American politics
Saving the Bush presidency
From The Economist print edition
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An opportunity exists in American politics. The White House and the Democrats should grab it
HISTORY can be kinder to presidents than journalists and voters are. Like Truman, Johnson and Nixon before him, George Bush has seen his approval ratings wither under the burden of an unpopular war. But all three of those presidents look better now than they did when they were in power. Is it possible that the same, one day, will be said of Mr Bush? The verdict of history will depend not just on the first six years of his presidency, but on the last two as well. And there is some room for hope that in the 100 weeks left to him he can push himself up the rankings, especially in domestic policy.
That is not to deny that foreign affairs will be central to Mr Bush's reputation. His name will be forever associated with bloody bungling in Iraq, the blatant injustice of Guantánamo Bay, the corrosive stalemate in the Middle East and, alas, much more. Not all these blunders are wholly Mr Bush's fault, but he should strive to rectify them, whether it be by giving the “surge” of troops in Baghdad the best possible chance of success, seeing through his half-finished policy in Afghanistan (see article), or being more creative in the search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Too easily obscured by these monumental challenges are other pressing possibilities closer to home—opportunities American politicians should not ignore. Even if Mr Bush's main legacy lies in Mesopotamia, he should not forget about Maine and Minnesota. And neither should the Democrats.
For there is suddenly a lot at stake in American domestic politics (see article). His whipping in the mid-term elections seems to have had an effect on Mr Bush: his most senior officials are quietly exploring the possibility of deals with his opponents. Reforms may be hammered out in education and immigration and (at a stretch) the environment and the Social Security pension system. Even in health care, lots of good new ideas are flying about; and the chance of Mr Bush keeping fast-track authority for trade deals has not entirely gone.
The Democrats' calculations have also changed. Many of the Bush-loathing party faithful would rather delay progress of any sort until a Democratic president is elected in 2008. But the party's more pragmatic leaders, such as Senator Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the House (see article), know that they have to win the election first—and that moderate voters may not take kindly to them if they do nothing. That means dealing with Mr Bush, who is still a veto-wielding president. Several causes dear to Democratic hearts, such as a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, could be blocked by Mr Bush unless he has an incentive not to do so.
Education is the area where progress is likely soonest. One of Mr Bush's domestic successes, the No Child Left Behind Act, requires schools to test pupils more and publish the results. It has helped improve basic literacy and numeracy a bit, but would work better if it were more rigorous. Republicans want to tighten up the testing part, but not to spend much more money. The Democrats, enslaved to the teachers' unions, want the precise opposite. A swift compromise, involving better tests and a bit more money, will not solve the problem of America's schools, but it is considerably better than nothing.
A bigger, though much harder, prize will be immigration. Mr Bush's plans, which involve tighter border security, a guest-worker programme and a path to citizenship for the 12m or so illegal immigrants already in America is sensible and humane. The Democrats mostly agree with him: the plan failed last year because of opposition from House Republicans, who have now lost their majority. A concerted push could produce a breakthrough—though Mr Bush will have to be brave enough to split the Republican Party to get it.
Or there is the environment. Mr Bush favoured capping carbon emissions until the voices of industry prevailed. But change is in the air. The president now accepts that humans have helped make the planet hotter. All the presidential front-runners, Republican and Democratic, favour some form of carbon-capping. Assuming a climate-change bill emerges in Congress, Mr Bush will face a stark choice: veto it, watch the Democrats claim the higher ground, and, almost certainly, see a far tougher bill go through after 2008; or help draft a milder version now, improve his party's reputation on green issues and just possibly lure India and China into a global arrangement. How that would change the Toxic Texan's legacy.
What about the huge entitlement programmes which, unchecked, will bankrupt the federal government? On Medicare, the health programme for the elderly, serious progress looks impossible: the parties are too far apart and the problem too intractable. But reforming the tax treatment of health insurance and extending coverage to more children looks plausible. As for Social Security, the “third rail” of America politics, everyone knows that a compromise would be based on some combination of benefit cuts (as Mr Bush prefers) and higher revenues (the Democrats' solution), with perhaps the new revenues going into personal retirement accounts through which people could also be forced to save more. Neither side is budging an inch; but the involvement of the pragmatic Hank Paulson, the banker turned treasury secretary, is a good sign.
It would be foolish to hope for too much: the ill will is great, compromises are hard to fashion and time is short (the next presidential contest is soon upon us). But it would be foolish too to demand too little, for two reasons.
First, divided government has often produced fruitful compromises: think of Ronald Reagan's 1986 tax reform or Bill Clinton's welfare reforms of ten years later. And second, compromise in many of the issues now under discussion is not just feasible, but the right thing to do. If Mr Bush leaves little of substance behind at home in areas as important as immigration and pensions, he deserves all the rough handling history can give him. As for the congressional Democrats, if they stand in the way of progress, they will deserve a mauling in 2008 just as surely as the Republicans did in 2006.
American politics | Saving the Bush presidency | Economist.com
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