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By BRIAN A. HOWEY
INDIANAPOLIS - Gov. Mitch Daniels vowed to steer Indiana through a deepening and unknown financial dilemma that is hitting most other much states harder, while vowing not to spend the state’s Rainy Day Fund.
Speaking to the Indianapolis Downtown Rotary Club at noon today - a day before the Indiana General Assembly convenes in its biennial session - Daniels called for an “honestly balanced budget” with “no gimmicks,” no tax increases, protect the Rainy Day Fund reserves while funding what he called priorities: public safety, K-12 education, Medicaid and child protection.
Daniels vowed to maintain funding levels for the Indiana State Police and Department of Corrections, saying they will need $100 million in new money. He noted that highway fatalities decreased because of an increased number of state troopers. Daniels said that K-12 education will need $80 million more in new monies to maintain current program levels. Child protective services, he said, “have gone from worst to first” and will be maintained with no staffing cuts.
A week before he was to take his second oath of office, Daniels noted that Virgnia recently announced a 7 percent K-12 education cut and other states are letting criminals out of prison early. “A police officer in Philadelphia was killed by one of those prisoners,” the governor said. “All over America things are happening where they were living too close to the edge.”
The governor vowed not to raise taxes and to cut spending. “We did something so brilliant: we began spending less than we took in. It came to us in a blinding epiphany.”
He said that tax increases are not an option when people and businesses “are strapped” and “struggling not to lay people off. We should not make it worse for them by taxing more.” He noted that spending growth had been reduced from 5.88 percent between 1996 and 2004 to 2.83 percent between 2005-08.
The governor projected total revenues in the 2010-11 biennial budget to be $28.354 billion and total appropriations of $28.344 billion. Projected reserves of $1.3 billion will be the same as the close of fiscal year 2009.
Daniels said that for fiscal year 2010-11, agency budgets will be reduced by 8 percent, there will be no pay hikes for state employees and limited capital spending. Programs that will face reduction or elimination include Step Ahead, IHETS, tourism programs, the Fine Arts Commission, public broadcasting subsidies, the Recycling Assistance Program and the Corporation for Educational Technology. Programs to be delayed or postponed include funding to complete full day kindergarten, Hoosier College Promise, the Indiana Economic Development Commission’s High Growth Fund and the Life Sciences Initiative.
House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer was critical of program cuts that could foster new jobs. “Even though Indiana lost more than 80,000 jobs over the past year, I see nothing in the governor’s budget that addresses job creation or retention,” Bauer said. “This is not the time to declare a ‘time out’ on funding initiatives and projects that can help put Hoosiers back to work. We should not be eliminating $20 million for a Life Sciences Initiative that can create jobs.”
Bauer was also critical of a flat-lined education. “It appears that funding for K-12 education is flat-lined over the next two years,” he said at a Statehouse presser. “Whatever increases are being projected will be eaten up rapidly by ongoing costs like utilities and insurance. Once again, that will force our schools into the unpalatable decisions of reducing programs, personnel or both. Our state’s colleges and universities may have even more difficult choices if the governor succeeds in his plan to cut operating budgets by 4 percent and eliminate all new capital projects. These circumstances will cause tuition increases, which will prevent more people from pursuing the degrees and skills that can make them more attractive on the job market.”
Daniels made a plea for the Kernan-Shepard local government reforms that will eliminate townships and consolidate school corporations with under 2,000 students, saying, “They will save money. If ever there was a time.”
The wild card is the federal stimulus package proposed to President Elect Barack Obama which could pass as early as February. “We don’t know when,” Daniels began. “We don’t know how much, don’t don’t know in what form or in what terms.” He said that the Major Moves program passed three years ago was a precursor to the Obama stimulus. When it comes to public works, “Indiana is a leader already,” he said. He cautioned against using the stimulus funds for any on-going program. “We should look at one time projects,” he said.
While House Speaker Bauer has called for tapping the Rainy Day Fund, Daniels expressed caution. “We’ve learned not to read too much into any one month so I don’t,” he said of December revenues that were well below forecast. OMB Director Ryan Kitchell told HPI that income taxes declined by 18 percent.
“But it’s a caution,” the governor said to the overflowing crowd. “There is no surprise that it missed the old revenue forecast but with the new forecast it was shy of that too. It’s another reason that we need to proceed with extreme caution. It’s another reason to protect the reserves which we may need badly sometime down the trail.”
