Forecasting the Bush Years
Now that the inauguration confetti has been swept up and the tuxes returned, Northeastern pundits take an early look at the George W. Bush era, outlining what they see as the president’s biggest challenges—and offering a little advice of their own.
Beltway bonding
Michael Dukakis
Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Bush probably doesn’t have to worry about combating the notion that he’s not too bright, because you don’t get elected president if you’re kind of dopey. My sense of Bush is that he’s pretty smart politically, but he’s not interested in the details of policy. He’s clearly more of a delegator when it comes to the operational details.
He’s going to have to spend a lot of time getting along with Congress. If you take the Democrats and the moderate Republicans, you have a moderately progressive majority, which mirrors the makeup of the country. If he wants to get anything done, he’s going to have to work with these people. A lot depends on what he does and how he does it.
His decision to issue an executive order banning federal funds for organizations that perform abortions outside the United States is troubling. And the choice of [John] Ashcroft [for attorney general] is just incomprehensible to me. This is an ideologically driven guy. On the whole, however, Bush’s cabinet picks aren’t bad.
Home, affordable home
Barry Bluestone
Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy;
Director, Center for Urban and Regional Policy
Housing was a nonissue in the presidential campaign. Mr. Bush didn’t address it, but neither did Mr. Gore. It’s a problem for big cities, and we’re also hearing more and more reports about other areas, such as northwestern Vermont, where housing prices are soaring.
The federal government should expand its assistance to housing production, such as setting up a national housing trust fund. You need a source of funds from the federal government that can be tapped by state and local agencies to provide incentives for developers to build housing for low- and moderate-income families. Some incentives can come from state funds. But the big bucks are in Washington.
The economic boom that started under Clinton exacerbated an ongoing housing crisis. Developers can make a lot more money building 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot homes rather than affordable housing for everybody else. Also, demand for housing has been outstripping supply, and that has raised prices.
Unlike other commodities, where increasing prices elicit increased supply, the response of housing to rising prices is very sluggish. There are a lot of social and political barriers to putting up new housing. It means paying more taxes for schools and roads. Some people don’t want low- and moderate-income families moving into their neighborhoods. Codes also make it tough.
Unfortunately, the housing issue has the potential for getting lost in the shuffle, because not all areas have the same problems. Concerns about housing haven’t reached the level of concerns about other issues, such as education, or medical care, or Social Security. Therefore, it keeps dropping off the table, even though it’s a very important issue.
Art for art's sake
Del Lewis
Director, Center for the Arts
I haven’t really heard Bush say boo about the arts. But given the record of arts support in Texas and the record of his father’s and [Ronald] Reagan’s administrations, I’d say we’re in bigger trouble than ever.
Over the past decade—through no fault of the Clinton administration, but because of the Republican Congress—the National Endowment for the Arts budgets were cut. Funding for the arts through the federal government is abysmal.
Congress’s attitude is that the arts should be supported privately. But there isn’t a major country in the world that doesn’t provide government support for the arts at a much higher rate than the United States does.
Even developing countries are ahead of us—not in terms of subsidizing the arts, but where the arts are in their communities. They may be behind us economically and industrially, but they’re way ahead of us culturally, because art is woven into the fabric of their daily lives.
Unfortunately, when there is an unfriendly administration, private funding does not increase for the arts, because it’s considered an “extra.” That is partially the fault of the artists. Art has become an effete, or elitist, exercise. I would hope the Bush administration could somehow see the real benefits of funding the arts, in terms of the soul of our society. But I’m not terribly hopeful.
Safety networks
Jack Levin
Director, Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict
The Clinton administration focused quite a bit on increasing the participation of adults in teenagers’ lives. As a result, we saw a proliferation of programs and policies at the local level: boys and girls clubs, summer jobs, after-school programs, conflict-resolution programs, clergy who took their congregations to the streets, community policing. That made a big difference in lowering the crime rate.
