The Grief Behind The Smile
Robert L. Borosage
October 14, 2004
President Bush's performance last night was more of the same for him—more touting policies that have failed working families and more promises that will make things worse. Campaign For America's Future Co-Director Robert Borosage does some fact-checking—and finds that what Bush said last night is far from the reality.
Robert L. Borosage , a veteran strategist and ins ution builder, is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future.
The goofy smile plastered on George Bush’s face in last night’s debate probably reflected the advice of handlers trying to make up for the president’s scowling performance in the first debate and his manic, handwaving theatrics in the second. But the smile seemed bizarrely out of place in a debate that finally turned attention to America’s kitchen table concerns—the things people worry about at night after the kids go to bed. Here no amount of smiling or name calling could distract from the reality that Bush cannot admit: His policies have failed and his promises will make things worse.
On jobs, as Sen. Kerry stated, George Bush has the worst jobs record of any president since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression. Asked about jobs, the president bizarrely talked about helping workers get training. This is something of an insult to the high-skilled workers and highly educated programmers who have watched their jobs get shipped abroad. The reality is that Bush’s tax cuts—which he promised would create 7 million new jobs—have failed. Not tied to jobs here in the United States, they helped run up the largest deficits in history while creating more work in Shanghai than in Cincinnati. And the president promises only more of the same. He’s about to sign a shameless corporate tax giveaway that, among many other outrages, actually benefits Chinese producers of ceiling fans—a payoff to Sen. Zell Miller, no doubt, for delivering the poisonous keynote at the president’s convention.
On wages, the reality, as Sen. Kerry noted, is that wages aren’t keeping up with prices. Asked about raising the minimum wage, which is at its lowest value in 50 years, the president talked once more about education. He not only opposes raising the minimum wage, he pushed through regulations—over the objections of majorities in both houses of Congress—to strip millions of workers of their overtime pay. He’s declared open season on unions, with his Labor Department refusing to prosecute rampant illegal corporate suppression of workers who try to organize. And his trade policies—particularly his craven surrender to China’s rigging of its markets and currency—have worsened pressure on wages here at home.
On health care, the president once more bragged about his prescription drug bill. But as Sen. Kerry noted, in a shameless payoff of the drug lobby, the bill actually prohibits Medicare from negotiating a better price for seniors. The result, as the independent Consumer’s Union has shown, is that most seniors will end up paying more, not less, for their prescriptions.
Similarly, the president continues to burlesque Kerry’s health care plans. The reality is that soaring health care costs are pricing health insurance out of the reach of more and more small businesses and damaging the compe iveness of large corporations. Kerry offers an ambitious plan to extend health insurance to those without, to relieve businesses of the costs of catastrophic care, lowering prices for all, and to provide citizens with the range of choices offered to senators and representatives. He pays for this plan by repealing the top end of Bush’s tax cuts, opening himself to the president’s jibes about being a tax and spend liberal. In contrast, the president has done nothing and offers less. He defends tax cuts for millionaires over health care for workers. He stands with the drug companies over seniors. His own token proposals on health savings accounts would actually give small businesses incentives to discontinue the health care they now offer employees. His policies have failed; his promises would make things worse.
On education, the president boasted repeatedly about his No Child Left Behind school reforms. But, as Sen. Kerry noted, he broke his promise to fund those reforms by $27 billion over four years, earning the rebuke even of Republican state legislatures in Utah and Virginia. Worse, his budget calls for cuts in education across the board starting next year, right after the election. He has done nothing to extend Head Start to the 40 percent of eligible kids who can’t get it. As Kerry noted, he’s sought to cut funding for 600,000 kids in after-school programs. He’s building schools in Iraq while cutting the Clinton program to aid school construction at home.
On college, the president’s failure is most notable. The harsh reality is that, as the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education concluded, in most states, public universities are not affordable for most families. The president has made things worse by breaking his campaign promise to raise the level of Pell grants, the leading government scholarship program that hasn’t been keeping up with soaring tuition rates. Now he repeats the promise, even as his budget plans cuts, not increases in education spending.
On retirement security, the president broke his promise to preserve the Social Security surplus, squandering it on his top end tax cuts. Now he vows to privatize Social Security, but won’t say where he’d get the $1 trillion that would be drained from Social Security if his plan went through. Private accounts are said to be popular with younger workers, but they will be the chief victims of the president’s plan. They will have to pay not only for their own private accounts, but for the full retirement of their parent’s generation, while accepting deep cuts in their own guaranteed benefits. That $1 trillion bill will be sent to them one way or another. On retirement security, the president’s policies have failed and his promises would make things worse.
The debate didn’t touch on gas prices and energy, but here too the president’s record is one of failure. We’re losing lives guarding oil pipelines in Iraq, even as oil supplies aren’t keeping up with demand. His energy plan, cobbled together in secret meetings with oil and gas companies, would only increase our dependence on foreign oil. Sen. Kerry, in contrast, has endorsed a drive to move towards energy independence over a decade by investing in energy efficiency, in conservation, in alternative energy and new technologies. As the Apollo Alliance has shown, this can not only free us from dependence on Middle Eastern oil, it will generate good jobs here in the United States and help us capture the green markets of the future.
At kitchen tables across America, worries are going up. Jobs are less secure; health care and college less affordable; retirement security too often a shattered dream. Things are getting worse, not better. Most of us don’t expect government to solve those problems. But we don’t expect an administration to make them worse, either. Last night’s debate wasn’t dramatic. The president kept that half-smile, half-grimace on his face most of the night. He kept calling Kerry names, clearly his message for the night. But his performance, once more, couldn’t hide the stark reality. On kitchen-table concerns, the president’s policies have failed—and his promises will only make things worse. When push comes to shove, he stands with what he once called “my base—the haves and the have-mores,” and is simply not on the side of America’s working families.
Why are income taxes expected to cover Social Security? Do you really relish losing effectively 15% of your income to Social Security and Medicare? Do you feel you are too stupid to prepare adequately for your own retirement? If the role of the government is to create jobs, what exactly should this administration have done differently?
As for the rest of the article, it's standard partisan BS. And a link would have been nice.
The question should be, why are Social Security investments expected to cover exorbant spending by the current administration? I thought W. said he wasn't gonna touch the SS surplus?Why are income taxes expected to cover Social Security?
SS is not an "investment."
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