Hey, faithful readers, today I have good news and bad news. The good news is that what follows is a proper essay, subjected to proofreading and everything, not just a quickie that I slapped down as verbal exercise. The bad news is that it's a reject. I've had it returned to me with a form rejection, so it may not be all that good. Normally, I send rejected essays on a circuit to various magazines, but topical columns have a painfully short shelf life. Already, the observations on vouchers are out of date; George minoris has included them in his education proposal, by another, safer name.
But waste not, want not; I'm going to stick it in the gap for a recent day I didn't write for the journal. Here's what was on my mind two weeks ago. Enjoy.
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Is it just me, or is anybody else out there troubled by the course of the new presidency? Just wondering.
I mean, Bush the younger had a platform pretty light on substance, apart from tax cuts aimed at easing economic burdens on the wealthy. But I can remember two more definite promises, never fleshed out in as much detail as proposed tax cuts: school vouchers and an expanded military budget. Even his supporters recognized there wasn't much depth to his platform with endorsements like, ?Well, mebbe he ain't one o' them smarty-pants egghaids, but at least we know he'll bring morality back to the White House.? That subtext was Bush's real platform: ?I won't be Bill Clinton.?
The promise has its appeal, even to Democrats. Clinton was a disaster, morally speaking. He couldn't even make a graceful exit, instead hustling a dubious presidential pardon under the wire and making a grab for a Manhattan office at taxpayers' expense. Just a quick reminder of how to abuse the presidency to reward political friends and make a tidy sum for yourself. Presumably, Bush, pillar of virtue, isn't going to come anywhere near such practices.
And yet?
I dunno. Is anyone else suspicious of his gleeful response to the Californian energy crisis? In order to prevent such disasters in the future, he insists, we must open up new oil reserves, even if that means hacking down nature preserves to get at them. That's oil, mind you. Black gold. Texas tea. The energy crunch doesn't mean we should look into coal, nuclear or hydroelectric power, and heaven forbid energy sources the tree-huggers might accept. No, just oil, like?hey! Just like Dubya and his friends own. Huh. Now there's a coincidence.
His response has been gleeful, too, to the stock market slide. Obviously, we need to keep the American economy cranked to full blast, which means cutting money loose for investors, which means a big justification for a tax cut. Never mind that a certain slow-down is normal and healthy after the huge boom we've just undergone in the tech sector. Never mind that economists unanimously agree that, if we are headed for a recession, a tax cut won't save us, or that the attempt is likely to delay but worsen a possible recession. Get the budget through first, then worry about whether it will work.
School vouchers, on the other hand, have been cast to the winds. (Not that I'm complaining.) Apparently George recognizes what a hard sell they can be, and doesn't want to spend his political capital on such a shaky proposal. He'd rather spend it on garnering support for tax cuts, especially those taxes unfairly belaboring the wealthy.
The promised military budget has been cut loose, too, though not in so many words. A commission has been set up to reexamine the demands of an improved military, which, in the subtext of politics, means a report will be made and filed, and the actual support will vanish. See, now that he's made it past the campaign mentality of promising all things to all people ? politicians do it ? Bush has stopped and listened to advisors' reports that that kind of thing is expensive. Unless he wants to run up Reaganesque deficits, he may have to sacrifice the tax cuts. With the chips down, Dubya has decided industrialists need the money more than the army.
So the clear direction of Bush's administration, for the foreseeable future, has one goal: to relieve the awful tax burden on the upper and middle class. Well, maybe not entirely for the middle class. Small snags have developed in that area, like a discovery that, even if the tax rate is lowered for the middle class, they'll still rapidly bump up against a law designed to contain tax dodges: each tax bracket has a certain minimum necessary payment, regardless of how many loopholes one can find. The wealthy, however, can relax in the knowledge that tax cuts will benefit them dramatically, especially since Bush is lavishing so much attention on reducing or eliminating the inheritance tax. Never mind that a number of plutocrats ? who stand to benefit most from the bill ? have come out against it; inheritances must be preserved for people with the good fortune to be born into a rich family. People like?hey! People like Dubya. Huh. Now there's a coincidence.
So that's an honest commitment to one out of three clearly-defined campaign promises, by my count. Not too bad, really, compared with presidential candidates as a whole. Plus there's the commitment to bring morality and respectability back to the White House. No longer will the presidency be used as a vehicle to enrich the president himself and pay off his cronies.
Oh.
Well, maybe he'll promise not to have sex with the White House aides.