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Sat Oct 1 16:18:39 PDT 2005

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WHAT'S GONE WRONG FOR AMERICA'S RIGHT
Sep 29th 2005  

George Bush's Republicans are in trouble, but if he has the will and
the wit he can fix their problems

FOR George Bush September has been the cruellest month. The news from
Iraq continues to be grim. Hurricane Katrina--and his initial
cluelessness in dealing with it--sent his approval ratings to new lows.
Mercifully, Rita was less ferocious. But in the meantime the
conservative coalition that he heads and which dominates American
politics has become engulfed in a political storm of its own.

 In Katrina's wake, rows have broken out about the very unconservative
increase in public spending and the cronyism of Mr Bush's appointments.
Meanwhile, a party which came to power by running against the
sleaziness of Washington, DC, has got engulfed in corruption scandals
of its own. First the White House's top procurement official was
indicted. Then the Securities & Exchange Commission announced an
investigation into share dealing by Bill Frist, the Senate majority
leader. Now--and most seriously--the House majority leader, Tom DeLay,
has been indicted in a Texan corruption probe. The Hammer has been
forced to step down "temporarily".

 It is easy to exaggerate the nature of the "conservative crack-up".
Some of the blame for post-Katrina incompetence belongs to local
Democrat officials in Louisiana, and Mr Bush did a better job of
handling Rita. Mr DeLay says the investigation into his affairs (run by
pretty much the last Democrat in Texas) is politically motivated. Mr
Frist seems to have an innocent explanation for his share sale. Bits of
the conservative machine continue to grind forward: as THE ECONOMIST
went to press, it looked likely that John Roberts would be confirmed as
chief justice of the United States. It would be foolish to bet on the
chaotic Democrats winning back Congress next year: in the Senate, they
are defending more seats, and in the House, gerrymandering makes most
incumbents very difficult to shift.

Yet there is plainly more going on than just one bad month. Mr Bush's
domestic programme--notably his plan to overhaul Social Security--lies
in tatters; and his attention must have drifted from matters overseas.
More importantly, the current crisis points to deeper difficulties, to
do with competence, cronyism and the contradictory nature of "big
government conservatism". It is not too late for Mr Bush to deal with
these things; but he must do so brutally and quickly--and not just for
his party's sake. It is not in anybody's interest--even those now smug
Europeans who loathe Mr Bush's America--for Mr Bush to become a
lame-duck president consumed by domestic woe.

THE ECONOMIST has always had all sorts of ideological disagreements
with Mr Bush, but our main problem with his administration has
increasingly become incompetence. Katrina now stands besides the
shambles overseas in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay as supporting evidence. Mr
Bush is a bold decision-maker, but he is also a delegator who too often
picks the wrong people and seldom fires them. Both "Rummy" and
"Brownie" (ie, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and Michael
Brown, the erstwhile Arabian-horse man whom Mr Bush belatedly removed
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency) are symptoms of the same
problem.

America's system of political appointees always risks putting the well
connected, rather than the well qualified, into top jobs. But Mr Bush
has abused this more than most. One advantage of Republicans is they
normally want to restrict government. Yet Mr Bush and Mr DeLay have
embraced big-government conservatism. Like Lyndon Johnson's Democrats
in the 1960s, they believe they can use the state to do good--but this
time for conservative, not liberal, ends. This is not quite as
oxymoronic as it first sounds: you can indeed use government cash to
make schools more accountable and promote families. But it has come
with two serious flaws. 

The most important is fiscal profligacy. Mr Bush has increased spending
more than any president since Johnson, and cut taxes with the
enthusiasm of Ronald Reagan. Second, far too much cash has gone on
earmarked pork-barrel projects without economic justification. There is
$24 billion-worth of such gunk in the highway bill, including the
notorious $231m "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, put there by the
chairman of the House transportation committee. When Mr DeLay, the man
who led the Republican takeover of K Street, the lobbyists' home in
Washington, DC, announced a couple of weeks ago that the budget was
"pared down pretty good", it is hardly surprising that the anti-tax
wing of his party went mad.

KATRINA THE CLEANER AND TEDDY ROOSEVELT
What does Mr Bush need to do? One priority is a proper audit of what
went wrong with Katrina. This week, "Brownie" was hauled in front of
Congress and harangued for his incompetence. This should remind other
cronies of the administration that plum federal postings carry
responsibilities, but Mr Brown was right to protest that he was not to
blame for everything. Mr Bush is currently resisting attempts to set up
an independent inquiry into what went wrong: he would prefer to have an
inquiry led by a White House adviser. This is heinous. A thousand
people have died and the tax payer faces a bill of up to $200 billion.
If those two things do not merit independent investigation, then what
on earth does? 

The second priority is to tackle profligacy and pork. A good symbolic
first step would be for Mr Bush to back a "pork-for-reconstruction"
scheme, where politicians give up projects earmarked for their
districts, so the proceeds can go to New Orleans; better still he
should urge them to get rid of earmarking completely. More important,
he should look at the contradictions underlying his brand of
conservatism. That means promoting serious spending cuts, especially in
entitlement programmes, and giving up some of his cherished tax cuts. 

Every successful political movement has its contradictions. It is much
harder to survive them if you are inefficient and stained by
corruption. It is hard to imagine that Mr Bush--a conviction politician
if ever there was one--wants to be remembered for the messy bungling of
this cruel September. He might take a look at Teddy Roosevelt, the
first big-government conservative; he was also famous for waging war
against corruption and cronyism. Now is a good time for Mr Bush to
follow suit--and start clearing house.

See this article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QQVGPTS

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