International Herald Tribune Editorial - The state of the union

International Herald Tribune Editorial - The state of the union
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: January 24, 2007


The White House spin ahead of George W. Bush's seventh State of the Union address was that the president would make a bipartisan call to revive his domestic agenda with "bold and innovative concepts." The problem with that was obvious on Tuesday night — in six years, Bush has shown no interest in bipartisanship, and his domestic agenda was set years ago, with huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans and crippling debt for the United States.

Combined with the mounting cost of the war in Iraq, that makes boldness and innovation impossible unless Bush truly changes course.

And he gave no hint of that on Tuesday. Instead, he offered up a tepid menu of ideas that would change little: a health insurance notion that would make only a tiny dent in a huge problem. Promises about cutting oil consumption with barely a word about global warming. And the same lip service about immigration reform on which he has failed to deliver.

At times, Bush sounded almost as if he had gotten the message of the 2006 elections. "Our citizens don't much care which side of the aisle we sit on — as long as we are willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be done," he said.

But we have heard that from Bush before. In early 2001, he promised to bring Americans together and instead embarked on his irresponsible tax cuts, a divisive right-wing social agenda and a neo-conservative foreign policy that tore up international treaties and alienated even America's closest allies. In the wake of Sept. 11, Bush had a second chance to rally the United States — and the world — only to squander it on a pointless, catastrophic war in Iraq. Bush promised bipartisanship after his re-election in 2004, and again after Hurricane Katrina.

He failed to deliver. He did not even mention New Orleans on Tuesday night.

When Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, Bush's only real interest was in making their majority permanent; consultation meant telling the Democrats what he had decided.

Neither broken promises nor failed policies changed Bush's mind. So America has been saddled with tax cuts that have turned a budget surplus into a big deficit, education reform that has been badly managed and underfinanced, the dismantling of regulations in order to benefit corporations at the expense of workers, and a triumph of ideology over science in policy making on the environment and medical research. All along, Americans' civil liberties have been trampled by a president determined to assert ever more power.

Now that the Democrats have taken Congress, Bush is acting as if he'd had the door to compromise open all along and the Democrats had refused to walk through it.

Bush also acted on Tuesday as if he were really doing something to help the 47 million people in this country who don't have health insurance. What he offered, by the White House's own estimate, would take a few million off that scandalously high number and shift the burden to the states. Bush's plan would put a new tax on Americans who were lucky enough to still have good health-care coverage through their employers.

Bush's comments on Iraq added nothing to his failed policies. He did, at last, propose a permanent increase in the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps that would repair some of the damage he has done to those forces. But that would take years, and it would do nothing to halt Iraq's spiral. Bush failed to explain how he would pay for a larger force, which would almost certainly require cutting budget-busting weapons programs. That would mean going up against the arms industry and its lobbyists — something Bush has never been willing to do.

Bush almost certainly did not intend it, but his speech did reinforce one vital political fact — that it's not just up to him anymore. There was a big change Tuesday night: the audience. Instead of solid Republican majorities marching in lock step with the White House, Congress is controlled by Democrats. It will be their task to give leadership to a nation that desperately wants change and expects its leaders to work together to deliver it. The Democrats' challenge will be to form real coalitions with willing Republicans. If they do, Bush may even be forced, finally, to compromise.

Say what you will about the flaws of the two-party system. After six years of the Bush presidency, at least we know it's a lot better than the one- party system.