“Economic Agenda”

Today, I saw for the first time a Bush campaign ad titled “Economic Agenda.” It is viewable on their website, if you have not already seen it. The substance of the ad was broken into convenient, numbered bullet points. If I may, I would like to address the specific issues listed. I promise to do this with a minimum of snark, in an attempt to raise the overall level of political discourse.

1. Lifelong Learning. That sounds great. Really. I am one of those people who would really love to follow the old maxim of “Learn something new every day.” Unfortunately, people who are paid to pay attention to such stuff say there’s no program to go with these words. In fact, a search for “Bush lifelong learning” reveals mostly comments from First Lady and former Librarian Laura Bush. What does lifelong learning mean, anyway? Does it mean continually training for the jobs of the future, whatever they may be? Until we have some idea what we are talking about, there is very little to say.

2. Invest in Education. Another “how can you disagree” sort of statement. Everyone except the most diehard Libertarians agrees that it is important to have adequate investment in education if we are to have workers who can do what needs to be done in the coming decades. And the President actually has something he can brag about in the realm of education, “No Child Left Behind.” Unfortunately, that’s one of those things that sounds better than it has worked out. Now, it has reached the point where high performing schools are finding themselves “Failing” under the federal standard of “better,” and are facing sanctions. It sure feels like the ultimate goal is to make schools ineligible for federal funds. I’ve spoken on education before.

3. New Skills for Better Jobs. That ties in nicely with the “lifelong learning” thing, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, training for a job does not guarantee that you will get a job doing what you have trained to do. What job training does, however, is get people temporarily out of the labor pool, and benefit publicly traded schools such as Corinthian Colleges, ITT, and DeVry. Remember, the official Department of Labor standard for being Unemployed is very, very narrow. I am not saying that there is no point in training for a new job, just that job training programs will not fix the fact that not enough jobs are being created. I have spoken on this far too many times to list them all.

4. Fairer and Simpler Tax Code. Actions speak louder than words. And so far the Bush Administration has said that complicated taxes are just fine (thank you, The Daily Mis-lead). Oh yeah, and he made sure that big SUVs are tax deductible for businesses. That brings us very nicely to his next bullet point….

5. Reduce Foreign Energy Dependance. Drilling holes in the Arctic isn’t going to fix the fact that we use too much oil, and burn too much coal. And frankly, the current administration has not done a whole lot to change that for the better. Clean air rules that were meant to phase out older, more polluting plants have been relaxed. Car milage standards have not been raised to levels that would reduce our need for foreign oil. There’s talk about alternative energy, but what about action? And the time for action is now, since at least one major oil company has announced that they just don’t have as much oil in the ground as they thought they did.

6. Fairer Trade. Another one of those phrases you would have to be some kind of nut-job to disagree with. Even John Kerry thinks fair trade is a good idea. President Bush clearly means “free and fair,” which might be different. Unfortunately, the price of the dollar is being used as a weapon in this quest for free, fair trade. And this has not had a positive effect on the American economy. It will be interesting to see what the two candidates have to say in their debates, and more interesting to see what the assorted columnists and other experts have to say about it.

7. Job Incentives. Um, the economy has lost a net 915,000 jobs during the Bush Administration. If there’s a brilliant idea, in the works, we could sure stand to hear it, maybe even do it. Better yet, let’s do it two years ago, since the administration has missed it’s own job creation targets for the last two years.

8. Comp/Flex Time. It is a bad idea. I have said this until I am blue in the face. It means your boss gets to work you as hard as he wants, pay you nothing extra, and promise to give you some time off someday, at his whim.

9. Strengthen Social Security. It seems like I just talked about this last week.

10. Legal Reform. President Bush talks about ending frivolous lawsuits. But what he means is capping damages. Damage caps would tell big businesses exactly how much money it will cost to break the law, harm people, and pollute the environment we all live in. If you think Big Chemical Co doesn’t dump dangerous carcinogens in your backyard because they are such good people, go ahead and lobby for damage caps. If you suspect that they follow the law because it’s cheaper than lawsuits, then caps are a bad idea. Of particular note, Vice-President Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, stands to gain quite a bit should damage caps be enacted.

11. Tax Relief. Again, that tired bit of political framing. Tax “relief” implies that taxes are onerous, that President Bush wants to rescue you from the IRS. He’s had 3 years to work on this. Are you better off? Have you benefitted from the rise in Estate Tax exemption from half a million dollars to a million and a half? Maybe you have benefitted from some of the other tax breaks? Don’t bet on it.

In closing, I love this chart of commonly used words at the two conventions. It sure looks like the Republicans think John Kerry is more important than Health Care.