But a couple of things may reduce the prevalence of these programs over the next few years. First, there’s the softening of the economy, which may mean less money for what some people regard as frills. And that would come when there is an increase in the number of teenagers and young adults. Unfortunately, these are the crime-prone age groups.
There’s another complication. Communities like Boston and New York City—where the poverty rate is relatively low, and there are adequate economic and human resources—even with a softening of the economy and a conservative regime in Washington may still continue to benefit from local programs and policies.
But I’m much more concerned about what will happen to cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, where the murder rate has not come down significantly and there was never enough capital to greatly reduce juvenile crime. Companies can’t generate summer jobs if they’re on the verge of bankruptcy.
And then, of course, the new administration may want to focus more on get-tough policies. The problem is, we’ve already done that. We’ve reached the limit of what these law-and-order policies are likely to do to reduce crime. We’ve incarcerated two million Americans. We’ve tripled the number of imprisoned people over the last couple of decades.
Now we’re beginning to see prisoners being released into the community. Assuming the economy softens, if conservative policies reduce the amount of money to cities in dire need of help, we still need to deal with the release of inmates who need a helping hand. If we don’t, we’re in big trouble.
To preserve and protect
Gwilym Jones
Professor of biology
I support minimal-to-zero loss of wetlands. We’ve lost far too much already. We as a species and a biosphere are completely dependent on water and wetlands. Ten years ago, we heard a lot of talk about “no net loss of wetlands.” You know who said that? Bush senior.
I also think it’s important to support CARA—the Conservation and Reinvestment Act—that has been before Congress for several years. CARA would supply federal monies to fund the conservation of all nongame species [species not traditionally hunted], plus open space for them to live in. The monies would be raised through a small tax drawn from those who are either affecting or using the environment.
Two ideas have been suggested. One is to put a minimal tax on items used in the outdoors, such as canoes, binoculars, outdoor clothes, and so on. The other is a tax on existing oil wells, mostly offshore oil wells.
There are problems with both ideas, though. The idea of taxing oil to promote conservation irritates everybody. And it would be tough to decide what outdoors items to tax, because, for example, binoculars aren’t just used for bird watching, they’re used at Super Bowl games.
I like the idea of preserving wetlands and supporting CARA because they approach our need for conservation from a very large scale, an ecosystem scale. Interestingly, Bush, as governor of Texas, backed CARA, which shocked me, because you hear so much about him being anti-environment.
China and Taiwan
Suzanne Ogden
Professor of political science;
Author, Inklings of Democracy in China (Harvard University Press, forthcoming)
The real concern is that Bush will go forward with national missile defense or theater [limited-area] missile defense. He’s proposing a limited version of it, something like Reagan’s “Star Wars” idea.
If we built this system in the Taiwan theater, it would be considered very threatening by China. They feel it would allow the Taiwanese to declare independence and nullify China’s defensive capabilities, leaving us free to attack them, even though we have agreements now that make this illegal. It would put us into an arms race with China. Why would Bush want to do this? He seems to be very misinformed about how Taiwan feels about independence.
I just came back from Taiwan, from briefings with the minister of foreign affairs, the minister of defense, and various think tanks. Although many Taiwanese, the political leadership included, would like to be independent, the business community—the people who made the Taiwanese economic miracle—think the future lies with a close relationship with China, either through integration or unification.
Taiwan is becoming so deeply involved with mainland China, in its trade, transportation, and communication, it would be senseless to declare independence. Also, China has said it would attack Taiwan if it did, and the Taiwan population doesn’t want war.
Another fallacy of the Bush administration is that it would be protecting the “democratic” Taiwan. Taiwan has been becoming democratic for about a dozen years, and they’re making tremendous progress, but it is by no means the full-fledged democracy we are. Until 1988, Taiwan was under martial law and was a dictatorship that treated dissidents brutally. The ruling Nationalist Party, which has at last been thrown out of power, was deeply corrupt and elitist.