His remarks came as the leading automakers - including General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota and Honda which manufacture in Indiana - all showed precipitious sales declines last month as credit is still being denied consumers with good credit rating despite $350 billion to Wall Street and banks. A number of supplier companies have closed in recent months as well as many recreational vehicle makers. A collapse of the domestic auto industry could directly impact up to 144,000 Hoosier workers and devastate local and state government revenues and tax bases. Expects say that it it happens, Indiana would face an economic catastrophe.
Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, told a Dec. 22 conference hosted by Barnes & Thornburg as well as Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight and Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold that Indiana would be devastated by a Detroit 3 liquidation. “Indiana would lose between 41,000 to 147,000 jobs,” Scott said. “That is nothing short of catastrophic. It would move Indiana well beyond recession and into depression conditions if there is an auto industry shutdown.”
Asked about New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who wrote on Monday that the U.S. might be on the brink of a second Great Depression, Daniels responded, “The American economy surprises people over and over again. I have a suspicion that the worst of the doomsayers will prove to be too pessimisstic, but we don’t know. That’s why it is so essential that Indiana continue to proceed in a more careful way than other states have. Until we see the better days coming back, we better not assume they are right around the corner.”
Developing …
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Brian A. Howey on January 6, 2009
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By JACK COLWELL
SOUTH BEND - Now is the time for the Indiana General Assembly to streamline and strengthen county government and abolish the antiquated system of township government.
It’s the perfect time.
With the state facing dwindling revenue amid national recession, legislators won’t need to spend hours debating costly new programs and spending proposals. They need, of course, to pass a slimmed-down state budget that should still include some infrastructure spending to create jobs and spur the sputtering economy and education spending aimed at reducing the deplorable drop-out rate.
But they shouldn’t just sit around complaining about lack of funding to do much of anything else.
They should do something other than pass a budget and adjourn. They should do things that don’t cost a lot but could be of real value in these tough times. Streamlining county government and doing away with the 1,008 townships - an unneeded, outmoded and costly layer of inefficient bureaucracy - wouldn’t cost anything. It would save money.
Another reason why this is a perfect time is the political situation. Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican who cannot run again for governor because of the two-term limit, can push now for this without appearing to be aiming at his re-election. He is pushing hard for these governmental changes.
The Indiana General Assembly is politically split. While this might seem to diminish chances for effective, equitable governmental reform, it is one of the reasons that now is the perfect time.
Too often we see “reform” passed for partisan purposes, especially in election law. But here is a situation in which the governor’s proposals must win support in the Democratic-controlled House as well as in the Republican-controlled Senate. It must be bipartisan.
The governor cannot push through something aimed at punishing Democratic-tending cities and counties. His recent harsh criticism of South Bend and St. Joseph County in a WNDU-TV interview raised fear of this.
But even if the governor wanted to be vindictive _ and there is no sign that his restructuring proposal is aimed at hurting any area - a Democratic House, with Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, could stop any such shenanigans.
Bauer and the governor have shown they can work together. They can again.
Also, the proposal is based on recommendations of a commission headed by Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard and former Gov. Joe Kernan of South Bend. The commission took a nonpartisan look and recommended eliminating townships and taking numerous county offices off the ballot, eliminating elective offices now held by big bunches of both Republicans and Democrats.
A key proposal would provide for one elected county executive to replace the three-person board of county commissioners. As the governor noted, we don’t elect three presidents or three mayors and businesses don’t operate with three chief executive officers. Russia found that a troika doesn’t work. It doesn’t work well with county government either.
Through constitutional change, the county offices of assessor, treasurer, recorder, surveyor and coroner would be taken off the ballot. They would be appointed by the county executive, the way a president appoints members of a cabinet.
Most voters don’t know these officials (can you name those officials in your county?) and often can’t fix blame when it’s not clear which official really is responsible for something like late tax bills. Put the authority with the county executive, who then can be blamed or retained at election time.
The governor has made a sensible compromise in saying the sheriff, clerk and auditor should still be elected.
He also compromised in calling for the combination school districts with less than 1,000 students. The commission put the minimum size at 2,000.
Moving municipal elections from odd-numbered years to even years when most other elections are held is one proposal that could be eliminated. The move was cited as saving money. But the cost is worth it to allow voters to concentrate on the city elections. Having voters pick city officials at a time such as during an outpouring for a presidential election could bring unfortunate decisions by folks not knowing or caring much about the city candidates listed way down on the ballot.
