The Washington Post reported Bush’s misadventures while campaigning in Vermont for a freshman congressman who dwelt on his differences with Bush: “Looking flustered [Bush] stumbled in and out of a speech text . . . and then said that ‘we have a sluggish economy out there nationally. That’s one of the reasons why I favor this deficit so much,’ he misspoke. The crowd looked puzzled.” Not as puzzled as Washington was by this headline: PRESIDENT SEEKS FIRING OF PARTY OFFICIAL. Seeks ‘? Must a president say “pretty please”? Ed Rollins, a GOP congressional campaign aide, urged candidates to oppose Bush’s abandonment of his “no new taxes” pledge. Perhaps Rollins was wrong to urge candidates to campaign as irresponsibly as Bush did in 1988. But any candidate would be a joke if he mimicked Bush’s recent policy staggers and somersaults. Bush should indeed fire some people. It is dangerous–in business, in government, in life generally–when there is no penalty for failure. So why is John Sununu, an architect of this debacle, still sitting in the rubble, boasting that it is proof of how clever he is?
Now the game of trivial pursuit (the budget talks) gives way to the game of charades (congressional election “contests”). The pursuit of a trivial deal was crowned with success, as Washington measures such things. Maybe $32 billion (the $40 billion figure is produced by bogus bookkeeping) will be cut from a more than $400 billion deficit (honestly calculated) in a $1.3 trillion budget financed by a $5.6 trillion economy. The economic importance of this cut (nick?) is negligible. The political consequences are not.
Bush has been routed by George Mitchell, the Democrats’ toughest leader since Lyndon Johnson. Bush decreed deadlines; none held. He was adamant against rate increases, rates were increased. He demanded a capital gains cut; there is none. He traded his tax pledge for spending restraint; there is not a fundamental change in any government program. Spending is soaring, for congressional salaries and many discretionary programs. The deficit is rising more than twice as fast as the “deal” cuts it.
House members have gone home for “races” that mostly are cakewalks. Incumbents are running in 406 of the 435 districts. Sixty-seven are unopposed. Twenty others have only minor-party opponents. Most incumbents have featherweight opponents who as of Sept. 30 had raised only derisory sums (less than $26,000). The results will resemble 1988, when 361 won with landslides of more than 60 percent.
The eight most populous states are electing governors. Democrats are winning, or within striking distance, in all eight. California, Ohio, Texas, Illinois and Florida are close. Democratic incumbents in Michigan and Pennsylvania are not even breathing hard. In New York the Republican candidate is a laughingstock. All these states will redistrict in 1991. Every Democratic governor elected in 1990 increases the probability that 2002 will be the 48th consecutive year of Democratic control of the House.
Regarding Senate races, a small number of votes in a few states can produce substantial changes in Washington. In 1982 Republicans held five Senate seats by a total margin of 65,182 votes. That means a change of just 32,592 votes would have given Democrats control of the Senate and stalled Reagan’s presidency. In 1986 Democrats won control of the Senate, winning six races by a total of 71,712 votes. Reagan was thereafter stymied in domestic policy.
Today Democrats control the Senate 55-45. If in January the score is 67-43, Democrats will dominate the domestic agenda even more. Bush, who recently blurted out that he much prefers dealing with foreign policy than with people and problems here at home, may-get his implicit wish: he may become, essentially, Secretary of State.
President’s passion: Remember the plaintive cry, “let Reagan be Reagan”? No one is saying “let Bush be Bush. " This is Bush. He has hurt himself by his flippant style (“Read my hips”) and his frivolous substance, particularly his torrid love affair with the idea of a capital gains tax cut. Never in the history of the presidency has there been such a preposterous disproportion between a president’s passion and the societal importance of what he is passionate about. That passion is one reason the Democrats have been able to milk so much from the “fairness” issue.
But who are they to talk? The wealthy have indeed benefited from a capital gains cut–the one passed in 1978 by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic president. Income-tax progressivity was indeed reduced by the 1986 tax reform–which was supported by Democratic majorities in both chambers. The most important recent increase in the regressivity of the tax system came from the social-security tax increases, which many liberal Democrats advocated. And this month when Pat Moynihan forced his colleagues (not for the last time) to vote on cutting those taxes most Democrats opposed him.
Democrats are recidivists, again making the tax code more baroque, trying to use it to redistribute wealth and fine-tune “fairness.” It is all too silly, this sham battle, with Democrats posing as defenders of the middle class against the odious rich. The middle class is where the money is. Any serious tax must hit there. You could confiscate the incomes of all millionaires and not balance the budget. Someone should tell Democrats Andrew Carnegie’s response to the socialist who harangued him about redistribution. Carnegie asked his secretary for two numbers–the world’s population and the value of all his assets. He divided the latter by the former, then said to his secretary, “Give this gentleman 16 cents. That is his share of my net worth.”
Democrats are doing well, if not good, with flimsy arguments. The fact that the flimsy seems formidable is proof of the strange political physics of the Bush presidency: How can something lighter than air fall so fast?
