Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Uh Oh

After the November debacle, I published an oped in the Wall Street Journal suggesting some actions President Bush could take to regain the political initiative after his thumping.

I suggested he advocate a bold tax reform, trading some kind of carbon tax if the new Congress would make permanent his cuts in taxes on dividends, capital gains, and inheritances. I proposed he put teeth into No Child Left Behind with a redistributive voucher program. And finally I thought he should endorse a voluntary ban on lobbyist-funded travel for members of Congress - advocating instead that the government set aside funds to encourage members to see the world (including that portion of the world that does not contain golf courses).

Maybe these were good ideas, maybe not. But the article's core warning still seems valid to me:

The Bush administration woke up yesterday morning to a deeply ugly political situation. Those polls that show the president below 40% approval? They would look even worse if they surveyed only Republican members of Congress. As for the president's opponents: They are slavering for a nice two-year-long munch on the administration's haunches.

Worst of all, the administration seems to have exhausted its energy. Frustrated by Iraq, wounded by Katrina, thwarted in its two most recent major domestic initiatives (Social Security and immigration), the administration looks baffled, uncertain and often strangely passive. ...

Over the next two years, executive energy must be more than a doctrine. It may prove the key to Republican survival—and the coming conservative resurgence

I feel like an acting coach: Energy! Energy!! Energy!!!

So what is the administration proposing to do? This morning, the president himself published an oped in the Journal setting forth his proposals for the new Congress. And what domestic program does he lay out? A line-item veto.

Never mind that the Supreme Court has found the line-item veto unconstitutional.

Never mind that after six years of presidentially led overspending, it is a bit implausible for the president to try to present himself as the guardian of the public purse against rapacious congresspersons.

Consider only this: Republicans have been suggesting a federal line item veto as a talisman against big government since the middle 1980s. If twenty years later, the line item veto is the only domestic idea a Republican president has to offer - well, what more emphatic confession of mental exhaustion can an administration give? And if the administration confesses itself exhausted, why should not the Congress elbow it aside? Somebody has to govern after all ....

This president has always preferred to retire early for the night. I fear that the whole domestic policy staff seems now to be following the boss's example, settling in for bedtime two years ahead of schedule.

**

PS: On the other hand, maybe early retirement is not such a bad thing, if it means that the president has moved away from his post-election musings that he might work with the Democrats on an "immigration reform," aka amnesty/guestworker.

On the other other hand, having the president proceed with his amnesty idea could well prove a good thing for the Republican party - by creating an opportunity for Republican members of Congress and 2008 presidential aspirants to take an independent stand against an unpopular president's least popular idea ... Of course, that assumes that the challengers will actually succeed in stopping the amnesty/guestworker program. Nightmare scenario: the president proceeds, splits the party - and the amnesty/guestworker program is enacted anyway. 

01/03 07:26 AM