June 25, 2004
Silence Is Golden
Writing for the National Journal, Stan Collender muses on the disappearance of the Bush economic and budget team:
BUDGET BATTLES: The Incredible Disappearing Bush Budget Team
By Stan Collender
NationalJournal.com
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Has anyone seen or heard from the Bush administration’s economic and budget team?... National Economic Council Chairman Stephen Friedman has been practically invisible.... Greg Mankiw.... hasn’t been heard from since he made a politically incorrect statement back in February about... outsourcing.... Joshua Bolten... has been one of the least visible OMB directors.... John Snow... seems to be perceived more as a cheerleader than as a policymaker.... Dick Cheney... has serious overall credibility problems....
Republican budget and economic policy makers on Capital Hill are also poorly positioned.... [T]he increasing likelihood that there won’t be a budget resolution this year will force them first to defend what they did—or didn’t do—on the budget this year, severely limiting their ability to defend other things... like Bush policies....
All of this presents the White House with a huge problem... no one within or even near the administration has the standing or credibility to defend and promote the Bush budget and economic records other than the president himself. The problem is even worse because the president may not be available.... [T]he administration seems intent on having the president... [in] photo opportunities that almost always include people in uniform.... Polls continue to show the president’s approval ratings on these issues to be higher... he will certainly want to emphasize this advantage.... But that would be much easier to do if there was someone else who could lead the economic and budget charge for the White House....
Even some of the other possible defenders... experts at conservative think tanks, may not be available.... [O]ver the past few months many of them have become the administration’s biggest budget critics... [I]t could conduct the equivalent of a grassroots campaign by encouraging conservative columnists and talk show hosts to take up the economic and budget cause.... Or it could quickly try to prop up one of its people as the economic spokesperson.
But it can’t wait too long before beginning any of these efforts. If a strong economic spokesperson doesn’t emerge soon, the president will be left to fend for himself on an issue he so far has preferred not to talk about.
But isn't silence golden here? They don't want to talk about this year's budget process--what the Republican Congress has done or rather not done is a procedural disaster and a substantive embarrassment. They don't want to talk about long-run fiscal policy: a bigger disaster and embarrassment. All they dare do is say rising employment numbers show that the president's tax cuts have worked and are boosting the economy, and then exit the stage. And that can be left to Scott McClellan and company--to have somebody who actually knows stuff and can answer questions on the stage is very risky.
Not talking about it serves the administration, because if they don't talk about the economic and budget record the bulk of the press corps won't write about it.
Posted by DeLong at June 25, 2004 08:58 AM
| TrackBack
| | Other weblogs commenting on this post
Agree completely that we won't see anyone from the Bush side who knows anything about budget matters. But they can't be totally silent as the fiscal year comes to an end. That's why I expect this year's budget disaster (which will be coming to a head in Oct-Nov) to be thoroughly politicized on "process" grounds.
Rather than talking about substance, the Frists of the world will be all over the airwaves blaming the "class warfare" Democrats for opposing the "compassionate" President's "brave efforts on behalf of American families" to "get our economy moving again" [no, can't say that, since it's supposed to be triumphantly growing, so how about...] "keep growing our economy" [the only thing I really hate Clinton for is introducing that appalling phrase to the political lexicon].
Yes, it will be a challenge to explain why the Republicans' control of the WH and both houses of Congress has produced deadlock on budget matters, but it's the least risky tactic. The "blame game" on process issues is the sort of food-fight that voters tune out, unless it results in something truly noteworthy, like shutting down the government. The press won't challenge the Reps much, because it would require turning a bunch of arcane procedures into sound-bites that show the Rep's are all wet. And the hold-out Republicans will try to keep their roles in the dispute from taking on a high profile. For example, if McCain is travelling the country for Bush on Iraq, it's hard to imagine he'd go into open opposition in late October on the budget. I'd expect McCain to answer all budget-related questions in a low-key way, but try to make as little to-do as possible and basically make it hard for the press to make the Dem's case for them.
So if the Republicans continue to assert loudly the fiction that it's the Dems' fault and resort to their tried-and-true scare tatics, it's the job of the Dems to highlight issues, rather than the failed Rep Congress, at the Dem convention. They have to pound away on the themes of profligacy and bad policy to counter the scare tactics of tax-and-spend and class-warfare.
