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DLC | Blueprint Magazine | October 7, 2004
Bush's Failed Presidency
If John Kerry closes the presidential campaign with a strong New Democrat message, Bush won't be able to dodge the hard facts of his record in office.
By Al From and Bruce Reed
TO: The Democratic Party
FROM: Al From and Bruce Reed
SUBJECT: The Case Against Bush
The best reason some presidencies last only one term comes from America's first one-term president. As John Adams said, "Facts are stubborn things."
George W. Bush goes into the 2004 election with the facts solidly against him. The nation is at war, and Bush isn't winning it. In four short years, the strongest economic run in our history has given way to the weakest recovery in 75 years. Judged by the standards he set for himself in the 2000 campaign -- to be a uniter, not a divider; to usher in a responsibility era; and to restore honor and integrity to the
White House -- Bush is not only a flip-flopper, but a failure to boot.
Bush knows he can't win a second
term on that record. So he's followed a
simple strategy: pound the table, disparage
his opponent, and try to make
Americans forget the facts. But he
shouldn't be allowed to get away with
it -- and he won't, if John Kerry closes
with a strong New Democrat message
that refocuses the campaign on the
facts.
For all Bush's troubles, Democrats
must show Americans that they will
stand up for their values and economic
interests and can be trusted to keep
America safe in a dangerous world. We
shouldn't kid ourselves: Bush's entire
political agenda -- on taxes, national
security, and values -- is to put
Democrats back in the mold that Bill
Clinton worked so hard to break. Ageold
doubts about Democratic toughness
will never go away if we don't keep
working every day to dispel them.
Eighteen months ago, President
Clinton, the last Democrat to unseat an
incumbent, spelled out the formula for
beating this one. A presidential campaign
is like a job interview, he said.
To win, you have to show America
why they should hire you and fire the
other guy.
Here, in our view, is the case
against this president -- and the case
for what a New Democrat president,
building on the foundation of
Clintonism, would do instead.
President Bush deserves to be fired.
The central argument he makes for a
second term -- that America can't afford
to change leaders in dangerous times --
is the strongest argument against it. At a
time when America has needed a good
president even more than usual, Bush
has been an exceptionally poor one.
America is at war, and Bush isn't
winning. All Bush's bluster can't
obscure his signal failure: Three years
after Sept. 11, America is losing ground
in the war on terror, when we ought to
be winning it. We have no illusions: We
live in a threatening world, with many
enemies who will stop at nothing to
destroy everything we stand for, and we
need a wartime president. But it's not
enough just to be willing to wage that
war; we deserve a president with a strategy
to win it.
Americans in both parties must
now face the uncomfortable truth
that the Bush approach isn't working.
As Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel
(Neb.) said in September of the situation
in Iraq, "We've got to be honest
with ourselves. The worst thing we
can do is hold ourselves hostage to
some grand illusion that we're winning.
Right now, we are not winning.
Things are getting worse."
Bush has based his case entirely on
good intentions. A nation at war must
apply a higher standard: results.
Whatever Bush's intentions, his record
in the war on terror comes up short.
Bush had a chance to bury al Qaeda
in Afghanistan, but he let Osama
bin Laden get away and has since
allowed the Taliban to return.
Setting aside Bush's other failures in
Iraq -- failing to build a strong
coalition, making the wrong case
for regime change, declaring the
mission accomplished when it had
just begun -- the biggest problem
with his handling of the Iraq war
is that we're not winning it. The
White House is so eager to keep
Iraq off the front pages that it
refuses to go all-out to secure the
country. The result: Insurgents are
on the rise, American soldiers are
in greater peril, and the terrorists
have a real chance of winning a
battle that we should have won by
now.
Three years after the worst attack
since Pearl Harbor, America still
isn't safe enough. Bush has cut
funding for police officers,
dragged his feet on the Department
of Homeland Security,
stonewalled the 9/11 Commission,
and done all he could to
protect a failed intelligence
bureaucracy.
But Bush is right about one thing:
This election ought to be a referendum
on his stewardship of the war on
terror. The trouble is, at home and
abroad, Bush isn't winning it.
Americans are worse off than they
were four years ago. By any measure,
Bush has the worst economic
record of any president since Herbert
Hoover. This is not by accident; it's by
design. The results of Bush's economic
policies are uniformly bad, and his
intentions even worse. The cornerstone
of Bush's economic policies -- to
shift the tax burden to the backs of the
middle class -- undermines the ethic of
hard work that built the middle class
in the first place.
America's middle class is working
harder, making less, and paying more
just to get by. After eight years of
watching their incomes go up, middle-
class families have seen them
drop an average of $1,500 a year
since Bush took office. They're paying
$3,500 a year more for health
insurance, $1,200 a year more for
college, and $750 a year more for
gasoline.