Most of the other changes should be approved. Now is the perfect time.
Colwell has covered Indiana politics for more than five decades for the South Bend Tribune.
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Brian A. Howey on January 6, 2009
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By BRIAN A. HOWEY
NASHVILLE, Ind. – The final Bush years have become the nexus where the Oil Presidency, the loosened regulations on Wall Street, and the utter lack of an energy policy that took into account the national security implications became the 
perfect storm that howls as President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney prepare their exit.
There are now $7.5 billion in funded and unfunded securities. The Federal Reserve printing presses are roaring. 20 percent of Indiana’s economic sector – automobiles – is now threatened due to a lack of an energy policy and a federal mandate for the Big 3 to produce more energy efficient cars and trucks. Bush saying in his 2006 State of the Union speech that “America is addicted to oil” is nothing short of childlike naiveté.
There was to be great volatility with gas prices during this Oil Presidency, with the political price paid on both war and gas in November 2006 when Indiana became the only state to flip three Congressional seats from Republican to Democrat. By the end of the Bush presidency, gas prices rose to $4.19 a gallon, helping to fuel Barack Obama’s improbable victory last November.
That they tumbled to $1.40 a gallon this past month is indicative of the wild swings that are slamming the markets, business owners and consumers. Deflation is now a major worry and a sign of a truly sick economy. Many urged Bush to create an energy tax that would bring a $60 a barrel floor to oil prices so as not to undercut the ethanol and coal gasification facilities under construction in Indiana and elsewhere. It was another missed opportunity.
That the bottom dropped out of gas prices this fall comes at a time when huge commodity trading departments at Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers have disappeared and is also telling in the nexus of Wall Street and Big Oil.
I view the Oil Presidency through the prism of Indiana’s senior Congressional Republican – U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar. If there ever was a “Churchillian” voice, warning of the dangers ahead, it was Lugar. As the lines of supply and demand drew closer and closer, Lugar pleaded with Bush to create a coherent energy policy and insisted that neglecting to do so would be tantamount to compromising U.S. national security.
Lugar would say at a Purdue University Energy Summit in August 2006, “Neither American oil companies, nor American car companies have shown an inclination to dramatically transform their businesses in ways that will achieve the degree of change we need to address a national security emergency. Most importantly, the federal government is not treating energy vulnerability as a crisis, despite an increase in energy related proposals.”
He explained further, “Our failure to act will be all the more unconscionable given that success would bring not only relief from the geopolitical threats of energy-rich regimes, but also restorative economic benefits to our farmers, rural areas, automobile manufacturers, high technology industries, and many others.”
“We must be very clear that this is a political problem. We now have the financial resources, the industrial might, and the technological prowess to shift our economy away from oil dependence. What we are lacking is coordination and political will. We have made choices, as a society, which have given oil a near monopoly on American transportation. Now we must make a different choice in the interest of American national security and our economic future,” Lugar said.
Lugar would tell the Deloitte Energy conference in May 2007, “The president’s energy activities are barely registering in the American consciousness. In large part, this is because there is no energy campaign upon which he has visibly and repeatedly staked his reputation and legacy. With the possible exception of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there is nothing in the Bush domestic energy program that a well-informed American would identify with this administration.”
Osama bin Laden’s Sept. 11 attacks were aimed at destroying the American economy. The attacks caught the unprepared Bush administration by surprise. The U.S. and Western response was measured in billions of dollars, a near collapse of the airline industry and eventually the Detroit 3. Bin Laden’s stated goal was oil at $150 a barrel (it rose to $147 a barrel last summer) and the destruction of Western economies. Even as he hides in his Pakistani caves, it’s hard to argue that he has not come close to his goals.
While the $1.50 gallon gas is a relief to Hoosiers as the economy tanks, do not be lulled into complacency as we were after prices fell following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979. After each of those, the American economy went into a tailspin. Presidents Nixon and Carter warned then that we must achieve energy self-sufficiency.
Turning this corner to develop advanced battery technology, cutting edge fuel efficient cars, and upgrading the electrical grid with wind, solar and natural gas are as important to our future today as the Manhattan Project was for America in 1942. In those days, the arsenal of democracy was proudly forged in the auto and steel plants of Detroit, Gary, Anderson and Muncie.
In the coming months and years, it must take place in Barack Obama’s Oval Office and in the labs of Indiana companies like EnerDel.
Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com
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Brian A. Howey on January 5, 2009
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By JACK COLWELL
SOUTH BEND - President George W. Bush, with unwavering faith in his beliefs and himself, is convinced of his place in history. His critics also are convinced of his place.
There’s agreement. Not on where he’ll place eventually among the presidents after historians look back at results and ramifications of his policies and accomplishments or lack thereof. But Bush and his detractors do agree that he is leaving office as a very unpopular president.
Bush, certain that war in Iraq was justified and just, has suggested that he will be vindicated in history, same as historians have come to appreciate Harry S. Truman, another president who led the nation into war and left office with approval ratings plummeting amid widespread dissatisfaction over conduct of the war, conditions at home and the level of competency in the White House.
While Truman rates high now, with greater appreciation for his courage to make tough decisions, critics of Bush say a comparison with Truman is ludicrous because Truman was competent, not bumbling, and left the nation stronger, not weaker. They put Bush in the “failed” category of reviled or weak presidents the likes of James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore, James Polk and Franklin Pierce.
Although it’s far too early to affix a lasting rank among the presidents for Bush, still with a month left in office, a poll of historians by History News Network found 61 percent of those surveyed evaluating Bush as “worst ever.”
Critics say Bush misled the nation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and tricked us into a long and costly war that squandered U.S. military might, diminished influence and respect abroad and left Iran as the real winner. They blame Bush economic policies for devastating the middle class, running up record deficits and bringing on the worst recessionary times since the Great Depression.
Some of the harshest critics clearly go too far, regarding Bush as “evil,” knowingly doing things to harm the nation.
The president never told former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “Rummy, I want you to mess up the occupation of Iraq, lose as many troops as possible and keep that thing going badly.” His mistake was not removing the inept Rumsfeld long before he finally did. Bush was stubborn, but not intent on evil.
President Bush stuck with his beliefs about the best course for the nation after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Even some severe critics of failure to know what to do in Iraq after reaching Baghdad, after initial military victory, concede that the “surge” he ordered after finally finding the right general has been at least a significant factor in reducing violence in Iraq.
Nor, despite what some Bush haters seem to believe, did he ever order: “Let’s redistribute the wealth, take it all away from the middle class and give it to the wealthiest, especially friends of mine and Dick Cheney in the oil business. And let’s eliminate regulations so wheelers and dealers can do whatever they want.”
Again, he believed he was pursuing the right course, counting on tax cuts and less regulation to spur the economy and bring jobs to the middle class and the poor as well as provide more opportunity for the wealthy.
Recently disclosed White House talking points to promote a positive Bush legacy stress that he responded quickly and decisively after 9/11 and has “kept us safe” from further terrorist attacks in America.
Indeed, he did order quick and decisive action in Afghanistan. As in Iraq, the problem was not with the initial military action but with failure to realize the need for follow-up “nation building” to secure victory.
And it’s a fact that the nation thus far has escaped the series of follow-up terrorist attacks that many feared and predicted. Should Bush be credited for this? Even if his policies are not the sole reason, if he is to be blamed for all that went wrong on his watch, shouldn’t he in fairness get credit for results that were better than expected?
Defenders of the president say the huge deficits and many present economic woes are due to a needed war on terror, not to failed Bush economic policies. That’s one of the parts of the Bush record that historians will explore.
How much of record spending was needed to fight terrorists? A lot, certainly, especially in Afghanistan. How much was wasted. A lot, certainly, especially in the long, chaotic and ineffective stumbling in Iraq after initial defeat of Saddam Hussein’s military forces. But was the whole expenditure to invade Iraq in the first place a waste? Or was the ousting of Saddam, even if he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, a worthwhile endeavor? Historians will look and try to evaluate all of that.
Other Bush spending has become controversial even with his conservative base, with critics on the right saying he turned out not to be a conservative.
They cite what they call the greatest growth of government since the days of Lyndon Johnson. They cite the Medicare prescription drug plan as too costly and No Child Left Behind as improper federal intrusion in local education. They cite growth of the federal bureaucracy and failure of Bush to veto big spending bills approved while Republican congressional leaders were running amok with lobbyists.
Still, some of the programs that miff those on the right could be viewed as proof that those on the left are unfair in portraying Bush as nothing but a cold-hearted right-wing ideologue.
