HE IS WHO THEY THINK REAGAN WAS:

The Right Man (Peter Beinart, 10.12.06, New Republic)

[B]ush is not merely conservative; he is more conservative than Ronald Reagan, the man whose ideological legacy he has supposedly betrayed.

Start with economic policy, the greatest source of right-wing discontent. To listen to Bush's critics, you would think that discretionary, nonsecurity-related spending has exploded on his watch. But it hasn't. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has shown, when you take account of inflation and population growth, it grew a mere 2 percent between 2001 and 2006. And, as a percentage of GDP, it actually fell. What has exploded--rising 32 percent after inflation and population growth--is spending on defense, homeland security, and international affairs. And the people most responsible for those increases are conservatives themselves, who demanded an expansive war on terrorism.

To be sure, the cost of entitlements like Medicare and Social Security has also grown. And Bush has expanded Medicare by adding a prescription-drug benefit. But, even here, right-wingers don't give Bush his due. After all, one reason the program costs so much is that Bush insisted on delivering it through private companies, which can't deliver the benefits as cheaply, in order to partially privatize Medicare--long a conservative goal. And Bush gets little credit for his campaign to partially privatize Social Security, perhaps the most serious assault on the American welfare state ever.

Compare all this with Reagan. For starters, domestic, nondefense discretionary spending was higher, on average, under the Gipper. Reagan made no effort to privatize Social Security, even though its 1983 fiscal crisis offered him a golden opportunity. Instead, he raised the retirement age and raised taxes. In fact, while Bush followed his initial 2001 tax cut with three more, Reagan followed his large 1981 cut with tax hikes in 1982, 1983, and 1984. Today, conservatives remember Reagan as an anti-government crusader. But, at the time, many called him a coward. "Conservatives owned the executive branch for eight years," wrote David Frum in 1994. "And yet, every time they reached to undo the work of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon--the work they had damned for nearly half a century--they felt the public's wary eyes upon them. They didn't dare."

On social issues, the story is similar. In Conservatives Betrayed, Viguerie slams Bush for nominating "the unqualified, near-unknown Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court." But Bush relented and has now appointed two Supreme Court justices whom the Christian right adores. By contrast, Reagan stuck by his 1981 nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor even after Jerry Falwell said that every good Christian should oppose her. Viguerie himself attacked Reagan for siding "with the liberal establishment," and his fears proved well-founded. Not only did O'Connor support abortion rights, but Reagan's third Supreme Court appointee, Anthony Kennedy, also voted to uphold Roe v. Wade.

In his entire time in office, Reagan never took a highly unpopular position on a high-profile issue to satisfy his Christian base, something Bush has done on embryonic stem-cell research. But, rather than showing Bush gratitude, conservative activists keep finding new reasons to kvetch. The latest is immigration, where Bush has been widely scorned for supposedly backing amnesty for illegal immigrants. Where on earth could he have gotten that idea? From Reagan, of course, who, in 1986, signed a bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants who had lived in the United States continuously since 1982.

Then there is foreign policy, where some conservatives have decided that the Iraq war violates their creed. But it wasn't always that way. As National Review's Romesh Ponnuru noted in June 2003, when Bush launched the Iraq war "almost everyone who considers himself a conservative did support it." In fact, Bush's foreign policy has proved more faithful to conservative principles than did Reagan's. When terrorists killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, Bush responded by invading two countries. When terrorists killed 241 American servicemen in Lebanon in October 1983, by contrast, Reagan promptly cut and ran. (The month before, when the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner, killing 269 civilians, Reagan responded just as weakly: He did nothing.) And what about evil regimes? Bush shuns them. Reagan, by contrast, sold arms for hostages with Iran. And he placed so much faith in Mikhail Gorbachev that prominent conservative intellectuals called him a dupe. "Reagan," declared Will, "has accelerated the moral disarmament of the West by elevating wishful thinking to the status of political philosophy."

All of which raises a basic question. If conservatives were so angry with Reagan at the time, why do they worship him now? It's simple: Because his policies seemed to work.

Which is why these same rightwingers will be trying to get W carved on Mt. Rushmore twenty years from now. If the Right understood what was going on around it conservatism wouldn't be the Stupid Party. Heck, most of these guys haven't even figured out yet that Bill Clinton was more conservative than Reagan or Ike.

MORE:
Take This Job (The Editors, 10.12.06, New Republic)

Keeping labor organizers at bay used to be a bloody business. In May 1937, when United Auto Workers leader Walter Reuther tried to unionize a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, he was confronted by Henry Ford's hired goons. In the mêlée that ensued, the legendary labor organizer was slammed to the ground, kicked in the head, and tossed down multiple flights of stairs.

Today's business executives don't hire goons--and, thanks to George W. Bush, they don't need to.

Federal Deficit Now Lowest in 4 Years (DEB RIECHMANN, 10/12/06, The Associated Press)

The administration credits its tax cuts for the improving economy, contending they helped the nation withstand the 2001 recession, the terrorist attacks and corporate accounting scandals. The deficit narrowed sharply because revenues climbed by 11.8 percent, outpacing a 7.4 percent increase in spending.

Administration officials said the actual 2006 deficit is down to 1.9 percent of the gross domestic product. They said that is below the 40-year average deficit of about 2.3 percent of the GDP, which measures the value of all U.S. goods and services. This continues a positive trend that comes despite soaring war costs and $50 billion in emergency spending for hurricane relief, they said.

A word of caution, the far Right warns that 40-year average isn't sustainable.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 12, 2006 1:48 PM