Bush is shifting the burden onto the
middle class, and he's not done yet.
The middle class has always been the
moral and economic backbone of
America, and the engine of opportunity
and economic growth. Not
under George W. Bush. Under this
administration, the middle-class
share of the tax burden has gone up
while the share of the wealthy has
gone down. In a second term, Bush
and congressional Republicans want
to finish the job by eliminating all
taxes on wealth and putting the
entire tax burden onto those who
work.
Bush has presided over the loss of
1.5 million private-sector jobs, and
made the American economy less
competitive in the world. Employers
are paying almost two-thirds
more for health care, which makes
it much harder for them to create
jobs, give raises, and sell their
products abroad. The Bush presidency is the first in history under
which American exports have actually
gone down.
Bush promised a responsibility
era, but has presided over record
budget deficits and let federal
spending soar. He squandered a
$5 trillion surplus, has run up
more than $1 trillion in deficits,
and is running for re-election on
at least $3 trillion more in promises
he has no way to pay for. Under
Bush, domestic spending is going
up at almost triple the rate it did
under Clinton. Bush has never
vetoed a single appropriations bill,
and still refuses to restore caps on
spending.
On the economy, no president has
made more mistakes than Bush, or
learned less from them. When John
Kerry and John Edwards ask, "Are
you better off than you were four
years ago?" the only honest answer
most Americans can give is no. Yet,
in a second term, Bush just offers
more of the same. As Clinton used to
say, the definition of insanity is to do
the same thing and expect a different
result.
America needs a uniter, not a
divider. For all the transparent cynicism
of Bush's 2000 campaign, he
made many welcome promises: to
change the tone of Washington, to
usher in a responsibility era, and to
be a uniter, not a divider. The moral
failure of the Bush presidency is that
he never even tried to keep those
promises.
Twice, Bush was handed historic
opportunities to put politics aside
and bring the country together -- and
twice, he put his own interests ahead
of the nation's. As the first president
in 125 years to be the American people's
second choice in the popular
vote, he could and should have
reached across party lines to find
common ground. Vice President Al
Gore set the stage for such bipartisan
cooperation with his gracious concession
speech. But Bush pressed so
hard for partisan advantage that he
even lost his party's majority in the
U.S. Senate when Sen. Jim Jeffords
left the party.
After Sept. 11, Bush had the
chance of a lifetime to change the
tone of American politics. Yet to
Americans' profound dismay, Sept.
11 changed everything except partisan
politics. Bush trumped up differences
on homeland security to divide
the country in the 2002 elections.
More importantly, Bush passed up
the chance to challenge Americans to
build a greater country. Citizens were
more eager than ever to give something
back to America, but Bush
refused to ask them. Worse, he belatedly
promised to expand national
service, then let his own party nearly
destroy it.
If this election is a referendum on
character, George W. Bush has already
lost it.
The case against Bush is so overwhelming
that a majority of Americans
seem convinced that he doesn't
deserve re-election. But Democrats
owe them more than a clear critique of
Bush. Elections are also about the
future, and voters want to know what
Democrats will do better.
Here, again, the New Democrat
case is clear.
New Democrats will win the war on
terror. In September, George Bush
and Dick Cheney got in trouble for
actually saying what they have spent
the whole campaign implying. Bush
said, "I don't think you can win" the
war on terror. Cheney said the terrorists
will attack again if he and Bush
aren't re-elected.
So far, the Bush approach seems
destined to prolong the war on terror,
not to win it. New Democrats believe
the war on terror is more important
than politics. If America's future is at
stake, we ought to be willing to do
everything in our power to win it. And
that includes doing what we need to
do to secure Iraq and clean up Bush's
failures there.
America is fighting a two-front war
against terrorism and the hateful ideology
of holy war that inspires it. To win this war and keep Americans safe,
we must create an effective system of
homeland defense and rally the world's
democracies behind a new strategy for
extending liberty and prosperity to the
Middle East. That means:
America will be tough on terror,
and on the causes of terror. We
will support democracy in the
Middle East, not stability, by
throwing America's political and
economic weight and moral prestige
firmly behind the true
reformers in the region. We will
reduce our dependence on imported
oil and lessen the leverage
that oil-rich Arab states have on
our foreign policy.
We will clean up the mess Bush has
made in Iraq. We can't afford to do
anything less. That means we'll do
what's necessary to secure Iraq, to
stop the insurgents, and to deny
them the safe havens they're using
to attack our troops and innocent
Iraqis with abandon. If that
requires more troops in the short
run to reduce our exposure in the
long run, we will supply them. We
should train Iraqi security forces
and wherever possible let them take
the lead in defense of their own
country. Once the country is
secure, we can credibly call on our
allies to help rebuild Iraq. With the
country stabilized and secure, we
should move as swiftly as possible
to elections -- so that we can turn
Iraq over to a legitimate elected
government and bring our troops
home.
