By Patrick Martin
1 March 2001
There was more than the usual degree of political hokum in the nationally
televised speech to Congress delivered by George W.
Bush Tuesday night. Both the political events surrounding Bush's entry
into the White House and the policies advanced by the
Republican president contributed to an air of unreality, if not outright
fraud.
There was the traditional pomp and circumstance of a presidential address:
a joint session of Congress; the presence of the
cabinet, the diplomatic corps, the military brass and other assorted
dignitaries; a simultaneous broadcast on all the major television
networks. But these could not disguise the fact that Bush took the
rostrum as a political pretender.
Bush owes his presidency not to the will of the electorate—who preferred
Democrat Al Gore by a margin of 600,000 votes—but
to the anti-democratic intervention of a 5-4 majority on the US Supreme
Court. No president for more than a century has assumed
office with less of a popular mandate for his policies.
Opinion polls published on the eve of the speech showed Bush to be less
popular after his first month in office than any president
at a similar point in his administration over the previous 50 years.
He stands lower in the polls than Clinton did before the latest
wave of media scandal-mongering about presidential pardons.
Despite the efforts of Bush and the Democrats to appear cordial, the
tensions stemming from the Florida election crisis were
visible at the joint session. When the House usher announced the arrival
of the Supreme Court justices, there was audible booing
from the Democratic side. In the event, only one justice entered the
chamber, Stephen Breyer, who had voted in favor of
continuing the recount in Florida. As he passed down the aisle, a top
Republican, House Majority Leader Richard Armey, refused
to shake his hand.
The absence of the remaining eight justices, including all five who
favored the Republican candidate in their December 12 ruling in
Bush v. Gore, has a political significance. Most likely the right-wing
majority calculated that their presence at the speech would
have focused attention on their unprecedented role as kingmakers in
the presidential contest.
The surplus and its uses
Bush devoted the bulk of his speech to arguing that the federal budget
surpluses projected over the next decade are so massive
that his proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut—half of which goes to the wealthiest
one percent of Americans—is really quite modest and
affordable.
This policy is based on willful blindness to economic reality. It assumes
that American capitalism will never again experience a
significant recession; that the United States can continue an unprecedented
financial boom indefinitely, regardless of global
conditions; that the contradictions of the profit system, expressed
in the fluctuations of the business cycle and in larger and more
protracted financial crises, are no longer a factor.
This is assumed under conditions where the US economy is visibly moving
into recession. Bush hinted at this trend, suggesting that
his tax cut plan would stimulate the economy and guard against a slump.
The president did not address the obvious corollary: any
slowdown in the US economy, especially in the booming financial markets,
will cut government revenues, sharply reduce the
projected surpluses, and make a mockery of the budget forecasts on
which the administration's tax cut plan is based.
Even a right-wing supporter of Bush's policies, retired congressman
Bill Archer of Texas, former chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, suggested that making firm predictions about the
performance of the US economy 10 years into the future
means entering into “never-never land.” Yet it is precisely on such
financial fairy tales that Bush's budget plans are predicated.
While the surplus is largely hypothetical, the use which Bush plans
for it is not. He proposes to begin immediately the biggest-ever
transfer of wealth from working class Americans to the super-rich.
This includes the abolition of the inheritance tax, costing
upwards of $200 billion as it is phased out over 10 years, and $50
billion a year thereafter; a reduction in income tax rates across
the board, with the biggest reduction for the highest incomes; and
other provisions that will disproportionately favor the wealthy.
It is remarkable that an American president can deliver a speech which
begins with a litany of unmet social needs—poverty,
failing schools, elderly people unable to afford prescription drugs,
an energy crisis—and yet propose, as his single largest outlay,
funneling nearly $800 billion into the pockets of the wealthiest Americans.
It is even more remarkable that the speech meets virtually no serious
opposition within the political establishment. Bush proposes
to give the surplus to the wealthy. His spineless Democratic opponents,
together with some Republicans, suggest that it is more
important to pay down the national debt. Not one Democratic or Republican
politician suggests that the budget surplus should be
used to increase spending to meet social needs.
A nonentity in the White House
Bush's budget speech was more than a manifestation of right-wing politics,
catering to the crass self-interest of the wealthy. It
demonstrated the disorientation of a government and a ruling elite
that are poorly prepared for the inevitable emergence of a sharp
economic, social and political crisis.
An important factor in this crisis—although concealed by the fawning
press coverage of Bush's first month in office—is the
intellectual and political vacuity of the man who occupies the White
House. As in his two press conferences, the first in Mexico
and the second last week in Washington, the speech to Congress provided
an embarrassing glimpse of the inner Bush.
His language was banal in the extreme, crafted by speech writers intent
not so much in talking down to the American people as in
keeping the argument on a plane commensurate with the intellectual
abilities and knowledge of the speaker. Any and all phrases
that might have led to a repetition of the verbal stumbles of the election
campaign were avoided. Hence the short, simple,
declarative sentences, the quotes from Yogi Berra and the echoes of
the children's tale about Goldilocks—a tax cut not too big,
not too small, but “just right.”
