The president is in trouble because when people discuss their concerns over their kitchen tables, things are getting worse, not better, argues strategist and Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage. While Americans don't expect their government to solve their problems, they do expect that the president will be on their side, concerned about the same things they're concerned about—jobs, health care, education. All the jingoistic choreography in New York doesn't change the fact that Bush/Cheney '04 don't have a plan to fix America's problems.
Robert L. Borosage , a veteran strategist and institution builder, is co-director of theCampaign for America's Future.
The Republicans began their political cross-dressing as soon as they opened the show in New York. For months, George Bush has run a foul, bottom-feeding campaign, the most negative in modern history. In New York, he has stuffed the radical right he's been pandering to into the closet, parading the party's few remaining moderates on stage, while reviving compassion once more in rhetoric, if not reality.
It will take more than political guru Karl Rove's cosmetic wizardry to make over this president's calamitous record: Foreign policy professionals decry the "mess in Iraq," as a retiring Republican congressman gently termed it, which has left the United States less admired and less secure. Economists record the worst jobs record since the Great Depression, the largest budget deficits ever, and the largest trade deficits in history, leaving the country ever more dependent on foreign creditors.
But these are abstractions that are hard for voters to understand. The president is in trouble because when most people in the United States discuss their concerns over their kitchen tables late at night, things are getting worse, not better. And Bush's policies are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Consider:
—Wages aren't keeping up with prices; jobs are scarce, and the ones that are being created offer less in wages and benefits than the ones that are lost. Bush's tax-and-trade policies have generated more jobs in Shanghai than in Cincinnati. And his opposition to increasing the minimum wage and his efforts to strip workers of overtime literally takes money from workers' pockets.
—Healthcare costs are soaring, forcing companies to cut back on benefits. Bush has no plan to address the healthcare crisis. Worse, he pushed through a prescription drug plan that actually prohibits Medicare from negotiating a better price for seniors, while sustaining the ban on importing cheaper drugs from abroad. The nonpartisan Consumers' Union concludes most seniors will end up paying more for drugs. Bush turned a $500 billion benefit to seniors into a giveaway to drug companies—whose executives, not surprisingly, are big contributors to the president's record campaign funds.
—Schools are overcrowded and underrepaired. One in three schools use trailers as classrooms. Teachers are leaving the classroom at alarming rates. Up to 15 million children are home alone after school, even as after-school programs are cut. Colleges are being priced out of reach of more and more families. But Bush broke his promise to fund his own education reforms, earning rebuke from state legislatures, including even Republican bastions in Utah and Virginia. He broke his promise to increase the level of Pell grants, the leading government college scholarship program. And now his budget calls for cuts in education across the board—starting the year after the election.
—Many workers found their retirement dreams shattered in the stock market bust, with companies like Enron fleecing workers of their savings. Bush's "reform" excluded workers from supervision of their company retirement plans, and would make it easier for executives to provide pensions for the top floor while doing nothing for the shop floor.
Bush's Social Security plan calls for deep cuts in guaranteed benefits in exchange for individual risk accounts, mirroring the hit workers took when companies drastically cut their contributions in the switch from pensions to private retirement accounts.
The threat posed by terror is obviously a central concern of Americans. But here, too, the president has clearly made things worse. He chose to make war on Iraq, against the objections of his own counterterrorist experts, the secretary of State, our allies, the United Nations and much of the world. The resulting debacle squandered the global support the United States enjoyed after 9/11, while embittering the Muslim world and providing Al Qaeda with an invaluable recruiting boost. United States intelligence reports Al Qaeda has been able to regroup and poses a greater threat than ever. And the people of the United States have been forced to bear the costs—more than $150 billion and counting —and the casualties—more than 6,500 dead and wounded—virtually alone.
Americans don't hold the president responsible for their problems, and don't expect the government to solve them. But at the very least, they want a president who is on their side and not making things worse. Republicans can hide the right-wing zealots in the closet and dress up as moderates. But they can't hide the fact that Bush's failures are adding to our burdens, not relieving them.
