The second term blues
From the Boston Globe – “Bush’s sputtering second term”: “This can’t be the way George W. Bush and Karl Rove imagined the president's second term would go. Less than seven months after Bush won reelection, strengthening his party's hold on Congress as he did so, the president has hit a wall with his domestic agenda.”
Clearly, some of the President’s problems stem from an obstreperous minority party in the Senate (the House of Representatives seems, ironically, more orderly.) I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that when the only tool you have is a filibuster, it gets used a lot.
But I’m most disappointed about Bush’s efforts to do something to reform Social Security: he simply has not managed to move the ball on this issue. To be fair, he has raised the profile of Social Security’s pending insolvency and the message appears to have reached a lot of younger Americans, who overwhelmingly favor reform. But a hard core of Americans who actually vote (the seniors) are opposed to any change, even though it doesn’t affect them. Meanwhile, the Democrats are content to bury taxpayers under the crush of entitlement spending for temporary political gain.
Maybe I set my expectations too high. I fervently and hopefully believed that when Americans looked at the numbers (2 – 3 = negative fun!) they would accept that reform is necessary, sooner rather than later. But, just like the Senate filibuster deal, it’s so much easier to kick the can down the road.
5 comments:
It isn't particularly odd that lame duck status is setting in. Clinton became a lame duck as of Congress' 1997 August recess, and the only significant policy that came out of his second term was the finalization of the first federal surplus in decades (which, of course, was a product of Newt and the GOP Congress). I'd say Bush has until August, when Congress goes out of session, to accomplish his remaining big domestic goals. Otherwise, the war on terror will continue and Bush will largely be able to influence foreign policy more than domestic.
Bush's express remaining domestic goals are three: 1) judges, 2) Soc Sec reform, 3) a national energy policy. The most likely to go Bush's way are the judges. The deal that was struck indicates, among other things, that a lot of moderate Dems don't want to filibuster judicial nominees anymore, and that they have no real problem with mainstream conservative nominees. Landrieu and Byrd voted not just for cloture, but for Owen's confirmation! And the most likely SCOTUS nominees will replace other GOP Justices on the Court, like Rehnquist and O'Connor. In the aggregate, we'll probably see a bit of fighting over O'Connor's replacement, but a victory for the president on 2 SCOTUS nominees this summer and the appointment of most subsequent picks for other courts.
The energy bill may still happen and is probably the one piece of the Bush agenda that could go through in 2006 without a huge problem. Congress will pack it with pork to entice members to support it during an election year. Chances Bush will get it: better than even.
Soc Sec reform won't happen UNLESS the McCain 14 broker a deal and tell Reid to shove it when it comes to opposing any Soc Sec reform bill. But any deal that those Senators would broker would probably take private accts off the table and be a mixture of benefit cuts, raising the tax cap, means testing, and raising the retirement age to keep the system solvent for another few decades. Would Bush sign a bill that included both a tax hike AND gutted his private accts? He could probably live with one, but not both. Probably won't happen, which means 2008 will be all about how to deal with Soc Sec and Medicare insolvency as well as the deficit and debt.
Move the ball?
Social security "reform" is dead. It's not going anywhere.
The people see W's moves for what they are: a complete dismantling of SS.
"Clearly, some of the President’s problems stem from an obstreperous minority party in the Senate (the House of Representatives seems, ironically, more orderly.)"
As usual, the so-called "originalists" would prefer to remember the views of the Framers only when it's convenient. The Senate was intended as the moderating influence upon the raw democracy of the House. The mechanisms that drive Senate decision-making towards the center and away from strict majority rule are there by design. It is the today's overbearing, overreaching majority that upsets tradition and defies original intent -- not an "obstreperous minority".
The lockstep "majority of the majority" thinking of Hastert's House is equally offensive to the intent of the Framers. The actual irony here is that conservatives would preceive this as the natural order of things.
As usual, the so-called "originalists" would prefer to remember the views of the Framers only when it's convenient. The Senate was intended as the moderating influence upon the raw democracy of the House. The mechanisms that drive Senate decision-making towards the center and away from strict majority rule are there by design. It is the today's overbearing, overreaching majority that upsets tradition and defies original intent -- not an "obstreperous minority".
The Senate lost any real structural ability to be a "moderating influence" - and, I might add, the undue influence of big money which has come to fruition was made possible - with the passage of the 17th Amendment. I love TR for many reasons, but that train-wreck of an amendment put the Republic waaaayy out of kilter.
You might think you know what "originalist" means, but you obviously haven't met me.
I agree with Anonymous. Whereas Anonymous is full of crap.
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