As the president completes his final weeks in the White House, as his last chance at legacy building draws to a close, he has again shown that he cannot be described as an anti-government ideologue. With the recession worsening, his administration has taken action to counter the downturn, with massive government intervention and spending. He also seeks, after Senate Republicans blocked help for the automotive Big Three, to keep them from going bankrupt.
This president is determined not to be remembered as “another President Hoover.”
He will not be haunted by a “Monica” and questions about morality but by a “Katrina” and questions about competence.
Despite what harsh critics say about his place in history, President Bush, with unwavering faith in his beliefs and himself, is convinced of a presidential ranking eventually somewhere near Harry S. Truman. That high? Somewhat lower? Dead last? Somewhat higher? Most of us have our own views. In the long run, historians, with advantage of hindsight and revelations yet to come, will have theirs.
Colwell has covered Indiana politics for more than five decades for the South Bend Tribune.
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Brian A. Howey on January 2, 2009
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Kevin Kellems with Paul Wolfowitz. Kellems served on the staffs of Wolfowitz when he was deputy secretary of defense and Vice President Cheney.
By KEVIN KELLEMS
CANAAN, Ind - The face-off between my former colleague Scott McClellan and the White House establishment over his book, “What Happened,” reminds me of the title of former Indiana GOP Chairman Rex Early’s delightful book, “It’s a Mighty Thin Pancake (That Don’t Have Two Sides).”
In our daily West Wing meetings and informal conversations, I got the impression Scott was in an uncomfortable position - swimming upstream against strong currents amid some very big fish. Under enormous pressure and without full backing from some above him in the food chain, McClellan toiled doggedly to get the ball back over the net each day - taking great care to stay on script.
Like all press secretaries, he did his share of bellyaching behind the scenes about particular members of the so-called mainstream media (e.g., Tim Russert successor David Gregory of NBC, UPI’s incoherent warhorse Helen Thomas, and the New York Times and Knight-Ridder bureaus). But with McClellan, what shone through behind closed doors was frustration with being on a short leash, and having such little meaningful information to share.
The role of the presidential press secretary has evolved from one in which creativity, wit and offensive risk-taking was rewarded (e.g., President Clinton’s extraordinarily effective Mike McCurry who engaged in genuine debate) - into one in which something more like an automaton reads pre-scripted bites of anodyne boilerplate from a tabbed binder hidden neatly on the podium.
But don’t let current White House Dana Perino’s telegenic presence and disciplined delivery fool you: she is a domestic policy wonk with remarkable retention and an unfailingly uplifting disposition. Then there was Scott’s talented predecessor: the relentless offense and perma-grin of the Mr. Teflon, Ari Fleischer (husband of Greenfield’s very own Becki Davis, a former aide to OMB Director Mitch Daniels and Indiana Secretary of State Sue Anne Gilroy), drove seasoned reporters batty.
In light of the context in which these folks have operated, they at least held their own against tall odds in what has become perhaps the second most difficult job in the entire Executive Branch.
But their work was made more difficult than it had to be. Why? Because the Bush Administration too often employed a retrograde form of prevent defense in the policy communications arena. Instead of empowering and protecting its professional communicators and senior policymakers, the tendency was to limit their maneuverability, permit inconsistent access, compartmentalize information, avoid reasonable risk taking and encourage group think. To discourage aggressive engagement, and focus on defense at the expense of a more effective offense.
These flaws were not limited narrowly, however, to the work of spokesmen; they reflected a broader preference among the cautious inner circle for protecting the principal and limiting overall exposure to the vagaries of free and open public debate of serious issues.
Part of this surely was the product of President Bush 43 watching how Papa 41 was treated by the so-called Mainstream Media (in reality now the Opposition Media) as a young man and as an active participant in his father’s fatal re-election campaign.
It is also the product of habit: the Texans who ran two brilliant gubernatorial campaigns and terms in office brought the playbook and core personnel with them to Washington, and played a version of the same game – with the exception of Karl Rove, who understood that re-election requires confident forward movement, bold thinking and public engagements.
***
When you leave an administration, everyone wants to know what it was like and how it works on the inside. It is important to let time pass before answering, and to continually test one’s objectivity. And, of course, it is best to wait until the administration’s work is largely done.
