President Blah Blah Blah

So against my better judgment, I watched the President's speech last night. And when it was over, two things struck me:

First, the President's heart just didn't seem to be in it. Maybe that's because this speech was essentially a politically-necessitated apology, and we all know how well the President likes apologizing. Or maybe that's because pledging to spend a lot of tax dollars to help the poor just rubs him the wrong way. But whatever the reason, it seemed that Bush was just reading his speech without really feeling it. I've never thought Bush was a good public speaker, but even for him, this effort struck me as below average.

Second, the reconstruction project that Bush proposed incorporated all the unfortunate features we've come to expect. First, tax cuts for businesses, which paired with his earlier wage cut for workers, makes for a nice transfer of wealth from the bottom up. Second, private accounts for evacuees, since if Bush had his way, every form of assistance would be in the form of a private account. Third, grants of federal land for new residential development (I wish I could be sure this wouldn't include the bird sanctuaries). And finally, a bunch a money for churches and other faith-based organizations, since no good deed by your base should go unreimbursed.

While Bush, as usual, is leaving the details of "his" proposal for others to flesh out, I just can't see how any of this is really designed to help the people who need help the most. If people need good jobs, you work to directly create good jobs at good wages; you don't give tax cuts to businesses and hope it trickles down. And if people need homes, you build them homes; you don't wait for Habitat for Humanity to start construction in a federally-owned swamp.

This is the essential problem with Bush's big-government conservatism: government is never allowed to just do what's necessary, but rather must construct a maze of public-private partnerships which wastes money, dilutes accountability, and fails to get the job done in the end. This is not to say that government is always the answer (it's not), but Bush's mantra that government is never the answer only makes sense if your goal is not to help the people who need help the most. But since the primary goal of any Bush initiative is to reward his supporters, he's able to say "mission accomplished".