THE GEORGE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: THE STYLE AND SUBSTANCE OF CORPORATE MANAGEMENT
Joseph A. Buttigieg  

Some time ago, when the U.S. vice-president, Dick Chaney, spent a brief time in hospital for treatment of a heart ailment, a joke started circulating that went as follows: “What would happen if Chaney died? George Bush will become president.” Like many other political jokes, this one too contains a grain of truth. Dick Chaney had been guiding George W. Bush through the complexities of the electoral campaign well before he was named as the Texan’s vice-presidential choice; he then played a determining role in assembling Bush’s cabinet; and, during the first four months of Bush’s presidency, he has emerged as the most powerful member of the current administration. Chaney, in fact, deserves much of the credit for the fact that, in spite of the occasional stumble, things have gone rather smoothly for Bush, thus far. Thanks in large measure to Chaney’s acumen as a political strategist and his wealth of experience in Washington, D.C., the Bush administration has been able to score a number of noteworthy successes on the domestic front. Chaney’s vice-presidency is also different from that that of his predecessors in one vitally important respect: given his age, he cannot realistically hope to run for the presidency himself at some future date; thus, he is wholeheartedly committed to the success of the administration he serves and helps guide.

It would be a mistake, however, to underestimate the political astuteness of George Bush. His selection of Chaney as his right-hand man is itself a good indication of his sense of discrimination. To be sure, the new U.S. president has yet to establish himself as a strong and persuasive leader. He has yet to shed his image as a relatively inexperienced and intellectually shallow politician. Unlike Clinton, he does not have the capacity (or, unfortunately, the inclination) to master the intricate details of the major issues and the most pressing problems that confront this extremely diverse, rapidly changing, and incomparably complicated nation. Yet, Bush has assembled a very effective and disciplined team around him, and he has also established an excellent relationship with the Republican leadership in Congress.

Bush has been aptly described as the MBA president. Although Bush never distinguished himself as a university student, he gained admission to Harvard where he obtained a Masters in Business Administration; i.e., the academic degree in “management” that has become a sine qua non for anyone who aspires to join the upper echelons of the corporate world. He has consciously attempted to run his administration like a business corporation; he conceives of his own role as that of a CEO (Chief Executive Officer). Chaney himself, in a television interview, described Bush in these terms: “He’s very much the C.E.O. of the operation. He runs the show, and I do whatever he wants me to do.” The corporate model of organization characterizes the Bush administration. In this respect, Bush has achieved a perfect marriage of style and substance; his administration not only functions like a business corporation but it is also devoted entirely to furthering the corporate interests of the business world. Like any good corporate manager, Bush knows how to delegate the most difficult and delicate tasks to his most trustworthy and competent aides and senior cabinet members. At the same time, he makes sure that all policy decisions are coordinated by and centralized in the White House. He relies heavily on the advice of his most trusted “consiglieri” and even allows himself to be stage-managed. In his public speeches, Bush rarely yields to the temptation to improvise; he sticks to the script that is prepared for him in advance, and, in answering questions from the press, he restricts himself to repeating (with little or no elaboration) well-rehearsed phrases.

George Bush is a manager who is also willing to allow himself to be managed. He knows his limitations; and, precisely for that reason, his limited mental agility and miserable rhetorical skills have not proven to be a handicap. In his many public appearances Bush has avoided committing major gaffes; unlike Ronald Reagan, he has rarely had to mobilize his White House spokesman to rectify glaring errors of fact or to clarify confused statements following his speeches and press conferences. One significant exception occurred when Bush erroneously declared that North Korea is untrustworthy because it has a record of violating its treaties and agreements with the U.S. Reporters and commentators quickly pointed out that this was an unjust accusation since there exist no treaties or agreements between the two countries. The White House timidly explained that the president had simply made a grammatical error: he employed a verb in the past tense when, in fact, he was referring to the future. Since the general public has only a marginal interest in foreign affairs, the error was either ignored or quickly forgotten. For those who recall the turmoil and the furious polemics that consumed the first year of Clinton’s presidency, the performance of the Bush administration during the past four months must appear surprisingly steady and self-assured.

In the immediate aftermath of the election, many political experts predicted that lingering questions about the legitimacy of Bush’s victory—combined with the very narrow majority that the Republicans enjoy in the House of Representatives and the virtual tie in the Senate—would prevent the new administration from pursuing a bold legislative agenda and constrain it to adopt a very moderate centrist course of action. Furthermore, during his campaign Bush insisted repeatedly on the need for bi-partisanship; he never lost an opportunity to boast about his ability to work with members of both parties during his tenure as governor of Texas; and he promised the electorate that he would rise above factionalism in order to bring people together and govern through consensus. Things could not have turned out any more differently than predicted. Far from a tenuous balance between relatively progressive Democrats and basically conservative Republicans, the U.S. is currently experiencing a distinctive swing to the right—at least at the governmental level. In a very short time, George Bush and his fellow Republicans in Congress have managed to lay down the foundations for the successful implementation of a well-thought-out political program that could culminate in the achievement of the major objectives of the so-called Reagan-revolution: (a) minimize the role of government and deprive it of the financial resources necessary to redress social inequities; (b) remove as many constraints on private businesses and the big corporations as is possible without creating total anarchy; (c) ensure that the federal courts are dominated by conservative judges; (d) stem the growing influence of the environmental movements; (e) maintain extremely high levels of funding for the Pentagon to ensure that the capacity of the U.S. to force its will on the rest of the world is not only overwhelming but also un-matchable.

