Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, Bob Reich, has argued that ‘musings about a second Bush term typically assume another four years of the same rightwing policies we’ve had to date.’ But, as he points out, the truth is likely to be more complex and more frightening. Instead, George Bush will seek to push his conservative agenda much further and to entrench the political advantage of the right. This will not always lead to straightforwardly conservative policies, but the impact will be that it is much harder for future progressive leaders to unpick the changes that he makes.
Take the example of tax policy, which is likely to be a defining characteristic of Bush’s second term, as it was of his first.
During his first term, Bush has received only two cheers from the right for his stance on tax. To be sure, his unrelenting commitment to tax cuts has gone down a storm. But at the same time, many fiscal conservatives have been alarmed at the administration’s blasé attitude towards the ballooning budget deficit, which will be running at around five percent of GDP by the beginning of Bush’s second term, and is likely to get worse rather than better.
Despite this, Bush is unlikely to take serious action to rein it in. The administration’s current deficit reduction plan, according to conservative commentator Irwin Stelzer, is ‘so unrealistic as to have few defenders, even in his own party’. Furthermore, Bush has taken few steps to assert control over federal spending – indeed, as president he has enthusiastically embraced Big Government, pushing through big increases in spending on defence and homeland security, as well as an unsustainably expensive prescription drug benefit and a bloated farm bill.
And rather than getting to grips with these problems over the next four years, the priority is instead likely to be further costly tax cuts. The White House is reportedly already preparing a major reform of the tax system ‘with the goal of removing disincentives to work and invest’. Translated, this means that there will be yet further reductions in taxes on capital gains, dividends and other forms of unearned income, while the progressive elements of the tax system will be dismantled. This will bring America within reach of the conservative dream of a flat tax and will leave the tax system, in Reich’s words, ‘tilted even more brazenly toward the rich’.
The overall effect of these policies is a dramatically reduced tax base and runaway federal spending – a disastrous combination. But according to the economist Paul Krugman, that is precisely the objective. The Bush tax cuts do not merely reduce the tax take in the short term, but make it much harder to raise taxes again in the future, because whole classes of tax, such as the estate tax, are being eliminated altogether. Raising tax rates would be hard enough, but reintroducing taxes that have been abolished may prove impossible for a future Democratic president. Krugman attributes this to a deliberate ‘starve the beast’ strategy, which would impose a fiscal straightjacket on future administrations and force them to slash spending. The strategy could entrench Republican ideology on tax long after Bush has left office.
Furthermore, the fact that Bush in his second term will be unencumbered by the need to seek re-election gives him much greater freedom to cut back federal spending himself, with Bob Reich predicting that he will ‘slash all domestic spending outside of defense’. This is likely to spell disaster for entitlement programmes like social security and Medicare, which together make up almost 45 percent of the federal budget.
In his second term, Bush will gain a further opportunity to entrench his conservative economic agenda through the appointment of a successor to Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve – regarded by many as the second most powerful person in the United States. One strong possibility is Stanford professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow John Taylor, who helped construct Bush’s tax-cut policy – someone with strong conservative credentials. Another possibility is Martin Feldstein, the Harvard professor who chaired Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers.
One other area of economic policy where we could see change is on the administration’s approach to trade. During his first four years, George Bush has been a ruthlessly political president, whose policies have been shaped by the arithmetic of the electoral college rather than clear principles. Optimists like Irwin Stelzer argue this will change because Bush is ‘by instinct a free trader’ who was ‘forced to give ground to agricultural and industrial protectionists in key electoral states’. Hence he lent his support to the protectionist farm bill and imposed ‘emergency’ tariffs on foreign steel imports. By a happy coincidence, the principal beneficiaries of these measures were swing states like Iowa, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. But it seems unlikely that the policy-making apparatus of the administration would change so fundamentally in Bush’s second term, particularly when many of the swing states in this year’s election have protectionist issues – sugar in Florida, ethanol in Iowa, steel in West Virginia.
Social policy is one other area where we are likely to see a deliberate effort to entrench conservative policies. During his first election campaign, George Bush famously described himself as ‘a uniter, not a divider’. This year’s election carries a similar message, with a succession of moderates paraded for the voters at the Republican National Convention. In practice, however, Bush has sought ruthlessly to exploit social divisions for partisan advantage. His support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which sought to change the constitution to ban gay marriage, was a cynical attempt to improve his stock among evangelical Christians, four million of whom failed to vote in the last presidential race, and who are seen by Bush’s chief political strategist Karl Rove as key to securing re-election.
If Bush relies for re-election on the support of fundamentalist Christians, he will come under considerable pressure to deliver on their social agenda. And re-election will liberate him from the remaining constraints. This could mean that radical conservatives in the administration, like Attorney General John Ashcroft, will be given free reign over a wide range of policy issues from education to civil liberties and abortion.
Most worryingly, Bush is likely to be presented with a golden opportunity to entrench this conservative social agenda long after he has left office. At least one Supreme Court justice, probably Sandra Day O’Connor or Chief Justice William Rehnquist, may well retire during Bush’s second term, providing Bush with an opportunity to tilt the balance of the court firmly in favour of the conservatives. O’Connor, a Reagan appointee, is regarded as a swing justice, and her retirement could give Bush the opportunity to create a conservative majority on the court. This advantage could be consolidated further by the retirement of Rehnquist, which would open the way for ultra-conservative Antonin Scalia to be appointed Chief Justice.
Finally, against this backdrop is the long-term project to transform the Republicans into the dominant party of American politics, led by Rove and Republican gerrymander-in-chief Tom DeLay. Partisan redistricting already means that the House of Representatives has fewer than half the number of competitive seats of the House of Commons, and the Democrats stand only a tiny chance of regaining control despite the fact that the American electorate is so evenly divided. Another four years for George Bush will provide the cover needed to entrench this advantage further.
At present, most people are preoccupied with the legacy of George Bush’s first four years in office. But to focus on that alone is to lose sight of the wider threat – Bush’s aim to reshape American society in a way that cannot be unpicked by the Democrats. And that is what is at stake if he secures re-election.