Obviously, any analyst is influenced by his vantage point; no one is truly objective. I am proud of having served and respect the vast majority of those who peopled this somewhat star-crossed administration. From the vantage point of having worked at the Pentagon from 2001-2003 and White House from 2003-2005, here are some preliminary summary conclusions - oversimplified and without nuance, for the sake of brevity:
Biggest Achievements:
1. No follow-on attack after 9/11 - a colossal achievement for which the President does not yet get credit, but which will loom large with the passage of time.
2. Liberating tens of millions of people from genocidal tyrannies in Iraq and Afghanistan (ditto).
Biggest Failure:
No enduring governing coalition; unmet goal of being “Uniter, not Divider.”
Strengths:
1. Unwavering, cold-blooded focus on security of the homeland and steadfast commitment to take the fight to the enemy around the globe
2. Decisive presidential leadership style
3. President Bush’s drive to win and personal campaign skills
Weaknesses:
1. Relations with Congress (talented senior staff worked hard but some key senior policymakers didn’t make it a priority or take it seriously enough)
2. Presidential personnel practices and several key appointments
3. First term dysfunction of the National Security Council policy process (infighting)
Mistakes:
1. Avoiding the key debate over evidence of Saddam Hussein’s ties with international terrorists - out of fear of selective leaks to the media from members of the intelligence community.
2. Appointment of Jerry Bremer as “Viceroy” of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, with nearly unchecked authority and presidential reporting line
3. Not swinging the big club more often (Vice President Cheney’s unrivaled ability to distill complex national security policy and explain it logically and powerfully to the public)
Kevin Kellems served in the Office of the Vice President from 2003-2005 and Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2001-2003.
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Brian A. Howey on December 31, 2008
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By SHEILA KENNEDY
If conversations at my office and family gatherings are any indication, Americans are intensely focused on the upcoming presidential election. Traditional print and broadcast media and internet blogs alike are filled with arguments over the 
respective merits of the candidates, and detailed analyses of who is voting for whom and why.
Whatever their other differences, voters clearly can’t wait to be rid of George W. Bush. However, before we rush to bid a not-so-fond farewell to the Bush Administration, it may be instructive to examine the legacy of the past seven years.
Bush took office in 2001. During the previous eight years, Gross Domestic Product had grown an average of 4.09% annually. Over the past seven years, GDP growth has averaged 2.65% per year.
The national debt was $5.7 trillion in 2001. It is $9.2 trillion in March ($10.6 trillion on Dec. 17). Over the three years preceding 2001, the government had actually managed to amass a $431 billion surplus; during these last three years, we’ve had a $734 billion deficit (it was $455 billion on Oct. 14).
The Clinton Administration created an average of 1.76 million private sector jobs each year during its eight years in office; the Bush Administration has averaged 369,000 per year.
Vice President Cheney, President Bush and Speaker Hastert during one of his State of the Union addresses when Republicans dominated the executive and legislative branches. (White House Photo)
When Bush took office, there were 38 million Americans without health insurance; today there are an estimated 47 million, and the average annual family health insurance premium has increased from $6,230 to $12,106.
Median household income was $49,163 in 2001; it is $48,023 today. Meanwhile, gas prices have increased from $1.39 a gallon to $3.07, and the cost of college tuition has gone from $3,164 to $5,192. Consumer debt has nearly doubled, from $7.65 trillion to $12.8 trillion.
When we turn from domestic matters to international ones, we see an equally dismal landscape: our trade deficit has soared from $380 billion to $759 billion, and the value of the dollar has declined precipitously. In 2001, a dollar would buy you 1.07 Euros; today, it will get you .68. We are more dependent on foreign oil. Our armed forces are stretched dangerously thin. And don’t even ask about our international reputation: a recent Pew poll of ten nations charted dramatic declines in the percentage of people in those countries holding a favorable view of America.
What these statistics from government agencies - the Treasury Department, Bureau of Labor Statistics and the like - can’t and don’t take into account is the damage done to America’s governing institutions by this Administration’s unremitting assaults on the rule of law. How does an accountant quantify cynicism? How do we measure distrust, or value lost accountability?
It is hard to imagine that anyone running for President in 2008, on either ticket, could do a worse job. But whoever wins will face daunting challenges. The next President must restore fiscal sanity, address our multiple problems, repair our international reputation, and - most important of all - make us believe in America again.
Kennedy teaches at IUPUI. This column was originally published on March 3, 2008 in the Indianapolis Star.
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Brian A. Howey on December 30, 2008
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By MARK SCHOEFF JR.
WASHINGTON - By two objective standards, President Bush was a failure after eight years in office. He is leaving the country and his party in worse shape than he found them.
