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News Release

November 4, 2004

Media Contact: (202) 789-5200

Cato policy experts comment on second Bush term and new Congress

WASHINGTON--With the re-election of President Bush to a second term, Cato scholars offer recommendations and predictions on various policy issues for the administration and the new, 109th Congress.

Budget and Taxes

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies:

"President Bush has been a prolific tax cutter, but federal spending has expanded a massive 31 percent under his watch. Bush's fiscal priorities in his second term should be spending control and cutting wasteful programs to reduce the deficit. He should also push to make sure his tax cuts are made permanent and move ahead with fundamental tax reform to create a simpler tax system that imposes fewer burdens on the economy. Both parties should work together to repeal the alternative minimum tax (AMT), a complex add-on tax that will hit 30 million households by 2010 without reform."

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Civil Liberties

Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's Project on Criminal Justice:

"President Bush has made it clear that he wants the Patriot Act to be renewed. When the act was rushed into law in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, Congress attached sunset provisions that would make many parts of the controversial law 'expire' in December 2005. President Bush may not wait a full year to ask the Congress to renew the law. He may instead seek a renewal vote early next year while he has political momentum. On the other hand, renewing the act is not going to bring the two parties together. In fact, when the Patriot Act comes up for a vote, it is likely to split the Republicans in the House of Representatives, many of whom have grave reservations about the powers that the Patriot Act conferred upon the federal government."

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Defense and Foreign Policy

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for foreign policy and defense studies:

"The Bush administration has an opportunity to back away from the excessively aggressive foreign policy that it has pursued the past four years and adopt a more restrained, prudent approach to world affairs. A key component of such a new policy would be to terminate the failed Iraq mission as soon as possible. The administration also needs to confront such difficult issues as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs-recognizing that preemptive war is not a realistic option in either case. Unfortunately, hawkish elements in the administration may conclude that the president's election victory is a mandate for an even more aggressive foreign policy. If the president embarks on that course, the nation could be in for a long series of dangerous and unproductive military adventures, especially in the Middle East."

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Education

David Salisbury, director of Cato's Center for Educational Freedom:

"President Bush has shown interest in giving parents more choices and options when it comes to how and where their children are educated. In his second term, he should continue to support the school voucher program in Washington, D.C., which will help thousands of children in the nation's capital and will also spur improvements in the city's public school system. Since education is primarily a state and local concern, Bush should back away from aggressive federal interventions in education and adopt a more restrained approach that encourages action at the state and local level. Allowing state legislatures to adopt varying methods of education reform, including school choice, will produce better results than a prescriptive federal program."

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Energy

Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies:

"The energy bills offered by the president and Senate Democrats last year are not all that dissimilar. Both indicate that liberals and conservatives are united in their belief that the best way to reduce energy prices is to shower corporate welfare down upon every single facet of the energy industry. The reason that passing such a bill has been difficult, however, is that targeted recipients of federal largess cannot agree on how to split up a zero-sum budgetary pie while at the same time assuaging the concerns of the oil industry, which seeks liability protection for MTBE contamination of groundwater as a condition for its support for legislation.

"Adding a few more Republican votes in the Senate might change the dynamics enough for one of the potential coalitions to reach filibuster-proof status, but that's unclear. The chances are better this time around, but not by much. Keep in mind that Senator-elect Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will probably join the handful of Republican fiscal rebels in voting against the bill, so it's unclear how much strength the president really gains. Also keep in mind that the conference bill defeated last year did not include drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While the GOP will surely make another play for oil rigs in the tundra, the ANWR issue is not pivotal."

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Environment

Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies:

"The past four years will be a prologue for the next four years. Consequential environmental legislation of any kind is unlikely to emerge from Congress and administrative action will be largely driven by judicial orders and pre-established timelines found in existing statutes. Issues will likely be resolved on a case-by-case basis with a tilt toward business interests when tough calls need to be made."

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Health Care

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies:

"On Election Day, Republicans strengthened their control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. As a result, they have an opportunity avert disaster for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers by reforming the Medicare program before retiring baby boomers force Washington to raise taxes or cut benefits. More importantly, Republicans have a duty to reform Medicare after making its problems over 33 percent larger when they added the new prescription drug entitlement."

