President George H. W. Bush: 1924-2018
Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.
Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.
During the 1980 presidential campaign, Republican candidate George H. W. Bush decried Ronald Reagan’s supply-side tax cuts as “voodoo economics” because the policy promised to lower tax rates and generate more production, and thus more tax revenues. Bush’s denunciation of Reagan’s economic vision was a proxy for Keynesian thinkers in both parties, who thought (and think) that tax reductions spur consumption (demand), not production (supply).
Of course, Bush lost to Reagan in the Republican primary that year, in part because Reagan had a more compelling message: let’s cut taxes to get the economy growing instead of cutting them simply to reduce spending. Moreover, Bush was wrong because Reagan’s policies worked.
This weekend, 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the latter’s “Path to Prosperity” budget proposal as “right-wing social engineering.” Why? Because Gingrich thinks changing the way Medicare operates – from straight government subsidy to vouchers – is too “radical.”
But that isn’t stopping Gingrich from continuing to support an individual mandate to buy health insurance. (Like fellow contender Mitt Romney (R-MA), but unlike President Barack Obama, Gingrich wants the individual mandate at the state, not federal, level.) So, in Gingrich’s mind, transforming Medicare from a defined benefit into a defined voucher is “radical,” but mandating individuals to buy health insurance is not?
When Reagan adopted the mantra of economic growth through across-the-board tax cuts in 1980, he gave voters a clear alternative to the shared scarcity narrative being peddled by politicians in both parties. Ryan’s budget proposal is based on Reagan’s insight that less taxes and more growth sells; less choice and more government mandates do not.
Like Reagan, whoever wins the Republican presidential nomination next year will have to make some accommodation with Ryan’s economic vision. Downsizing – whether it’s freedom, opportunity, taxes, or spending – isn’t enough of a message to create the kind of majority needed to enact the kind of policy changes that spur real private sector growth. With positions supporting ethanol subsidies and state level individual mandates, it sounds like Newt Gingrich is more comfortable playing the elder Bush’s role in this campaign.
Yesterday, we noted that Obama’s 2012 reelection odds may not be as high as many currently assume, especially with even higher inflation, gas prices and international chaos on the horizon. Recalling 1991 and the supposedly invincible President George H. W. Bush, Byron York makes the same point with a brilliant summary quote:
Back in 1991, the pundits discussed how hard it would be to defeat a president with a job-approval rating of 90 percent. Now, they’re talking about how hard it would be to defeat a president with a job approval rating of 47 percent.”
There’s an interesting column in Foreign Policy I commend to anyone trying to make sense out of the realignment going on in the Democratic and Republican parties. With former president George W. Bush firmly entrenched in the public’s mind as a neoconservative nation-builder, President Barack Obama did what most political opponents do – adopt the opposite strategy.
Thus, we’ve got a Commander-in-Chief who looks and sounds a lot like former president George H. W. Bush, the highest ranking member of the foreign policy “realist” school. To my lights, foreign policy realism is shorthand for “The world is a really dangerous place run by a lot of bad people. Since there’s nothing we can do to change it we might as well make nice with some of the friendlier dictators.”
Perhaps that notion is correct; at least in general. Such a view of the world helps explain why President Obama can’t seem to summon his emotions when pro-democracy marchers are killed in the streets of Tehran. Bad people do bad things, but hey; it could be worse.
But while Jacob Heilbrunn’s Foreign Policy article does a nice job of recounting the ebb and flow of Realism’s popularity with Republicans, he seems to miss a more obvious point about the kind of politician who would be attracted to the philosophy. Consider the presidents Heilbrunn identifies as fans: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and now Barack Obama. Their commonality? Each president is motivated by pessimism about the world around him.
Eisenhower’s most memorable speech was his farewell address warning about a military-industrial complex. Nixon had enemies’ lists. Bush didn’t see the value of “the vision thing” and preferred to talk shop with elites instead of connecting with everyday citizens. And then there’s Obama. He might be the most negatively-oriented president we’ve had since Nixon. The reason America needs “Hope” and “Change” is because everything is currently broken. Besides, who are Americans to lecture the world on morals when it’s so obvious to Progressive faculty members that the United States is probably at fault for their problems?
Foreign policy realism may be a necessary corrective to neoconservative empire-building, but realism’s lack of popularity doesn’t mean it is right; just that if offers an unsatisfying view of the world.
What if suddenly, after eight years of a “cowboy presidency” and the election of a worldly, foreign policy-hesitant President, America’s biggest nemesis voluntarily offered to deescalate tensions? As the Obama Administration waits for such a breakthrough moment with North Korea, Iran, Hamas, Sudan, Venezuela, and others, a new article in Foreign Policy by David E. Hoffman analyzes the actions of a different man in a similar moment.
Hoffman’s primary criticism of President George H. W. Bush during the tumultuous year of 1989 is that he failed to appreciate the scale and speed of change inside the Soviet Union. On more than one occasion, Bush took a cautious, wait-and-see approach when evaluating Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization programs of perestroika and glasnost. It literally took the Berlin Wall falling down before Bush convinced himself that Gorbachev was serious about implementing fundamental changes both inside and outside Russia.
The title of the article, “1989: The Lost Year,” reflects the missed opportunities that, if realized and acted on, could have led to a much smoother Soviet transition from orthodox communism. Would President Obama be able to distinguish real reforms from empty platitudes, or would he make the same mistakes as Bush Senior? For all of the current president’s stubbornness in ramming through his domestic agenda, he’s shown a conspicuous lack of clarity when it comes to foreign affairs. From urging restraint during the Russian invasion of Georgia to dithering on Afghanistan troop levels, Obama shows signs of being caught off guard in the unlikely event his overtures to America’s enemies actually work.
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