History may judge him more generously. It’s ridiculous, of course, to try to draw a conclusion before he’s even left the White House. In fact, he has pretty much avoided being a lame duck. More so than any president in recent memory, he is wielding power right up to the moment he has to step down.
Although we can’t yet draw a conclusion about Bush’s tenure, it’s not too early to point out missed opportunities. We can start with his inherent political skills and his failure to use them for his - and the country’s - benefit.
Bush’s electoral success has been attributed in part to his ability to connect with people. That may sound strange for someone whose approval ratings have not been north of 40 percent in years. But Bush, certainly more so than his competitors for office, former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry, was seen as someone that voters would like to meet for a drink after work.
Indeed, Bush consistently demonstrates a warm personality and sense of humor. He doesn’t hold many press conferences. But when he does meet with reporters, he has an easygoing rapport that so far has eluded President-elect Barack Obama.
Also unlike Obama, Bush has shown that he can laugh at himself. The latest evidence is his ability to roll with the punches when a reporter in Baghdad threw shoes at him.
President Bush campaigned for then-congressman Chris Chocola at Bethel College in Mishawaka in 2006. Chocola would go on to lose that race to U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, in large part due to the Iraq War.
These skills have probably served Bush well when he’s met with members of Congress. Sure, the Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill attack Bush every day. But when he meets with members in small groups, it’s not hard to imagine that he’s charming.
That’s why the Bush approach to Congress - and politics in general - over the last eight years is inexplicable. He and his former top adviser, Karl Rove, adopted an us-versus-them mentality. They said to Congress and to the world: You’re either with us or against us.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had an extraordinary opportunity to reach across the aisle and draw in Democrats as permanent allies on a range of issues. He could have cemented relationships with then-Republican chairmen of key committees. He could have united the country in a way that obliterated the red-blue schism.
Instead, after a brief period of comity, the Bush-Rove tactics of divide and conquer took over. Republicans gained seats in the mid-term election of 2002 because Bush and Rove portrayed Democrats as weak on security.
That was the beginning of the end of any hope that Bush would follow through on an election promise in 2000 to change the tone in Washington. Instead, Republicans became even more combative. That attitude contributed to the hubris that caused the party to lose its congressional majorities in 2006 and to drop even more seats this year.
What if Bush had embraced Congress after Sept. 11? What if he had really worked hard at the relationship? Even if he kept Democrats at arm’s length, he could have at least listened to leaders in his own party, like Sen. Richard Lugar.
Such an approach might have created an atmosphere that would have helped build Rove’s dream; a Republican advantage in Congress that would last for a generation or more.
But in the end, it was the Hill Republicans who revolted against Bush. Although he was able to bend Democrats to his will until his final days in office on everything from an Iraq time line to the parameters of a financial rescue package, Bush lost control of his own party.
Republicans ultimately scuttled such Bush priorities as comprehensive immigration reform. Bush’s divide-and-conquer proclivity also was a staple of his 2004 campaign. He was perhaps one of the weakest incumbent presidents ever re-elected, but he did it by polarizing the electorate and getting his base to the polls.
What if he had run a campaign more like Obama’s, which was basically constructive and asked people to join a cause? Bush might have laid the groundwork to ensure that a Republican would succeed him in the Oval Office.
Bush may mangle his syntax, but he is a smart man and a savvy politician. He made a huge mistake by failing to prepare properly for the aftermath of the Iraq war. But he showed that he can overcome errors. Today, a new strategy seems to be producing results in Iraq, flying shoes notwithstanding.
During his second term, he made course corrections in the way he dealt with the world. His administration became more multilateral and cooperative with foreign allies and more willing to listen to critics at home and overseas. In fact, Bush appointed a defense secretary, Robert Gates, who drew so much bipartisan praise that Obama is keeping him in the Cabinet.
Clearly, Bush had the political skills to create a lasting positive legacy. Instead, he chose to fight when he should have reached out. Now we have to wait for history to determine how much damage he did.
Schoeff has covered Washington D.C. for Howey Politics Indiana for the past decade.