In addition to their convention, the Dems have two opportunities to change these dynamics (which means, as you suggest, getting the press to cover the budget matters even though the Bush Admin is avoiding talking about them). First is the debates, but it will be up to Kerry to use the debates for his benefit. He'll only be able to if he and his surrogates have framed their side of the budget issues in such a way that the debates will raise the right questions. That's the second opportunity -- by focusing on the fact that huge deficits are a "betryal" of "real conservatives," and trying to peel off some "leading voices" on the Right so that there's a controversy the press can cover (between the Repub party of Bush Jr and principled conservatives like his father).
It will be important for the Dems to position the issue so that it works for them among the broadest possible group of voters. Clinton's campaigning certainly should be studied. I'm sure you'd be able to confirm/amend my impression -- IIRC, Clinton's handling of "tax cuts for the rich" was an example of his masterly ability to make an issue work for him with a larger group of voters by appearing to defuse the issue. Rather than shout with outrange over all the benefits going to the wealthy -- which would energize his base but put off lots in the middle class -- he'd just quietly explain why "it just doesn't seem to make any sense to me." Kerry can't do Clinton's "aw shucks" routine. What he can do, however, is to present the "fairness" arguments on taxes and spending as reasons why Bush's policies are "bad policies" (i.e. ineffective or harmful) rather than present them as morally outrageous. Such an approach will take advantage of the points you made -- that Bush isn't going to have anyone out there who's in a position to defend the policies, just condemn how terrible the Democrats' policies would be.
[OT - with constantly shifting media distribution technologies, is the usage "all over the airwaves" archaic or futuristic?]
____
Stan cannot get over the idea that any administration would abandon sound fiscal policy in order to score political points. Stan thinks Bush needs to talk about the budget to get his programs through Congress.
However, the Senate just unanimously passed a Defense budget and Interior is already done. Bets are on that the rest of the budget will see a continuing resolution at adjusted 04 spending levels. Getting any kind of budget passed under the radar is fine for Mr Bush. If he can eke a victory in Nov, then he can push his real agenda.
Brad is correct. The technocrats have been told to shut up. Not only is silence golden but fiscal technocrats that use their head might lose it.
Since reporters report what the president says, the budget issue goes nowhere. Budgets are too arcane for the public to grasp. Most households avoid budgets if possible.
The budget is a cornerstone of effective governance. As a campaign issue, it has little traction. The best the budget issue could do for Kerry is poison the pro-Bush deficit hawk base.
It is sad, the number one function of Congress is often not on the table as a campaign issue.
____
With Budget come taxation! We need revenues, ergo prompter hoc Daddy lost on the no new taxes pledge, therefore I take the Cheney/Reagan doctrine of "..defecits don't matter!" Dare to bring the issue up or talk to a reporter and lose your head. Hence peace and "relative quiet".
____
Look at the nature of the task involved.
Then ask yourself:
"What spokesman, Secretary, Chairman, could possibly make your friends backing up their panel truck to the loading dock of the US Treasury while you open the door from the inside, and then all spending three jolly years shovelling the contents of the latter into the former look good?"
It would require a level of shill-itude not often found in econ departments -- try the midway, or late-night informercials instead.
Secretary of the Treasury Ron Popeil?
Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors Billy Mays?
____
Dick Cheney has "credibility" problems?
If that's the case, what does it say about John Kerry that he has lower favorability ratings than Cheney in the latest poll from Stanley Greenberg?
____
Not talking about it serves the administration, because if they don't talk about the economic and budget record the bulk of the press corps won't write about it.
Just as the press won't have anything to say about Nergoponte if he doesn't call a press conference. I am amazed how much the agenda is set by the people reporters are supposed to be covering.
____
Great site fatty lose weight with reductil and reductil uk
____
Great site fatty lose weight with reductil and reductil uk
____
Great site fatty lose weight with reductil and reductil uk
____
Get it up mate, it's fun!
____
____
____
nice site i really like your information
____
Hire a car to feel higher!
____
Great site fatty lose weight with reductil and reductil uk
____
____