BUYING BACK TRADITIONAL VALUES:

The Nanny in Chief: Bush thinks he knows what's good for you, and he'll spend money to prove it (ANDREW SULLIVAN, Feb. 02, 2004, TIME)

There's barely a speech by President Bush that doesn't cite the glories of human freedom. It's God's gift to mankind, he believes. And in some ways this President has clearly expanded it: the people of Afghanistan and Iraq enjoy liberties unimaginable only a few years ago. But there's a strange exception to this Bush doctrine. It ends when you reach America's shores. Within the U.S., the Bush Administration has shown an unusually hostile attitude toward the exercise of personal freedom. When your individual choices conflict with what the Bush people think is good for you, they have been only too happy to intervene. The government, Bush clearly believes, has a right to be involved in many personal decisions you make — punishing some, encouraging others, nudging and prodding the public to live the good life as the President understands it. The nanny state, much loved by Democrats, is thriving under Republicans. [...]

Once upon a time, Republicans believed in leaving it to the private and voluntary sectors to do the important work of building citizenship and values. Remember the "thousand points of light"? These days those lightbulbs need government subsidies. One of the key beliefs of this President is that federal money should be funneled to religious groups that blend proselytizing with important social work. His faith-based initiative largely withered on the vine, but he has done what he can. In last year's State of the Union message, he proposed almost half a billion dollars to pay for mentors for disadvantaged high school students or the children of prisoners. This year he proposed an extensive government program to coach newly released ex-cons into better lives. Ever wonder who these government-backed mentors are? And what exactly they're preaching? Maybe you should, because you're paying for them. [...]

There has always been a tension in conservatism between those who favor more liberty and those who want more morality. But what's indisputable is that Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is a move toward the latter — the use of the government to impose and subsidize certain morals over others. He is fusing Big Government liberalism with religious-right moralism. It's the nanny state with more cash. Your cash, that is. And their morals.

Mr. Sullivan doesn't like this trend because he's only interested in the GOP to the extent that its former libertarian impulse might sanction his sexuality, but it is the logical, and only realistic, direction for the party to take. Seventy years of rule by New Deal Democrats has left us a post-moral culture and an irreversibly popular welfare state, so if conservatives are to restore traditional morals and values to the society the best way to do so is--somewhat paradoxically--to use the levers of government. Thus, rather than do away with welfare altogether, as the libertarian Right would demand, welfare reform imposed responsibilities and work requirements on recipients. Likewise, the privatization of other services--like Social Security, education, health care, unemployment, etc.--won't be private at all. Although it will maximize choice and try to minimize day-to-day government interference, it will in fact be a massive government mandate that Americans take responsibility for their own social safety net. Meanwhile, the use of faith-based organizations to provide remaining social services both provides religious groups with money and restores the role of their teachings in the lives of societies least responsible members. Finally, on "privacy" issues like abortion, homosexuality, etc., where permissive jurists have engaged in a sustained anti-Constitutional assault on traditional morality, conservatism must seek to reverse the damage both by court-packing and, when possible, by amending the Constitution.

Mr. Sullivan is right that this is all a departure from the conservative ideal of society that already has a universal morality and therefore needs less government, but the return to such a society is impossible and was never going to be sustainable in a democracy at any rate. Indeed, no aspect of the conservative critique of democracy was more prophetic than that once the majority recognized that they could transfer other peoples' money to themselves they would and that their growing dependence on government would be destructive of society and the virtues upon which society depends.

It is here that we arrive at the genius of Bushism, for what the President's proposed Opportunity Society actually does is to turn these flaws of democracy against themselves: first, it subverts entitlement programns so that you are in effect transfering money to yourself; second, it exploits the democratic impulse towards greater government as a means of imparting values. So, the money upon which you will retire tomorrow you are required to sock away today and the treatment you wish to receive for an addiction requires you to participate in the community of a religious organization, rather than simply make a claim upon a government bureaucrat.

It is hardly surprising that what Mr. Bush is attempting is provoking so much controversy, especially on the remnants of the far Right and the orthodox Left, because it represents a radical reconciliation of the two. If the Puritanical small government ideology that prevailed well into the early 20th Century might be said to be the American thesis and the secularized big government ideology of the past seven decades its antithesis, then the remoralized big government conservatism of Mr. Bush can be seen as the synthesis of the two. In this regard, the President is the first Republican to have accepted the reality that most people in modern America demand some level of economic security from the State and to try and channel that demand so that it ultimately serves conservative purposes. Should he succeed in accomplishing any considerable portion of this synthesis he will be a transforming figure in American history, of no less import than FDR.

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Independent accounts (William G. Shipman, January 26, 2004, Washington Times)

In his State of the Union address, President Bush briefly discussed one of the most important issues facing Americans: Social Security reform. Now that campaigning for the 2004 elections is under way, we'll probably hear a lot about why the Social Security system should be revamped to include individual accounts invested in stocks and bonds. Opponents of reform have already played their cards; they argue it's impossible to manage 140 million personal accounts, let alone cost-effectively. They're wrong and here's why.

I recently led a group of professionals, representing many disciplines, to determine whether such a system were feasible. After careful study, we concluded it is. The administrative architecture of our reformed Social Security structure, which I outlined in testimony before the House Budget Committee Task Force on Social Security, was reviewed by the General Accounting Office and was adopted by the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

My group started with a list of eight principles we considered necessary for success. The system would have individual accounts with assets owned by the account holder; reasonable costs; a low employer-administrative burden; opportunities for workers of all income levels to participate; a structure so inexperienced investors would not suffer poor returns relative to experienced investors; investment choice and a solution for participants who make no investment choice; and lastly, automatic adjustments to match technological innovations offered by the financial services industry.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2004 10:20 AM