[President Bill] Clinton had a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward the China-Taiwan problem. He never said what he would do if Taiwan declared independence. He didn’t want them to—he wanted to encourage them to work things out. And they are doing it. Bush would make things much more difficult if he were to go forward with a missile defense system.
Challenges in Africa
Kwamina Panford
Associate professor of African-American studies
I would like to see the United States be actively involved in Africa. There are a lot of issues there—economic development, trade, debt, AIDS, war, slavery. During the campaign, one got the impression that Bush wasn’t going to be an activist regarding African policy. But it will be interesting to see what Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice do. It probably won’t be easy for people of African descent to ignore Africa.
One problem is the tendency in U.S. foreign policy to give military assistance. Our official position is that we help places like Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria be prepared for peacekeeping assignments. But the worry is, you don’t know what the military will do with U.S. military equipment and training. The United States needs to be very cautious in this area.
The United States should also pay close attention to the situation in countries like Angola, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. The crisis in Zimbabwe, in which the government has been seeking both constitutional and extraconstitutional means to take back the sizable chunk of arable land owned by about four thousand white farmers, could bring down the economy of nearby countries in southern Africa.
Already, there have been some noteworthy developments. Relations seem to be improving between the United States and Sudan, which is interesting because Sudan is on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. In 1998, Clinton bombed a factory in Sudan. But maybe Sudan has gained the [Bush] administration’s attention because it has a new regime, and because of publicity around the issue of slavery and the war between northern and southern Sudan.
Also, two new heads of state—Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Joseph Kabila of Congo, who are both fighting for control of Congo—came to the United States to meet with Colin Powell, who was trying to get them to talk. Maybe that means Bush is trying to be more activist.
On the other hand, the Bush administration put an embargo on monies going to organizations that provide abortions to women overseas. This may not be in the best interest of African countries trying to control their populations.
One of the biggest problems is that, although the United States is the most important market in the world, African countries still have very limited access. So the Bush administration should deal with how it will open up access to African countries’ goods and produce, which would help bring some of those countries out of poverty.
Votes that count
Robert Hall
Chair, African-American studies department
There’s clearly a need for electoral reform. I’m not sure I would go so far as to restructure the electoral college system. The problem manifested in Florida—but probably not limited to Florida—involves uniformity in ballot-counting systems. Some counties used levers; a couple dozen used punch ballots; others used optical-scan ballots.
And black voters were more likely to have the most outmoded types of ballots. I don’t think that was contrived specifically to win Bush the election, but it reveals past patterns of neglect. It’s just a mess.
There were also reports, from Tallahassee and elsewhere, of roadblocks or checkpoints established by the state highway patrol on election day, requiring two forms of identification to get through, including on the thoroughfare that led to one of the largest black precincts.
Although running elections is a job for the states, there should be federal incentives or matching funds to nudge the states to do the right thing. I’m not sure if it will happen. Some of it may have to happen because there is no Republican preponderance in Congress, so Bush will have to try to deliver on his promise to cultivate people on both sides of the aisle.
Lines of defense
Anthony Jones
Director, Gorbachev Foundation of North America
The Bush administration’s plans for a national missile defense [NMD] program concern me most. This could be very destabilizing to the world order. Allegedly, the NMD is a shield that will knock out any incoming ballistic missiles. However, it’s very expensive, and we’re not even sure it’s technically feasible.
But the real issue is one of global politics. It’s clear the intention to go ahead with NMD has already provoked Russia and China into negotiating a mutual defense pact. This is just the first step in what many of us feel will be a new Cold War.
This whole program is allegedly aimed at rogue nations—Iraq, Iran, North Korea. The idea is that we’re vulnerable because they have the capacity to send nuclear missiles. But they don’t have that capacity, and there are other ways of dealing with this. Besides, these days countries and terrorists can deliver nuclear weapons in a suitcase—not just through missiles.