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Brian A. Howey on December 28, 2008
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By PETER J. RUSTHOVEN
INDIANAPOLIS - It’s against the popular grain, as George W. Bush leaves office, to say a good word about his presidency. Bush-bashing has been in vogue for so long it’s hard to remember when it wasn’t. “Bush is a failure” is a tenet of today’s political wisdom. Some – the Michael Moores, the Keith Olbermanns – fervently posit “Bush is evil” as a 
doctrinal corollary. There’s a viscous, hateful intensity to the latter that says more about the haters than it does about the 43rd President. Even so, defending Bush is now out of place in polite, sophisticated company. It simply isn’t done. Indeed, it’s rather hard to believe that at least one out of every four Americans still approves of the job George W. Bush has done as President – which happens to be some 44% higher than the number who approve of the job being done by the Democrat-controlled Congress.
This Republican can find areas in which he thinks Bush fell short. Most presidents do, one way or another. In Bush’s case, his rhetorical talents often were not up to the demands of his persuasive task. This was a particular problem in a media-saturated era that overvalues rhetoric, tending to conflate fluency, even glibness, with knowledge and insight. That’s a fancy way of saying Bush can’t talk as good as the Clintons (even Hillary) or Obama, and that media sorts – a pretty liberal bunch – think good talkers are smart (talking’s what they do, after all) and other folks are stupid. Even so, the ability to persuade and inspire is part of the presidential portfolio, and this was not Bush’s forte. Doesn’t mean he was dumb; in my experience, people who have actually worked for him uniformly say otherwise, even in candid, unguarded, off-the-record moments among friends. Just means that Bush was not a great communicator, in a job where effective communication is an important skill.
There are other items, too, on my list of criticisms. However, as there is no dearth of commentators eager to itemize all Bush failings (real or not), perhaps a contrarian word or two may be a more useful contribution.
To start, the idea that Bush bears blame for what our incoming President calls “the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” is dubious. Yes, double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, and 20% mortgage rates are signs of severe crisis – oh, I’m sorry, that was under Carter, wasn’t it? As to the economic problems we do face today, no one pretends they are not serious; but no one – including our incoming President – makes any serious pretense that they are due to the Bush tax cuts, the central feature of his economic policies and of Democratic campaign attacks. In fact, the President-elect (an adaptable fellow, as becomes clearer each day) is already signaling that raising taxes in a recession wouldn’t be wise. No, our present economic difficulties were not somehow precipitated by “low taxes.” Actual causes – such as irresponsible mortgage lending pushed by those running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (e.g., Obama-pal Franklin Raines) and those protecting them (e.g., Barney Frank) – cannot be laid at Bush’s door.
On the positive front, silence on Bush achievements is deafening. To cite one example, Democrats have long cornered the rhetorical market on compassion. But it is George W. Bush who has done more than anyone to alleviate the curse of AIDS in Africa, which inflicts untold suffering on untold numbers of our fellow beings desperately in need of help. The President’s commitment to this has been unwavering; the level of assistance due to his efforts is staggering. Our media all but ignore this, though one suspects that Bill Clinton’s doing the same – and he could have – would have yielded wide acclaim. So, millions of Americans know nothing about what this President has done; but millions of African men, women and children will live because of it.
In the end, of course, evaluation of this Bush presidency will turn on Iraq, to virtual exclusion of almost all else. Claire Booth Luce said every president gets one sentence in the history books. George W. Bush’s sentence will be about Iraq and global terrorism; and it will be written far more favorably in the future than most are writing it today.
As Lincoln reminded his countrymen, we cannot escape history. The defining issue then, by which history judges Lincoln and his contemporaries, was whether the Union could survive. Today, we read that story knowing its end, which we tend to see as the inevitable, well-nigh ordained conclusion to a decisive struggle for freedom and the very principle of democratic self-governance.
Not so in Lincoln’s day, when the answer came only after 600,000 deaths in long, bitter warfare marked by countless Northern mistakes and defeats. Through much of it, the President who insisted that the war continue was deeply unpopular, reviled by the sophisticates of his era as an ignorant, uncultured baboon responsible for senseless slaughter. Lincoln didn’t become the Lincoln we know until after he won and someone shot him. Till then, there were plenty of 1860’s Keith Olbermanns fulminating about; they just didn’t have television shows.
The defining issue of our times – the history we cannot escape, and by which we will be judged – is whether Western civilization can survive the threat of Islamo-fascism and global terrorism, in an era when instruments of terror are devastating and readily available. More precisely, the issue is whether Western civilization has the will and the determination to do what is needed for its survival. More precisely still, the issue is whether the United States has the requisite will and determination – because the simple truth is that no other countr
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