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Jewish World Review Jan. 31, 2003 / 28 Shevat, 5763

Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
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State of approval

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | BUSH-HATERS, I feel your pain.

The Bush economic stimulus package will pass -- with changes, yes, but also with tax cuts -- and it will pass with a healthy share of Democratic votes.

Americans want it. Taxpayers don't like the marriage penalty; they want lower tax rates. They aren't buying the soak-the-rich rhetoric of the Democrats. An ABC News poll found that 75 percent of those who watched President Bush's State of the Union speech approved of "most of what Bush said. " A mere 19 percent disapproved.

Now Republicans can point to the polls and gloat.

In his rebuttal speech, Washington's Democratic Gov. Gary Locke referred to the 2 million jobs lost since Bush took office in an indictment of Bush's handling of the economy. "There's no (economic) recovery for working Americans, " Locke said.

Nice try. But economists say the recovery is under way. A national unemployment rate of 6 percent, while too high, is hardly scandalous. Voters understand that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and corporate scandals that incubated before Bush was elected president have battered the economy -- even if many don't know that the recession began before Bush took office. Voters don't blame Bush for the job losses, although they do think it is his "duty," as the president put it, to prod the sluggish economy into action.

Locke also honed in on how the Bush budget will produce "massive deficits." Sadly, he's right.

While some of the deficit spending is unavoidable for the moment, not all of it is. It would help if the president and Congress pared federal spending by cutting corporate welfare. That includes the $1.2 billion Bush proposed to spend on developing "clean hydrogen-powered automobiles."

As Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union told me last year, if the hydrogen-fuel cells touted by Bush had "such great promise, investors in the private sector would be lined up to get in on the ground floor." Let Detroit pay for its own research and development.

That said, the Demos are not credible when they denounce deficit spending because they always follow their complaints with calls for new programs. Right after Locke bemoaned deficit spending, he called for a "Medicare prescription drug benefit for all seniors" -- even the rich who can pay for their own health care.

Talk about a deficit enhancer.

Americans know that an economic upsurge won't happen tomorrow. As White House chief political adviser Karl Rove acknowledged Tuesday, Iraq is "an overhang on the economy."

One difference between the Bushies and the Clintonians: When Bush talked about the Clinton recession during the presidential 2000 race, Clintonians indignantly charged that Bush was trying to talk down the economy to win an election.

Now the shoe is on the other foot, but Bushies aren't hurling back that silly charge.

On war with Iraq, Bush was crisp. The U.N. inspectors were not sent on a "scavenger hunt," but rather to disarm Iraq. "The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm." If Saddam Hussein doesn't disarm, "we will lead a coalition to disarm him."

Why? Because if Hussein gives chemical weapons to al Qaeda terrorists, America would experience "a day of horror like none we have ever known."

The president's critics are half-paralyzed. Most are reduced to arguing that they want to give the inspectors more time to disarm Hussein, when it's clear that Hussein is just running the clock.

Bush had the perfect riposte to that jab: "America's purpose is more than to follow a process. It is to achieve a result."

For eight years, the Dems told American voters that when Republicans criticized President Clinton, they were haters, obstructionists or just plain bad sports.

Now the Democrats are carping. Nitpicking, really. Yes, the Bush goal is right, but it's too "unilateral." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., dismissed the address as offering nothing new. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told the New York Daily News that the speech was a "missed opportunity" to sell the American public.

Yes, they're bashing Bush, but they're not calling him stupid anymore.