We will make America safer by
reforming the broken intelligence
bureaucracy in Washington, giving
police officers and firefighters the
resources to keep communities safe,
and asking more of citizens by giving them a role in the nation's
defense.
We will transform our military for
the 21st century, by ensuring that
our armed forces have the personnel,
weapons, and doctrine to win conflicts
quickly, decisively, and with
lasting results whenever we call our
troops into battle. We will never be
afraid to use force to keep our
people safe or make the world a
less dangerous place -- and when
we go to war, we will do what it
takes to win it.
Because force is not America's
only strength, we also will use
our might to earn the world's
respect, not mistrust, and enlist
our friends in a worldwide fight
for freedom, not inspire more enemies
to thwart the American
cause. The next president must
understand how to exercise
America's enormous power in a
way that makes it easier rather
than harder to promote our interests
and values.
New Democrats will make the
middle class America's engine of
economic growth again. The Bush
administration has the same wrong
answer for every economic problem:
Cut taxes for the wealthy. New Democrats have a very different vision
of economic growth: that the
American economy will grow faster if
every American has the chance to get
ahead. When workers have more of a
stake in prosperity, their companies
and our economy will grow faster.
When we demand responsibility and
punish rather than ignore those who
break the rules, it won't just make our
values stronger, it will strengthen our
markets. When we reward hard work,
no citizenry on Earth is willing to
work harder.
New Democrats will equip working
Americans with the tools to get
ahead.
We'll reward work, not just
wealth. The current administration's
economic values are bad for
America. It is morally wrong that
billionaires now pay a lower tax
rate on what they own than their
household help pay on what little
they earn. The very wealthy should
not pay lower taxes on the stocks
they trade than middle-class and
working Americans pay on the
hard work they do. That's not class
warfare; it undermines the work
ethic that is the cornerstone of our
economy and the foundation of
our middle-class society.
We'll reform the tax code to help
people get ahead. Instead of annual
tax giveaways for the wealthy,
America needs tax reform and
relief to make our economy
stronger, our tax code simpler, and
our families better off -- by making
it easier for families to afford
health care and pay for college.
We'll put economic policy back in
line with America's values by forcing
Washington to stop spending
and giving away money it doesn't
have. We will restore pay-as-you-go
rules and spending limits so
Washington can't spend more
without paying for it. Unlike the
Bush administration, we'll look
out for the national interest, rather
than funding everything every
constituency would like. And we'll
end corporate welfare as we know
it, rather than doling out special
favors to special interests. We can't
afford a free lunch for anyone.
New Democrats will demand real
reform with real results, and unite
a nation that is tired of being
divided. Bush promised to be a
reformer with results. America needs
both and has seen neither.
Four years ago, Bush fooled many
Americans into thinking he would be
a different kind of Republican.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be a
worse one. His Republican convention
speech in September proved
once again that Bush is a leap-year
centrist: one day every four years.
We will expand opportunity, not
government, by offering America a
new bargain on the country's greatest
challenges.
We will make it possible for families
and businesses to afford health
care again. America's health care
system costs too much, asks too
little, and fails to capture the
promise of a new era that could
offer revolutionary advances in
quality and choice. We will bring
down costs and expand access by
giving all Americans the chance to
purchase the same health insurance
as members of Congress; by
modernizing the health care system
to improve quality and reduce
errors; and finding cures to chronic
diseases.
We will keep the promise of education
reform by paying teachers better
and asking more of them in return;
making good on Washington's
pledge to provide the resources to
make reform work; expanding afterschool
programs; providing mentors
and smaller schools so that more at-risk
kids will graduate with a diploma
that means something; and making
it easier to go to college, not
harder, and enabling students who
are willing to work or serve to graduate
debt-free.
In contrast to the Bush administration,
during which more than 4
million Americans have fallen into
poverty, New Democrats will finish
the job of welfare reform by
making sure everyone who can
work does so -- by expanding child
care; increasing the Earned Income
Tax Credit and the minimum wage;
and requiring absent fathers who
owe child support to go to work to
pay it.
Finally, and most important, we
will challenge America to set aside
politics as usual, and strive to be an
even greater nation by uniting in
service to one another. At the heart
of the American idea is a deep
belief in the dignity and duty of
every citizen. We will increase the
ranks of AmeriCorps tenfold, enlist
Americans in their communities'
civil defense, and ask every high
school student to perform
community service as a
condition of graduation.
From beginning to end,
the Bush campaign has
done its utmost to fog
Americans' view in this
election. But as we near the end, the
facts, the values, and the stakes are clear.
For four tough years, Americans have
seen the future we'll get from George
W. Bush. A country this great deserves
better.
Al From is founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council. Bruce Reed is president of the DLC and was President Clinton's domestic policy adviser.
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