Reality Check on Conservative Agenda
by Richard Lessner

The 2004 election was a close run thing, as Wellington famously observed of the Battle of Waterloo, but in the end, not as close as many had feared. George W. Bush won a convincing victory, and conservatives can rightly take a hefty share of the credit. So, what can conservatives realistically expect to achieve in the second Bush term?

First, conservatives must disabuse themselves of the notion that George W. Bush will move further to the right. He won't, for the simple reason that the Bush we saw in the first term was the real Bush.

Some conservatives harbor the notion (wishful thinking?) that Bush had to project a more moderate face in order to get reelected. They believe he created the Medicare prescription drug benefit -- the first new federal entitlement since LBJ -- expanded the role of Washington in local schools, dramatically increased spending, and did not once use the veto because, well, because he had to in order to appeal to moderate voters. In this mental construct, the "real" Bush is more conservative and, in his second term, unencumbered by the necessities of reelection politics, will govern much more from the right.

Would that it were so. Bush's instincts doubtlessly are conservative, but he is not especially philosophical. What you see is indeed what you get. He is a big-government conservative, if such an oxymoron can be invoked. He truly believes that the federal government, rightly directed, should help Americans educate their children and provide drug benefits for grandparents. By defining himself as a "compassionate conservative," he has shown himself to be someone who seeks to use government to achieve desirable ends.

Conservatives, therefore, should restrain their euphoria. If the Bush of the first term was the real Bush, what will he do to advance the conservative agenda in the next four years?

Immigration reform. This is the issue on which conservatives are most likely to openly break with the administration. Bush appears committed to his guest worker amnesty program. Conservatives will fight any scheme that rewards illegal immigrants already in this country with guest worker status and a fast track to citizenship, yet fails to secure America's southern border. The administration may try to roll enough Republicans together with amenable Democrats to cobble together a House majority. Both parties have interests here: The GOP's business base wants cheap labor and the downward pressure on wages that massive immigration produces, while Democrats see immigrants as a source of new voters. Conservatives for whom illegal immigration is an issue of national sovereignty, not xenophobia as liberals charge, will find few allies.

Marriage protection. Social-issue conservatives still euphoric over the Bush victory are likely to be disappointed. Bush will not spend much capital working to pass a constitutional amendment to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Such an amendment does not require the president's signature before it is sent to the states. Bush will have his hands full with Social Security reform and battling to get his appointments to the Supreme Court confirmed. Getting to 67 votes in the Senate to pass any constitutional amendment is a daunting prospect, no less so for marriage protection.

There is no political gain for the president if he squanders his capital on what would probably be a losing fight. Some pro forma rhetorical support for the amendment will probably be forthcoming to keep social conservatives happy, but don't look for any heavy lifting.

Then again, if Congress were to pass legislation under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution limiting the jurisdiction of the federal courts over marriage, thereby reserving marriage law exclusively to the authority of the states, President Bush undoubtedly would sign the bill.

The Supreme Court. Without doubt, appointments to the Supreme Court will be the bloodiest fights the administration will face in the second Bush term. Democrats are slowly accepting that they now comprise the minority opposition party and are not likely to regain a majority in either house of Congress in the foreseeable future. The left will make its last stand on the judiciary as the only institution remaining that can deliver on a liberal agenda.

Bush has shown genuine resolve on court appointments. Despite unprecedented obstructionism by Senate Democrats, he has continued to nominate conservative constitutionalists. Early signs for the second term are cautiously encouraging. Some conservatives took heart when Bush nominated White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft as attorney general. Presumably this takes Gonzales off the table for nomination to the Supreme Court. Conservatives have been worried for two years that the president was determined to make Gonzales, whom they distrust, the first Hispanic nominated to the high court and they have been warning the administration off the idea both publicly and in private. Yet The New York Times recently cited a White House source suggesting that Gonzales's elevation to attorney general was a bait-and-switch to groom him for the Supreme Court and to let conservatives get comfortable with the idea.

Generally, the president appears to grasp that the Democrats and their leftist constituencies will "Bork" almost any nominee to the right of Alan Dershowitz, so Bush may as well tap sound conservatives and make the fight worth having.

Social Security reform. This is the biggest of the "big ideas" any politician can take on. But polling shows pretty conclusively that the "third rail" of American politics has been short-circuited. It is no longer electrocution to talk about personal retirement accounts. President Bush campaigned on a pledge to reform Social Security, arguably the very foundation of the Democrats' now extinct New Deal hegemony, and he means to carry through on his promise.

Danger lurks, however. In his first term, Bush revealed a troubling habit, most noticeable on education reform and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. In both cases, many conservatives wound up disappointed and forced to oppose the final product.

The president's tendency has been to propose general principles, many of which conservatives enthusiastically endorse, then step back and let Congress hammer out the gory details. As a practical matter, this meant accommodating Democrat Ted Kennedy's demands to strip parental choice provisions out of the No Child Left Behind Act and exclude means testing from the prescription drug benefit, both non-negotiable requirements for conservatives.

If Bush repeats this hands-off approach on Social Security reform he will be courting disaster, especially if the White House signals by various winks and nods that it would accept a reform plan that reduces future retirement benefits. Any reduction in benefits would be a political disaster the Democrats would demagogue mercilessly in the 2006 congressional election.

If the president truly intends to spend the political capital he has banked, then he needs to get out front of a conservative reform plan based on large personal savings accounts that actually avert the coming fiscal crisis on entitlements, and then work very, very hard to pass it.

Tax reform. This may be one big idea too far. There is no consensus and little support in Congress for structural tax reform. Conservatives would dearly love to adopt a flat tax or a national sales tax and put the IRS out of business, but it is unlikely Bush can accomplish two big things before the election of 2006 (after which he will be a lame duck.) Rather, conservatives should be happy with more tax cuts, starting with the permanent repeal of the estate tax, universally known among right-wingers as the "death tax." This is doable. The tax is due to expire in 2010, but will automatically kick in again in 2011 (at the full-blown 55 percent rate) unless Congress acts to make it permanent. Totally eliminating an entire tax would be historic.

Tort reform. The Democrats will fight like a she bear protecting her cubs to block any restraint on personal injury trial attorneys, the largest single source of the left's campaign cash. It will be an uphill battle, and prospects of success are uncertain.

The war on terrorism: In all likelihood, Bush will begin to withdraw American troops from Iraq in 2005 following national elections. This will ease unrest in some conservative circles over the Wilsonian nation-building mission in Iraq. Conservatives will continue to support Bush in the pursuit of Al Qaeda and other terrorists, and will back a more muscular policy toward nuclear-arms in Iran and North Korea.

But Bush does not appear willing to deal much more harshly than he has with China, Russia, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, and this will disappoint neoconservatives. Others on the right will continue to run up warning flags against the erosion of constitutional liberties under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Yet the Bush administration shows no sign of backing away from some of the more objectionable features of the USA Patriot Act. Another terrorist attack on American soil, a possibility that cannot be dismissed, could accelerate the erosion of privacy and civil liberties as the administration reaches for more power to combat terrorism.

While conservatives should restrain their euphoria and realistically lower expectations for the second Bush term, they recognize some real opportunities for progress present themselves as a result of the election victories. Bush and energized conservatives in the House and Senate show renewed signs of willingness to restrain spending and growth in the federal government. If Bush succeeds in reforming Social Security with personalized retirement accounts, repealing the death tax, and getting two or three constitutionalist judges confirmed to the Supreme Court, then conservatives would be able to look back on Bush's second term with considerable satisfaction.

Richard Lessner is executive director of the American Conservative Union.

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