September 23, 2006
President Bush and the Long Term Posted by Fredric Smoler at 04:45 PM EST Josh Zeitz and John Steele Gordon agree (!!?!) that George Bush is remarkably focused on the long term. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Bush’s actions are motivated by short-term or long-term considerations. For example, he stuck to his tax-cutting even while fighting a war he thought urgent, and which he announced would transform the world. Troops cost money, and it is widely thought that we may have lost in Iraq because of a shortage of troops. Did Bush refuse to raise taxes that might have paid for the troops his generals seem to think he needed because he was focused on the long term, meaning his Laffer curve theory of political economy? Maybe. On the other hand, it is possible that he thought his father had lost the 1992 election because he had raised taxes and otherwise alienated the hard-right portion of his base. In that case, Bush was so focused on the short term—reelection and Republican chances in successive Congressional elections—that he risked losing the war. Similarly Bush faced some very hard choices with the North Korean and Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons. So far he has ducked those choices. Maybe this is because he is focused on what he takes to be the long term, the war in Iraq, and has been willing to subordinate other concerns in the interest of the future of his Iraq-centered plans for the Middle East (Iran could have intensified its support of its violent protégés in Iraq, and North Korea might have forced the redeployment of American combat power needed in Iraq to Northeast Asia). The other explanation is that Bush is leaving very hard choices to his successor, who will have to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea and an Iran closer to achieving that status. North Korea and Iran really were seeking WMDs, at an alarming clip, and so far, Bush has done amazingly little to inhibit either campaign. Josh Zeitz writes that “Bush’s ambitions were to dismantle the welfare state, which for good or bad he sees as incompatible with a new economy marked by extreme job mobility . . .” and contrasts this with Clinton’s centrism and gradualism. But Bush’s announced ambitions have not been achieved, and it is worth wondering how much political capital he has been willing to invest in them, which again raises the question of how long-term Bush really has been. After all, it was Clinton who actually did dismantle a significant piece of the welfare state, when he delivered on his pledge to “end welfare as we know it.” In the long term, Bush thought that expanding the electoral base of the Republican party meant wooing Hispanic voters. When faced with a populist, anti-immigrant revolt of a portion of his existing base, he did not react as aggressively as he might have. Facing a similar problem, Clinton might have “triangulated,” reaching out across the aisle. Bush instead seems to be trying to placate the existing base while avoiding offending too grossly the Hispanic voters he is seeking. Maybe that is good politics, maybe not, but it is hard to describe it as relentlessly focused on the long term. Finally, Bush has piled up the deficits, refusing to veto spending bills as well as refusing to raise taxes. Maybe this is the action of a true believer in the Gospel According to Laffer; if the budget deficits really are self-liquidating, Bush has sustained as long-term a focus as anyone in history. On the other hand, he may (again) be simply ducking painful choices. My guess is that he is doing both: He conveniently believes that he is looking at the fiscal long term when he is in fact also focused on the political short term. That does not mean that he is a hypocrite. Hypocrites defer to expedience in spite of their principles. There are other words for people who refuse to acknowledge the clash between principles and expedience.
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