The cornerstone of George Bush’s electoral campaign was his promise to cut taxes drastically. He argued passionately that the surplus in the federal budget belonged to “the people” and, hence, should be returned to them. Left in the hands of politicians, Bush argued, the hard-earned money of U.S. citizens would be wasted. Ordinarily, this populist view could be counted on to generate widespread support. Yet, every opinion poll showed that the majority of the American people preferred to see the surplus used to retire the national debt. In the midst of an economic boom, with extremely low unemployment rates, the electorate was more inclined to favor a policy of fiscal responsibility than a reduction in taxes. Furthermore, the tax-cut that Bush proposed was more attractive to the relatively small percentage of individuals with very high incomes than to the vast majority of low and middle-income voters who stood to gain comparatively small amounts of money even from a massive reduction in income tax. Bush certainly could not attribute his electoral victory to the voters’ clamor for lower taxes. Nevertheless, from the moment he was inaugurated Bush placed the tax-cut at the top of his list of priorities. He traveled around the country as if he were still in the midst of an electoral campaign in an effort to generate popular support for his tax-cut plan. In the meantime, the economy started exhibiting some signs of weakness. He used this as an opportunity to argue that a tax-cut was needed to stimulate economic growth. Economists pointed out that the short-term trajectory of the economy cannot be corrected by tax-cuts which take a relatively long time to make an impact. This did not diminish in the least Bush’s determination to lower taxes. He even concocted a more improbable justification for his plan: a tax-reduction, he now says, would help people better cope with the recent steep increases in the price of oil and natural gas. In short, the Bush administration has been determined from the start to do whatever it takes to get congressional approval for a budget that featured a massive tax-cut and only a minimal increase (barely higher than the rate of inflation) in government expenditure. In the end, he succeeded thanks to the solid backing of the Republicans (and a few Democratic cross-over votes) in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democratic opposition proved ineffectual.

The Bush tax plan will, indeed, as the Democrats have been pointing out, benefit disproportionately the richest individuals who least need financial relief. This does not mean, however, that Bush’s ultimate motivation is to further enrich the wealthy—even though he is not averse to that either. The massive tax-cut being proposed by this administration has a much deeper purpose: it constitutes the most important element in the conservative drive to reduce the role of government to a minimum. Lower taxes, one need hardly explain, diminish the revenues that the government has at its disposal; without sufficient revenues it cannot embark on any ambitious projects for the benefit of society as a whole and for the amelioration of the lives of its most needy citizens in particular. At present this is not an issue that preoccupies many Americans—even though it is scandalous that a nation enjoying unprecedented prosperity should still fail to summon the will and the resources to address the needs of numerous destitute and desperate people scattered all across the country and, most especially, in certain urban areas. (During the electoral campaign neither Bush nor Gore evinced the least degree of interest in seeking a remedy for persistent pockets of abject poverty and urban blight in the U.S.) Clinton had already cut back social assistance programs through his so-called reform of the welfare system. The next time the economy suffers a setback, even if only a minor one, more people will need assistance but the government will not have the funds at its disposal to provide help. Once taxes are lowered it will be virtually impossible to persuade Congress to raise them again when the need arises, and a return to deficit spending is almost unimaginable. At that point, the brutal nature of Bush’s conservatism will become evident.

Additional plans are being developed by the Bush administration to further reduce the role of government in the delivery of social assistance. The plan that has received the most publicity entails the transfer of funds from the government to churches and other non-governmental agencies for the purpose of delivering aid to the needy through their charitable operations. If this plan were to be implemented, it will not only have the effect of eroding the strict separation of church and state and enable conservative religious groups to further extend their already considerable influence, but, even more significantly, it will also reinforce the notion that social assistance is ultimately a “charitable act” rather than a social obligation for which the state is responsible. It has become an article of faith—and not just among conservatives—that the government is inefficient and wasteful. So, Bush, acting like the CEO of a huge corporation, is now proposing to designate the churches as sub-contractors. In business terminology this maneuver is called “outsourcing.” In reality, Bush’s plan is one more step to minimize the role of government as a guarantor of social justice and equity.