Following Bush's press conferences, Michael Allen of the Washington
Post wrote, somewhat charitably: “Throughout his first
month in office, the president's remarks on substantive issues have
been consistent but in every case brief, leading policy analysts
and congressional leaders to question whether the pattern is more indicative
of an exceptionally disciplined politician, or one with a
shallow grasp of the issues at hand.”
As bizarre as it might seem, the president of the United States appears
to be a man not terribly interested in politics. A barely
noted fact about Tuesday's speech is that it was the first such event
which George W. Bush has ever attended personally, even
though his father delivered three State of the Union addresses to joint
sessions of Congress, and sat in the vice presidential chair
as Ronald Reagan delivered eight more.
During the four years of his father's presidency, the younger Bush indicated
no real interest in politics or policy, preferring instead
the fellowship of oil millionaires and baseball owners. Not until 1994,
at the age of 46, did he decide on a serious political
commitment, running for governor of Texas, against the advice of his
parents and Republican Party professionals.
George W. Bush enters the White House, not only as the least experienced
president of the past century, but also as the least
traveled. The American ruling elite likes to think of the United States
as the world's only remaining superpower, but the new chief
executive knows little or nothing about that world.
Bush has traveled to Europe only once in his life, despite the opportunities
provided by wealth and his father's political position. His
one visit was a brief stopover in Italy to visit his daughter while
she was studying there. He has never visited Britain, France,
Germany, Japan or Russia. His only long overseas trip was to China,
while his father was US envoy there, and he has been to
Mexico, mainly brief trips across the Rio Grande from his home state
of Texas. He has never been to South America, Africa,
India or Australia.
The new president not only does not like to travel, he does not like
to read—reportedly preferring executive summaries to the texts
of documents, and avoiding books unless they concern sports. (During
the Florida election crisis he was engrossed in a biography
of baseball player Joe DiMaggio.) His weekends resting at the ranch,
his abbreviated office hours and frequent naps—despite
apparently excellent health—suggest that President George W. Bush does
not like to work very hard.
These facts are largely concealed by the press. The New York Times,
for instance, in its editorial on the budget speech, called it a
“poised, focused and warmly received address ... with some eloquent
flourishes that showcased Mr. Bush's likability [and]
self-confidence.” CBS news anchor Dan Rather said the speech demonstrated
Bush's “political growth” in the brief period since
his inauguration.
Bush and Cheney
In the initial stages of the Bush administration, there were attempts
to put a good face on the president's less than strenuous
activity level, suggesting that Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney
would team up in the style of a corporate CEO and Chief
Operating Officer—one setting policy, the other supervising its day-to-day
execution. Another interpretation was that Bush would
act as ceremonial head of state, with Cheney serving as de facto prime
minister.
Such musings ignore a fundamental fact of the US constitutional structure:
there is not a separation, as in other capitalist
democracies, between the head of state and head of government. While
in many countries a constitutional monarch or president
carries out ceremonial functions, while the prime minister actually
directs policy-making and the daily operations of government, in
the United States these roles are combined in a single office.
The US president is ultimately answerable to the ruling corporate and
financial oligarchy, but his office is not that of a mere
figurehead. The presidency is at the center of a vortex of conflicting
social and political forces. The occupant of the White House
holds the highest office in a massive, highly complex and volatile
society. Recent events—the impeachment of Clinton, the election
crisis of 2000—have revealed an enormous sharpening of tensions, both
between the major social classes, and within the ruling
economic and political strata. There are many signs of deep divisions
and the growth of centrifugal tendencies within the political
establishment. Especially under such conditions, the political, emotional
and intellectual demands on the president are considerable.
The divisions that exist within the US ruling elite as a whole are reflected
within the Bush administration. Overseas commentators
have raised concerns over the apparent lack of cohesion within the
Bush administration, especially in foreign policy matters. It is
well known, for example, that there are divisions within Bush's foreign
affairs team over US policy toward Iraq, with Cheney and
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld skeptical, at best, over the proposal of
Secretary of State Colin Powell to scale back the sanctions
regime against Baghdad.
But with the installation of Bush—in a manner that has compromised his
legitimacy from the outset—the American ruling elite has
elevated a man wholly unqualified and unequipped to meet the demands
of his office. There exists a gaping vacuum of leadership
at the center of the American government, a vacuum that, like the tax
cut plan, expresses both disorientation and recklessness on
the part of decisive sections of the US ruling elite. They are consumed
by the most short-term considerations, above all, by the
state of their stock portfolios. All other issues are subordinated
to the overriding question of how to enrich those who are already
wealthy beyond belief.
Not since the waning days of the Reagan administration has a US president
been so visibly out of his depth and politically
disengaged. The consequences then were the Iran-contra affair and the
emergence of a secret “government within the
government”—a network of military and intelligence operatives that
carried out its own foreign policy, with the tacit approval of
the president.
The American ruling class is unprepared, both in terms of its policies
and its leading personnel, for the shocks that it will inevitably
encounter. It faces a host of political flashpoints overseas, from
Russia to the Middle East, from Indonesia to Colombia. It faces a
mounting economic and financial crisis both within the US and internationally.
And most importantly, it faces powerful but as yet
inarticulate opposition from the great mass of working people at home.