Editorial

Domestic policy a casualty of war

While President Bush sets his sights on Iraq, the American media has eagerly followed suit, painting their pages with “special reports” and lacing television programs with charged titles like “Showdown with Iraq.” The New York Times has trained nearly twenty reporters for the “inevitable” confrontation, and reporters around the country are chewing at the bit, wondering whether they’ll be one of the select few to shadow the American military.
But, of course, this zealous, hawkish reporting has allowed for scant discourse on other important policy areas — perhaps most egregiously, our economy and our environment. It’s time for us to force our politicians and media heavyweights to look at issues which give more immediate meaning to our everyday lives — namely the cash in our pockets and the air we breathe.
Despite bromides about economic growth and anodyne backdrops like “corporate accountability,” President Bush’s record on the economy has been disastrous. Unemployment (5.8 percent) is at a ten-year high. Job hiring (made even more uncertain because of a looming war) is at the worst point for graduating college students in decades. Bush’s tax cut plan — which doled out $300 to every taxpayer and will slash rates across the board (with the greatest benefit to the most affluent) has raped the national treasury and sent deficits skyrocketing. And his war will only augment present deficits, requiring the government to borrow massive amounts of money and thus make less capital available to entrepreneurs and businesses that are the backbone of the American economy. Further, it will require heavy debt servicing and set us back economically to the obscene deficits of the Reagan years.
Bush’s environmental record, however, has been worse. Environmentalists say he has the worst environmental record of any president, one even more pestilent than Reagan. Bush has acquiesced to scores of industries — coal, foresting, oil, paper, — all major contributors to his campaign. Perhaps more troubling is his ability to decorate his proposals with titles like “Clean Skies,” which the media has swallowed whole, that are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Bush has mastered the art (using Clintonian tactics like 4:30 p.m. Friday press releases) to dump bad news when the media is looking elsewhere.
On New Year’s Eve, for example, Bush announced his intention to roll back the new source review, which according to environmentalists has kept one million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This move will render impotent attempts to install scrubbers at 17,000 coal power plants, oil refineries, and other facilities. Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency is collecting public comments on the proposal — make your voice be heard. The rollbacks should not be enacted.
Another brilliant Bushism is the “Healthy Forests Initiative,” which effectually means cutting down more big trees (to prevent forest fires, of course). The Administration has also weakened the “roadless rule,” which prevented road constuction in protected national parks. Bush also appointed a former timber industry lobbyist, Mark Rey, as Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and The Environment, who worked for years to increase logging in national forests.
It’s an open question, too, whether International Paper’s $1.3 million donation to the Bush coffers during the 2000 election has affected policy. We must not allow the death of these natural treasures which, once cleared, can never be returned.
Finally, we cannot allow war-mongering to distract us from a healthy discussion of the nation’s energy policy. Promoting energy dependence by looking to renewable energy sources rather than spending billions to open Iraq is imperative. In 2002, the Senate voted to weaken the energy bill, removing provisions that would have cut oil dependency — like requiring better fuel efficiency in cars and SUVs. Improving the corporate average fuel economy among America’s automobile fleet by just a few miles per gallon would save billions of barrels of oil.
Additionally, we shouldn’t shoot ourselves in the foot to siphon scanty new oil reserves. Lacerating Arctic wildlife to extract just a small amount of oil (it would meet three percent of our energy needs and not be available for 10 years) would destroy arctic habitat and poison the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. When Arctic oil drilling resurfaces we should press our senators to eschew this foul course, favoring a cleaner and long-term solution to meet our energy needs.
Don’t let war stifle dialogue on these more immediate issues.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review editorial board—the Editors in Chief, Managing Editor and Commentary Editor—and do not necessarily reflect the view of the staff of the Review.