AUSTIN - President Bush's maiden address to the nation was classic Dubya:
He talks
moderate and governs right. And this is never more true than on economic
issues.
Again, with Bush, what you see is not what you get. What you hear is
not what you get.
What you get is what you get.
One is tempted to conclude, "Surely he jests."
The man cannot possibly want us to sign off on an enormous tax cut designed
to benefit
the rich without telling us what will be cut in return. Houston, we
have a problem. Earth to
Karl Rove: Beam me up, Scotty.
In budgets, as in bridges, the devil is in the details, and the details
of the amorphous plan
that Bush presented Tuesday night are grim indeed.
Just the other day I had occasion to cite one of the Great Questions
of government, which
is: What the Hell Will They Do To Us Next? Tuesday night's maiden speech
before
Congress brought up another always-timely query: How Dumb Do They Think
We Are?
This tax cut is carefully back-loaded: We won't fully feel its effects
until 10 years into the
future, yet we have to start cutting already to accommodate the little
wedge of it that will
affect this budget.
To use one of the great legislative cliches of all time, this year's
tax cut is the head of the
camel under the tent. And if you think the head causes problems, wait'll
you see what the
rest of the beast does when it's inside.
For all the size of the federal budget, the amount available for discretionary
spending is
relatively small, and within that small portion are most of the efforts
to use government
flexibly and intelligently.
Again, to cut basic scientific research is sheer folly. To cut job training
programs is not
only cruel but stupid. To cut health and human service programs is
to abandon
investments in people; as we have long known, the earlier we can invest
in a child's health
and education, the more money we save in the long run.
Bush's budget is irrefutably the work of old Reaganites who do not like
government and
believe that the best way to deal with it is to starve it to death.
According to 'The Wall Street Journal,' the chief architects of Bush's
budget are John
Cogan of the ultra-conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford, and
Mitch Daniels, a former
executive at Eli Lilly & Co., newly named head of the Office of
Management and Budget.
Relying on the wide range of opinion available from such sources at
the Heritage
Foundation and Citizens Against Government Waste, a span that covers
the gamut from
A to B, Cogan and his team noodled the numbers.
Bush so clearly represents a change of rhetoric without a change of
intent that it's almost painful.
Ronald Reagan used to go around saying, "Government is not the solution;
government is the problem."
Newt Gingrich thought so little of the institution that he shut it
down twice.
I say that government is neither the problem nor the solution. It is
just a tool. Whether you
put the tool to good use or bad, whether you use it wisely or carelessly,
is not the fault of the tool.
I can't say that I see we're better off for paying for a $1.5 million
statue of the Roman god
Vulcan in honor of Alabama steelworkers -- one of the splendid items
of pork spotted by
Cogan's team -- but it's certain that some Alabama steelworkers are
going to need job
retraining if we keep making trade pacts with no labor or environmental
floors.
Perhaps the single funniest argument I have heard in favor of Bush's
tax cut for the rich is
from CNN's Tucker Carlson, who crossly announced that it is vulgar
-- vulgar -- to point out
that the rich are going to get ever so much more out of this tax cut
than everybody else.
Quite, quite vulgar to point out that in a society already deeply scarred
by the dramatically growing gap
between the rich and everyone else, a tax cut that transfers yet more
wealth into the hands of the rich
while shifting more of the burden of taxation to everyone else is a
truly bad idea.
However, I believe it is even more vulgar -- in fact, crass, stupid and greedy -- to actually pass such a tax cut.
I believe it is vulgar that this tax cut is proposed by the wealthiest
Cabinet in history; seven
of them are worth more than $10 million, and 11 of the remaining 12
are worth at least $1
million apiece. (Ag Secretary Ann Veneman is the pauper in the bunch,
worth only
$680,000, according to 'The Guardian' of London.)
One of Bush's "ordinary" couples, Paul and Debbie Peterson, will get
a tax cut of $1,100 a year.
Bush himself will get more than 60 times that.
I find that a little vulgar.
According to the Census Bureau, 3.7 million Americans suffer from hunger
as a result of
being unable to buy basic foods. About 9 million households have "uncertain
access to food."
I find that truly vulgar.