Presidential Supporters & Critics, Presidents of the United States - Biography, U.S. Politics & Government - 2000-Present, Business - General & Miscellaneous

Impostor

Name: Impostor
Author: Bruce Bartlett
ISBN: 9780385518277

by Bruce Bartlett

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Overview

George W. Bush came to the presidency in 2000 claiming to be the heir of Ronald Reagan. But while he did cut taxes, in most other respects he has governed in a way utterly unlike his revered predecessor, expanding the size and scope of government, letting immigration go unchecked, and allowing the federal budget to mushroom out of control.

Despite their strong misgivings, most conservatives remained silent during Bush’s first term. But a series of missteps and scandals, culminating in the ill-conceived nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, has brought this hidden rift within the conservative movement crashing to the surface.

Now, in what is sure to be the political book of the season, Bruce Bartlett lays bare the incompetence and profligacy of Bush’s economic policies. A highly respected Washington economist—and true-believing Reaganite—Bartlett started out as a supporter of Bush and helped him craft his tax cuts. But he was dismayed by the way they were executed. Reagan combined his tax cuts with fiscal restraint, but Bush has done the opposite. Bartlett thus reluctantly concluded that Bush is not a Reaganite at all, but an unprincipled opportunist who will do whatever he or his advisers think is expedient to buy votes.

In this sober, thorough, and utterly devastating book, Bartlett attacks the Bush Administration's economic performance root and branch, from the "stovepiping" of its policy process to the coercive tactics used to ram its policies through Congress, to the effects of the policies themselves. He is especially hard on Bush’s enormous new Medicare entitlement…and predicts that within a few years, Bush's tax cuts and unrestricted spending will produce an economic crisis that will require a major tax increase, probably in the form of a European-style VAT.

Bartlett has surprisingly kind words for Bill Clinton, whose record on the budget was far better than Bush’s. Whatever else one may think of him, Bartlett argues, Clinton cut spending, abolished a federal entitlement program, and left a budget surplus. By contrast, Bush has increased spending, created a massive entitlement program, and produced the biggest deficits in American history.

In fact, Bartlett concludes, Bush is less like Reagan than like Nixon: an arch-conservative Republican, bitterly hated by liberals, who vainly tried to woo moderates by enacting big parts of the liberal program. It didn't work then, and it won't work now—and may have similar harmful effects for the GOP.

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Editorials

Chris Suellentrop

It's a fairly devastating indictment of the current administration's economic policies from a conservative-to-libertarian perspective, and although there's little in it that will surprise anyone who follows politics relatively closely, Bartlett does add interest by quoting almost exclusively from conservative journalists and pundits to make his case. A syndicated columnist who worked in the White House under Ronald Reagan and in the Treasury Department during George H.W. Bush's term, Bartlett knows this territory well.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Liberal commentators gripe so frequently about the current administration that it's become easy to tune them out, but when Bartlett, a former member of the Reagan White House, says George W. Bush has betrayed the conservative movement, his conservative credentials command attention. Bartlett's attack boils down to one key premise: Bush is a shallow opportunist who has cast aside the principles of the "Reagan Revolution" for short-term political gains that may wind up hurting the American economy as badly as, if not worse than, Nixon's did. As part of a simple, point-by-point critique of Bush's "finger-in-the-wind" approach to economic leadership, Bartlett singles out the Medicare prescription drug bill of 2003- "the worst piece of legislation ever enacted"-as a particularly egregious example of the increases in government spending that will, he says, make tax hikes inevitable. Bush has further weakened the Republican Party by failing to establish a successor who can run in the next election, Bartlett says. If the Reaganites want to restore the party's tradition of fiscal conservatism and small government, he worries, let alone keep the Democrats out of the White House, they will have their work cut out for them. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Author of Reaganomics and member of the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, economist Bartlett charges that President George W. Bush has eschewed long-term conservative economic principles for short-term political gains and has consequently damaged both the conservative cause and the national economy. Bartlett cites Bush signing into law the 2003 Medicare prescription drug plan with its trillions of dollars of unfunded future costs as a fiscally disastrous action. Bartlett also criticizes Bush on other economic issues such as trade policy, tax reform, pork barrel spending, and the unfunded costs of the war in Iraq and hurricane Katrina. He also condemns Bush's approach to policy formation for focusing on political outcomes and listening to only a narrow circle of advisors. Bartlett concludes that Bush's legacy of unfunded spending will result in massive tax increases. With this prediction in mind, he gives an enlightening explanation of the economic impact of possible future taxes such as flat income and national sales. Bartlett has the conservative credentials to make his forceful accusations very compelling and worthy of purchase by public and academic libraries alike.-Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, PA. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.