Everyone an Owner - Bush's New Frontier

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Everyone an Owner - Bush's New Frontier

The Bush electoral campaign is about to unfurl a new flag - the banner of the ownership society. Hitherto, Mr. Bush has focused his campaign for reelection mainly on patriotism. The economy, which is much more important in the United States than foreign policy, offered good points and bad points, as a fairly sustained recovery was getting under way, but without creating new jobs.
Mindful that 12 years ago it was the economy that tripped up his father (Clinton defeated Bush Senior with the sarcastic slogan, "It's the economy, stupid"), the current White House tenant has so far concentrated on the flame of national pride fed by the terrorist threat and American intervention in Iraq. But now, Mr. Bush's advisers and some conservative think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, are beginning to wonder whether this might not be a good moment to change tack.

Let it be clear that there is no change of opinion on the war. Nevertheless, the prisoner torture scandal, the spiraling, and apparently uncontrollable, cost of the military presence in Iraq, and increasingly discouraging polls on these topics all favor a pragmatic shift of focus to the economy, which today is sending out much more reassuring signals.
Bush Senior lost when he failed to honor his electoral commitment not to raise taxes, and because economic recovery was slow in coming. Ironically, the indicators began to pick up just as Mr. Clinton was being sworn in. Bush Junior does not have these problems. He has lowered taxes, although this has led to a mushrooming deficit, while the economy has been enjoying an upswing for nine months at a rate that hasn't been seen for two decades. Unemployment, however, is Mr. Bush's true Achilles' heel. Between his swearing-in at the beginning of 2001 and the end of 2003, more than 2.5 million jobs were lost, but for the past two months, a strong recovery has been under way. If, as seems likely, the May figures confirm the trend, in a few weeks the president will be able to announce that a million jobs have been created in the first five months of 2004.

John Kerry sees the threat, and is switching his target. No longer will it be unemployment. Now, he is homing in on the high cost of gas, and expensive, inefficient healthcare. Why then has President Bush still to firmly refocus his campaign? In reality, White House strategists do not so much want to shift attention to issues that offer more reassuring figures as to step up the pace. Employment and growing consumption are important, but it is even more important to catch Mr. Kerry off-guard, as he concentrates on adopting reasonable stances on the problems of today (more taxes, but only for the rich, to pay for better schooling and health) by launching a headline-grabbing message for the future. Mr. Bush's new frontier is called the ownership society. According to slogans already on stand-by, it is a society in which the citizen does not rely on a mounting stream of government-provided or government-underwritten services, funded by the taxpayer, but instead is in some sense the "owner" of his or her own destiny, through direct access to goods and services. For example, instead of depending on healthcare guaranteed by public funding, and partly for that reason inefficient, citizens would have tax deductions to purchase the health insurance plan they themselves would select.
Many believe this could be the flagship of a second presidential mandate, but so far Mr. Bush has not laid too much stress on the issue, despite having outlined his ownership society on several occasions. The hesitancy may be related to that fact that although it does not directly increase spending, the reform will be extremely expensive in terms of tax deductions and incentives, a department where Mr. Bush has already scraped the bottom of the barrel.

The ownership society may still be on the starting grid, but its motor is running. Megan Hauck, one of President Bush's election campaign advisers, says that the reform will radically change the way in which healthcare is delivered. According to Ms. Hauck, the challenge is to shift attention from short-term earnings to long-term wealth. The ideological aim is clear: less extra-market, standardized healthcare, and more private insurance, chosen by citizens on the basis of individual need, within a more competitive system. There will be fewer subsidies and less public rental housing, and more incentives for homebuying. Similar shifts are envisaged in other sectors, from education to social security, a system that is light years away from the welfare state, as it has been perceived in Europe since the end of the Second World War. There is also a political and economic objective. At a time of low growth in salaries, it is hoped to react to this squeeze on the middle classes by leveraging wealth, in the form of real property or financial and social security savings, accumulated in part by those who are complaining about their slim wage packets. In Italy, this reservoir tends to be considered untouchable, but Americans draw on it thanks to credit cards and by refinancing mortgages. It is a mechanism that increases household indebtedness, but renders more tolerable unexpected drops in income, or short periods of unemployment. Nevertheless, the ownership society has a heavy social cost, in addition to its financial cost, for it abandons weaker social groups, such as the unemployed, the socially disadvantaged, and the working poor.

"The nation's homeownership rate of 68.6% has never been higher. Perhaps most encouragingly, homeownership rates have risen for Hispanics and blacks. (...) But the hard fact is that the Bush administration has talked a lot about housing issues and homeownership, but done very little to advance the cause. Instead, the administration has undermined a slew of policies that make rental housing - the steppingstone to homeownership - more affordable," protests Democrat, Bruce Katz, former Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of housing and Urban Development and now Vice President of the Brookings Institution. The main battlefield, however, will be healthcare. According to a poll by Fox News, the Murdoch-owned television channel, healthcare is the number one worry of Americans. In contrast, terrorism was topped the list for 9% of respondents. In the United States, 43 million citizens have no healthcare, and almost 9 million of them are children. The Bush plan for 70 billion dollars of tax breaks over ten years aims to extend health cover to more than 4.5 million citizens, barely 10% of those who are uninsured. Mr. Kerry promises to guarantee medical treatment to a further 27 million people, including all children. But his plan will cost more than 650 billion dollars over ten years, and has an egalitarian philosophy. As he travels across America, the Democratic candidate somewhat demagogically promises everyone "the same healthcare that Congress gives itself." Will the winner be contender who wants a less lopsided society, with more safeguards for the weak, or the one who is backing individual differences and choice? The America that used to feel liberal seems a memory today. In a society with almost 70% homeowners and 60% investors, particularly through pension funds, individuals who call themselves liberal - according to a recent Gallup poll - represent less than half of those who define themselves as conservatives (19% to 41%). But a growing sense of uncertainty, and the fear of losing increasingly expensive healthcare, could make the difference.

By Massimo Gaggi http://www.corriere.it

[streetsoldier]

In Realpolitik, Paolo, those who have identified themselves in the afore-mentioned poll as "Moderate" (FoxNews, "O'Reilly Factor" as of last night) are actually covering their @$$es...they ARE liberals, but do not want the label...cowardice?