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Go Home Republicans Abandon Bush's Greatest Triumph

JONATHAN CHAIT FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Republicans Abandon Bush's Greatest Triumph

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, who was a driving force behind that administration's Africa initiative, writes plaintively about GOP cuts to programs he helped create:

Senegal is conducting indoor spraying campaigns and providing effective, new combination drug treatments. Volunteers are going door to door in impoverished neighborhoods, instructing women in the proper use of nets.

The result? From 2005 to 2008, mortality among Senegalese children ages 6 and under dropped by a third, with reductions in malaria playing a major role. Some communities that had experienced 70 to 80 percent malaria prevalence during the high season of one year reported not a single case in the next.

It is a sophisticated, successful national effort. But it would not be possible without the help of the United States, provided through the Peace Corps, the President's Malaria Initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

As I was visiting hospitals and health huts in Senegal, I was also receiving e-mailed updates on House GOP budget cuts. The Global Fund, down 40 percent. Child survival programs, which include anti-malaria efforts, down 10 percent. AIDS relief, down 8 percent. Development assistance, down 30 percent.

Gerson scoffs at the notion that "fiscal responsibility" is driving these cuts. ("No one can reasonably claim that the budget crisis exists because America spends too much on bed nets and AIDS drugs. Our massive debt is mainly caused by a combination of entitlement commitments, an aging population and health cost inflation.") Well, sure. But the massive drop in tax receipts caused by the Bush tax cuts has starved the government of revenue and made it inevitable that programs commanding the least political clout would face serious cuts. It may be mathematically possible to draw up a budget that keeps Bush-era tax rates and the Africa initiative and maintains low deficits, but it's not politically realistic. The flaw in Gerson's thinking is the fundamental flaw of the whole "compassionate conservative" project: It was never able to explain how Gersonian levels of government spending could be reconciled with Norquistian levels of taxes.

 

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"Our massive debt is mainly caused by a combination of entitlement commitments, an aging population and health cost inflation." No, it isn't. We had ALL those things in 2000, AND a balanced budget. What unbalanced us were the Bush tax-cuts, followed very closely by TWO WARS we never raised taxes to pay for. The financial deregulation that allowed and enabled a CDO Pyramid Scheme didn't help either. I get awfully tired of these Republican talking points just taken as fact.

- AllanL5

February 15, 2011 at 10:06am

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Lets not forget the millions of additional unemployed tax-payers. The situation wouldn't be half as dire if we hadn't had a jobless boom in the 00's, followed by massive unemployment. All those people out of work means all those people not paying very much in taxes (unemployment compensation is taxed federally, but since it almost never amounts to more than half of a person's previous salary, and usually only extends for 6 months at nominal rate of payout, we're talking about pennies here). The real solution is job, lots of jobs, now. And we can't depend on the housing industry because the demand for new houses is at an all time low (give or take), or the service sector because if people don't have jobs and disposable income to spend then there is nothing to service.

- GSpinks

February 15, 2011 at 10:57am

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Grover Norquist trumps Michael Gerson every time. Noruqist didn't get his wish about drowning big government in the bathtub because there are far too many people who like big government, including not a few conservative Republicans. But he has substantially gotten his way on taxes, which has lead to huge deficits.

- liberalref

February 15, 2011 at 11:21am

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Oh cry me a river Gerson. You winger ideolouges always wax liberal when its your pet projects, showing how heartfelt you truly are - while crowing how every penny you don't approve of/understand (mostly the same thing) goes to welfare queens and Al Gore. Frankly: bite me.

- WandreyCer

February 15, 2011 at 11:31am

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Jill,when you are on form, you are my favorite commenter!

- JEFF FREY

February 15, 2011 at 11:55am

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On form?? Welfare queens are so Reagan-era. PRWOR-1996 emasculated this favorite conservative trope. When you aim to be a caustic commenter, you should update the arrows in your quiver every thirty or so years.

- liberalref

February 15, 2011 at 12:45pm

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Gerson, Give me a freaking break!!! You think TP Republicans would not cut a program spent overseas on black people? Wake up and smell reality. You have been working for frauds, shysters, and sociopaths.

- MikeB.

February 15, 2011 at 1:19pm

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