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Homeland Security

Charles Peña, director of defense policy studies:

"A second Bush administration is likely to introduce more restrictive and intrusive security measures, such as street closings, parking restrictions, barricades, increased police and armed security presence, more public surveillance, and more security checks. Beyond actual security measures, homeland security will be linked to fighting the terrorists abroad so we don't have to face them at home. But this presumes that the war on terrorism can be won simply by killing those that we believe to be terrorists (or potential terrorists). The bottom line is that homeland security is, in many ways, the last line of defense against terrorism. The first line of defense is to deal with the underlying reasons why so many people in the Islamic world have a growing hatred of the United States and thus a reason to become terrorists. Without addressing this, no amount of homeland security will make us safer."

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Legal Issues

Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs:

"Armed with the mandate he did not have after the 2000 election, President Bush is now in a position to move the country toward the limited government that alone is authorized by the Constitution, which he spoke of only occasionally during his first term. He can do that through administration initiatives like his ownership society and by vetoing congressional initiatives that exceed Congress's powers. He can do it also by nominating judges who understand the Constitution to be a document of delegated, enumerated, and thus limited powers. That will take leadership, however, especially if it becomes necessary to encourage the Senate to revise its extra constitutional filibuster rules to ensure the confirmation of judicial nominees. The power to shape the courts is the most enduring of a president's powers. Given the vast powers our courts exercise today, owing to the demise of limited constitutional government, there are few issues before Bush that are more important for the nation's future than this. The coming battle for the courts will take us to our first principles as a nation. Bush will need to prepare himself for it."

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Social Security

Michael Tanner, director of Cato's Project on Social Security Choice:

"The president grasped the third rail... and lived. In fact, not only did Social Security not hurt the president (he carried voters over 65), it may have played to his favor. Polls show that he ran particularly strong with the investor class, who consider Social Security an important issue. The Democratic congressional leadership, which has ardently opposed Social Security reform, now faces a choice. Will they engage in a thoughtful debate over Social Security's problems and possible solutions, or will they cling to the status quo and the failed scare tactics of the past. For Republicans, they must now decide whether they meant what they said when they promised to fix Social Security."

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Trade and Outsourcing

Dan Griswold, director of Center for Trade Policy Studies:

"The president and new Congress should re-affirm America's post-war commitment to trade expansion by enacting the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The agreement would reduce barriers to trade with a region that is the second largest market for U.S. exports in Latin America, behind only Mexico. CAFTA would also reward and consolidate the economic and political liberalization that has swept that region since the 1980s. A second Bush administration should resist any protectionist pressures from Congress to restrict outsourcing and should seek a comprehensive agreement in the WTO to dramatically reduce trade barriers and subsidies for agriculture at home and abroad."

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The Big Picture

David Boaz, executive vice president:

"President Bush and Karl Rove's strategy almost backfired. Especially this year, they decided to take libertarian voters for granted and go all-out for social conservatives. Unconcerned about supporters of small government, Bush spent taxpayers' money faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson. He didn't veto a single bill in four years. He federalized education, expanded the welfare state, increased farm subsidies, restricted civil liberties and signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulation bill that he knew was unconstitutional. Many libertarian voters were just as concerned about what they saw as an unnecessary and imprudent invasion of Iraq, which led to the kind of futile and hubristic nation-building that candidate George W. Bush rejected in 2000. Bush and the Republican Congress could appeal to libertarians by reining in spending and extricating us from Iraq, or the Democrats could reach out with fiscal responsibility, a more prudent foreign policy, and more respect for the Constitution. Which way the libertarian voters go may decide elections for decades to come."

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Please contact the Cato media relations department at 202-789-5200 or media@cato.org for additional comment or to arrange an interview.

Contact:

Gina M. Verticchio, media coordinator, 202-789-5212, gverticchio@cato.org
Evans Pierre, director of broadcasting, 202-789-5204, epierre@cato.org