Posted by Todd Zywicki:
Credit Where Credit is Due:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_09-2008_11_15.shtml#1226318978
On Friday, Michael Gerson had a column where he praises "[1]The
Decency of George W. Bush" and touts what he sees as Bush's
accomplishments:
Initial failures in Iraq acted like a solar eclipse, blocking the
light on every other achievement. But those achievements, with the
eclipse finally passing, are considerable by the measure of any
presidency. Because of the passage of Medicare Part D, nearly 10
million low-income seniors are receiving prescription drugs at
little or no cost. No Child Left Behind education reform has helped
raise the average reading scores of fourth-graders to their highest
level in 15 years and narrowed the achievement gap between white
and African American children. The President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief has helped provide treatment for more than 1.7 million
people and compassionate care for at least 2.7 million orphans and
vulnerable children. And the decision to pursue the surge in Iraq
will be studied as a model of presidential leadership.
Pretty thin gruel at best, it seems to me, and Gerson makes clear that
in praising the surge he also recognizes that the initial conduct of
the war was poor. And even these are somewhat dubious accomplishments
in terms of their long-run consequences, such as the long-term
budgetary impact of the prescription drug entitlement and further
expansion of federal control over education with No Child Left Behind.
Having said that, and stacked against the manifest screw-ups of the
the past 8 years, I would give the Bush Administration credit for two
things. I leave aside things that are more partisan, such as changing
the judiciary, to focus on things that I think that would gain general
acclaim (as Gerson does).
First, if you had told me on September 12, 2001 that seven years later
we'd be able to say that there would be no major terrorist attacks on
American soil in the next seven years I would've thought you were
naive or crazy. Now I don't know how much credit the Bush
Administration directly gets for this. And I share some of the
criticisms that perhaps they went too far at times in terms of
infringements on civil liberties to bring about this result. But in
retrospect I really do think it has been a major accomplishment that
we have not been hit by another terrorist attack in that time.
Relatedly, it seems to me that the Bush Administration gets some
substantial credit for [2]Qaddafi's decision in 2003 to renounce
terrorism and a general increase in deterrence against countries
engaged in state-sponsored terrorism.
Second, I give him credit for using his political capital trying to
raise the issue of social security reform. He did so in a ham-handed
and bungling way, but right at the outset of the second term he tried
to address the long-run solvency of social security. For which he had
his headed handed to him and then gave up. The fear is that may mean
that social security reform (and entitlement reform generally) is dead
for at least another generation. I think he deserves credit for doing
the right thing on trying to do this, even though he failed in the
end.
Finally, Bush may be given some credit for pushing through an agenda
on tax cuts. On the other hand, since he made no effort to reduce
spending, these tax cuts are almost by definition somewhat temporary.
Friedman used to observe that the real tax burden on the economy was
the level of spending, because the spending has to be paid for
eventually. So while Bush reduced taxes, this is not likely to be a
long-term accomplishment.
Moreover, it is one thing to increase spending and government debt if
it is for long-term investments that will recoup themselves, such as
Reagan's defense buildup in the 1980s (which allowed subsequent
reductions in the 1990s by winning the Cold War) or investments in
infrastructure or similar things that increase economic growth. But
little of Bush's spending was investment, as opposed to pure current
consumption, and so a lot of it was nothing more than borrowing
against future taxes to fund lower taxes today. So I give some credit,
but modest, on this front.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602693.html
2.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/world/africa/06diplo.html?emc=rss&partner=rssnyt
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