What has been sorely lacking for the past ten years is innovative thinking about how to act in a post–Cold War era. Continuing to think in terms of a bipolar world—communists on one side, the West on the other—no longer makes any sense. What needs to be put in its place is not national defense programs, but global and regional defense programs.
I realize this is difficult to pull off, but there’s been a significant lack of imagination on the part of the Clinton administration, and there may be even less in the Bush administration. Part of the problem is that it’s the natural inclination of this administration to think in terms of defense. And a lot of the people advising Bush are from an era when the Cold War was at its height.
On Russia
Sheila Puffer
Professor of human resources management
Bush’s biggest challenge will be finding ways to help Russia stay on its improving economic trajectory. The country had a devastating financial crisis in August 1998, but there are strong signs the Russian economy has been making a recovery in the past year. High oil prices have been the major reason why, because fuel constitutes a large chunk of the country’s export earnings.
Another bright spot is that nearly three-quarters of the Russians feel very positive about [President Vladimir] Putin, so that’s a stabilizing factor. I think if Bush were to focus on developing a relationship of trust with Putin, that would bode well for investment flowing into the country. It would be a bellwether for businesspeople considering joint ventures and other collaborations.
I also think if the Bush administration upholds the highest ethical practices in business, it would be an indicator to the Russians that we expect the same from them.
Necessary skill sets
Paul Harrington
Associate director, Center for Labor Market Studies
The first thing Bush should do, to loosen constraints on the American economy’s ability to grow, is tackle problems in the scientific, information-technology, and engineering labor supply. The United States needs more graduates who can meet skill requirements in these technically sophisticated areas.
There are still very large gender gaps between girls and boys in SAT math scores. Even when girls have high SAT math scores, they are much less likely to go into scientific or information-technology fields. We should raise girls’ scores and spark their interest in these areas.
And we have to start thinking through how to reform university curricula, to orient training for technical fields to the emerging needs of the economy. The curricula that served for the last hundred years may not be right for the next hundred. We have to substantially increase federal support for research and development in these areas.
Even though there’s some support for these goals, another crucial goal has met with skepticism. Because of our increasingly technological society, access to education has become a primary tool for upward mobility. We need to develop a second-chance education system, going after people in their twenties and thirties for whom the regular primary and secondary school system has not worked out well.
If you’re a twenty-year-old who dropped out of high school, life is looking pretty grim for you these days. We need to ensure that these people are not relegated to the bottom of the income-and-earnings distribution for the rest of their lives. The way to resolve poverty is through education and training.
Will Bush tackle this? In the absence of a major recession, it’s not likely. Some feel second-chance programs haven’t been very effective. But I still think there’s value to them, if we can do a better job running them.
Teaching widely and well
James Fraser
Dean and director, School of Education
The federal government was most effective in improving children’s education during [President Lyndon] Johnson’s Great Society. It improved opportunities for those least served by the existing education structure, which tended to be urban and rural poor kids. It created targeted programs to make sure every kid in America learned how to read and write and count during their early years.
The Great Society also fostered education research. We know a lot more now about how people learn and what it takes to teach effectively. Most of all, we learned more about how children learn in math and sciences. We need basic research in education as much as we need basic research in science, and the federal government is the only game in town able to sponsor serious long-term research.
I continue to be very worried about a couple of things that were part of the campaign and could easily become part of the administration. Bush could embrace the whole right-wing endorsement of school vouchers and abandon the public schools. Second, the much-discussed block-grant program could dramatically undermine programs that specifically address the poorest youth, in favor of across-the-board programs.
On the other hand, there is reason for considerable optimism. Roderick Paige, the new secretary of education, is a very thoughtful educator. He’s not a right-wing ideologue; he’s an urban educator with a long and successful track record. Also, in the divided Senate, Senator [Edward] Kennedy is going to be a lot more powerful than in previous Congresses. For three decades, he and his staff have been the most powerful force for education in Washington.
