For the past 70-plus years, Republicans have bristled over every new program created by the federal government. From the WPA to Social Security to Medicaid to food stamps, every time the federal government tries to help those who need help the most, the Republicans are standing in the way.So when George W. Bush announced, in his speech from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, a major new federal spending program to help poor people, it came as quite a shock.
This is the man who tried to dismantle Social Security. This is the man who tried to strip Medicare away from the government and hand it to big drug and insurance companies. This is the man who tried to destroy the power of the federal government to spend money. So why would he announce a major new federal spending program?
This is also the man who has increased federal spending at record rates. Under George W. Bush's guidance, the federal budget went from record surpluses to record deficits, with no end in sight. This year, the projected deficit is less than last year's; apparently, George W. Bush doesn't want that to happen.
So why is he proposing huge new expenditures?
Many self-appointed pundits say that this is a desperate attempt to regain public support. His already low numbers dropped even further after he and his staff dropped the ball when Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast. The problem with this analysis is that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and other top Bush administration advisors never do anything for only one reason.
There are several possibilities.
First of all, George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress haven't met a pork-barrel spending program or a tax windfall for rich people they didn't like. This practice of running up huge deficits is widely believed to be an attempt to strangle the federal government, eventually forcing it to erase those programs the Republicans hate most, like Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, etc. This plan doesn't seem to work, but perhaps ratcheting up the deficits even more just might do the trick. Spending $200 billion in "Katrina relief" could be a part of that plan.
Then there are the "little things" that George W. Bush is trying to accomplish. There are two seats to fill on the Supreme Court; whom will he appoint to fill Justice O'Conner's seat? He is trying to turn the United Nations into an enforcer of his personal worldview, where the United States decides everything for everyone else. He is also continuing to destroy environmental protections (despite the fact that saving the gulf coast wetlands would have saved New Orleans from the floods).
And, of course, he has managed to give several no-bid reconstruction and cleanup contracts to his friends at Halliburton.
Finally, there is the never-ending quagmire in Iraq, which is the primary reason for George W. Bush's record low poll numbers. Diverting attention from this degenerating disaster might not help, but it certainly couldn't hurt.
Which of these other issues were involved in the decision to propose spending $200 billion of federal money? Probably all of them. Will it work? Probably not. For one thing, nobody has put together an actual plan for reconstruction. All we have so far is a few sentences in a speech. More importantly, there is the question of how to pay for it.
Republicans are finally waking up to the fact that the "starve the beast" approach to dismantling the federal government isn't working and isn't going to work. Running up huge deficits hasn't resulted in cutting needed programs, and increasing those deficits won't make those cuts happen either. And unlike George W. Bush, these other Republicans have to run for re-election. They're going to have a hard time defending all the pork they've already voted for; they desperately need to do something that looks like fiscal responsibility, and they need to do it quickly.
Additionally, some are proposing cutting funding for Iraq, putting the focus squarely where George W. Bush and his friends don't want it. Like it or not, money for one gulf might come from another gulf. And any attention paid to the Gulf of Mexico will only focus attention on the Persian Gulf.
Copyright 2005, Dan Jacoby
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