The assault on government and the demonization of “Washington” (i.e., the bureaucracy and the political class) , which has been relentless since the days of Reagan, is always accompanied by an exaltation not only of “business” (as the paradigm of efficiency) but also of the ability of the free enterprise system to function as a self-regulating and self-corrective system that somehow produces rational and logical solutions to all crises. The Bush administration has wasted no time in providing “business” with greater latitude than it already enjoys to pursue profits without regard to social costs. The bankruptcy laws have been rewritten to permit banks to collect debts with greater ease. At the same time, though, nothing has been done, or will be done, to control the misleading advertising by which banks entice people to borrow money; nor has there been much discussion about the high interest rates that banks charge on unpaid credit card balances; and no one seems much inclined to protect consumers from the exorbitant fees that banks charge for providing routine services. In the meantime, of course, the profits of the banking industry continue to soar, even as the rights of consumers and their protection from predatory practices are being sidelined. Similarly, worker’s rights and the regulations that are meant to secure the safety of the working-place are being eroded. At the same time, environmental safeguards are being rolled back to spare business corporations the expense of taking measures to reduce pollution, and also to permit them to exploit the natural resources (forests, mines, and oil and gas deposits both offshore and in wilderness areas) available on federally owned and hitherto protected areas.

Now, the Bush administration is orchestrating an artificial energy crisis. It is cnically taking advantage of two phenomena to advance its agenda. In California the privatization of the electrical system went awry—for a number of complicated reason, Californians ended up paying an astronomically high price for electricity and, even so, the utility companies could not meet the demand for electricity. The system failed, in part, because of the insufficiency of generating capacity. Bush and Chaney, while declaring that the federal government was not going to offer any assistance to the state of California to resolve the crisis, chose to attribute the problem to an inadequate supply of oil and natural gas. This is part of their strategy to open up larger tracts of land (including the Alaskan wilderness) and off-shore areas for oil and gas extraction . In the meantime, the price of gasoline in the U.S. has risen substantially. In many parts of the country, motorists are paying $3 for a gallon of gasoline. (1 gallon =3.8 liters.) While no European will be shocked by the figure, Americans find it extremely burdensome. Again, Bush is seizing the opportunity to press for an increase in the domestic extraction of oil and natural gas. He has asked Chaney to prepare a comprehensive “energy plan.” Chaney’s views on the subject are already well known: he favors an increase in the supply of fossil fuels, has little faith in the potential for developing alternative sources of energy, and he disdains the simple notion of conservation. “Conservation,” Chaney declared in recent speech, “may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” The automobile industry will not be asked to produce smaller and more efficient cars; the manufacturers of house appliances and air-conditioners will not be burdened by any new standards. Funding for promising research on unconventional sources (like wind power and solar energy) may even be reduced. Chaney has even suggested that one way to generate more energy without damaging the environment is to start building new nuclear power stations. In short, the Bush administration’s energy policy is another important constitutive element in the overarching conservative plan to eliminate the regulatory powers of government and give corporations a free rein to pursue profits with little or no regard for the common good.

On another front, national security, the Bush administration is preparing a bonanza for another group of industries. The “missile shield” that is being proposed will transfer trillions of dollars of taxpayers money to the behemoths of the defense industry. Lockheed, Boeing, and other big defense contractors will be the primary beneficiaries of this utopian dream of producing the perfect shield from external military threats. It is a dream that goes back to the Reagan era and that has been kept alive by, among others, Chaney and Rumsfeld (the current Secretary of Defense). It is a dream that nothing—not treaties, not the end of the cold war, not the emergence of a “new world order,” not even the fear of a new arms race—can impede. It will contribute nothing to the cause of peace but it is manna from heaven for some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world.

It is impossible to understate the extent to which the Bush administration has been able, in a very short time, to put in place the first important building blocks of a system of government that would reduce the State to a mere night-watchman (the guarantor of law-and-order), and concede everything else to the vagaries of market forces. The successes of the Bush administration are attributable, in large measure, to the discipline and managerial capacity of the conservative movement in the U.S. They also stand as an indictment of the fragmentary character of the left opposition, and above all of the false promises and the illusions of the “third way” so avidly propagated by Bill Clinton. Already, so soon after the presidential elections, it has become evident that for all his charisma and popularity (to say nothing of his substantial popular mandate) Clinton achieved so little. In his run for the White House, Bush presented himself as a moderate—or, in his own words, a “compassionate conservative”—just as, eight years earlier, Clinton had presented himself to the electorate as a moderate Democrat sympathetic to market forces. In his eight years in office, Clinton often spoke like a progressive politician but his actual policies were aimed primarily at keeping the corporate world happy. In four short months, Bush has been able to make the business world even happier without doing anything to attenuate the brutal greed of unrestrained capitalism. How long will it take for the left to learn that conservatives cannot be converted into moderates by compromising the principles of equity and social justice? Why can’t progressive politicians and strategists pursue their vision of a just and humane world—a world in which the common good prevails over private greed—with the same determination and single-mindedness as conservatives?