
Another myth is that the reason we remain in Iraq is that President Bush is personally stubborn. In fact, as Bruce Bueno de Mesquita points out, leaders of democracies always have a hard time extricating themselves from wars. A dictator can afford to lose a war, but a democratic leader will be very unpopular if a war has a negative or ambiguous outcome. Therefore, democratic leaders will tend to fight to the bitter end.
It is reasonable to argue that a different political leader would not have gotten us in to the war in Iraq. But once we were in, no politician in his right mind would have been willing to exit under conditions that fall short of victory. Even the Democrats are wary of being labeled as the party of defeat, and so they are reluctant to cut funding for the war.
The Era of Bitterness
I think that many people are tired of the bitterness and partisanship of the Bush era. My main point, however, is that people over-estimate the extent to which this bitterness and partisanship is due to George Bush himself. My prediction is that we will see further bitterness in the years ahead, as the sore losers of 2000 and 2004 become the sore winners of 2008. In 2012, there will still be Islamic terrorism, millions of Americans will lack health insurance and America's health care bill will still be unusually high, the rich will still be getting richer (unless the economy tanks), and the trend will be for more people to join the Long Tail that identifies with neither political party. Which is why both parties are becoming more shrill every year.
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