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Up


01/29/03: Pervs beware
01/27/03: Scouts among us
01/24/03: French kiss off
01/23/03: SUV backlash backlash
01/21/03: Goin' to the dogs
01/17/03: Class warfare
01/15/03: From the Left Coast … a vote on whether schools should be havens for learning or tools for leftist propaganda
01/10/03: Bush is cleaving too closely to the Clinton playbook
12/30/02: The Creator VS. Norton
12/26/02: Hazardous to your health
12/16/02: Bezerkley or Psycho?
12/13/02: Willie Horton's legacy
12/11/02: Only act of compassion by prez can save him
12/06/02: Food fight in tofu-land
12/04/02: Wireless not tireless
12/02/02: Nutritionally incorrect … and right!?
11/27/02: The New New Al Gore
11/25/02: Shaking the foundations
11/22/02: Biting the hand that teaches you
11/08/02: Bush leads
11/06/02: Too big to vote small this month
11/04/02: In a cop killer's name
10/25/02: Off target
10/23/02: Anti-American and not proud of it!?
10/16/02: And now, PC parades
10/11/02: Sitting on the docks by the Bay
10/07/02: For Dems, the mantra ain't "Let every vote count" any longer
09/27/02: Profile in fence-sitting
09/25/02: Achtung, anti-American
09/24/02: Why don't they fear us?
09/18/02: Nobel Peace Prize killer
09/13/02: What you don't see can hurt you
09/06/02: Unequal before the law
09/04/02: To the moon, Jerry
08/30/02: Gold medal in meddling
08/28/02: The summit isn't sustainable
08/23/02: Your tax dollars on drugs
08/19/02: San Francisco, the city of outrageousness, has done it again! Beware and be aware, America
08/16/02:Fraternite, liberte, envy
08/14/02: Academia's swindle
08/12/02: Humane or inane?
08/09/02: See Dick talk
08/07/02: Gore, the Messiah
08/02/02: The compassionate curriculum
07/31/02: No order in the court
07/30/02: West takes on east in the drug war
07/26/02: PC coffee 'brewhaha' Spineless in Seattle
07/24/02: No wonder the rest of the country has been known to sneer at California
07/22/02: Hail, little Caesar
07/19/02: Doctor of the Universe?
07/17/02: Johnny goes to prison
07/15/02: To win or not to win
07/12/02: A paradise for moderns
07/10/02: Hate crime, terror and murder
07/03/02: "Good things" in stir
06/24/02: True justice
06/21/02: How Davey saved California
06/19/02: Delusions of suppression
06/17/02: The Court's on trial
06/14/02: A real-life Mrs. Cleaver
06/12/02: California crude
05/31/02: FBI, investigate thyself
05/28/02: Your tax dollars on drugs
05/24/02: The Bible and the stripper
05/22/02: Who knew?
05/20/02: A modern modest proposal
05/19/02: Euros could don white hats
05/13/02: Home of the brave -- oops, scratch that
05/10/02: Colorblind U
05/08/02: License to spend
05/06/02: Conservatism can survive despite liberal bias
05/03/02:A speech like air kisses
05/02/02: Bush should end bad sentences
04/29/02: Get ready America, California is gettin' into the slave reparations business
04/26/02: Saudis' money for martyrs
04/24/02: Oooh la la, Le Pen
04/15/02: Drill Alaska -- for the children
04/11/02: A good marriage with an esteemed soul mate -- well, nothing beats it
04/09/02: Tied up and Taliban
04/05/02: No justice in reparations
04/01/02: Schools, yes; fat police, no
03/25/02: The government-induced doctor shortage
03/22/02: Conservative hypocrisy on school drug testing?
03/20/02: And now, about Russell Yates . . .
03/18/02: Bush isn't worried about alienating loyalist voters
03/13/02: No exit strategy
03/11/02: Simon hits the big time
03/06/02: He got away
03/01/02: Mary, Luke, Paul, John and Noah
02/25/02: These are good days for veep
02/21/02: Dirty bill for a dirty mess
02/19/02: Score one for Greta
02/15/02: Dose of justice needed here
02/08/02: Sunshine all around
02/04/02: Does citizenship matter?
02/01/02: End the coverup
01/30/02: Try this for "troubling"
01/25/02: Camp X-ray or Club Med?
01/23/02: Let's stop the deluge of porn e-mail
01/21/02: No 'Little Boy Lost'
01/16/02: Son of Supercar
01/12/02: Beware the European view of the death penalty
01/09/02: Other people's children
01/07/02: It doesn't fly
01/03/02: Going from the Atlantic City Boardwalk to Berkeley
12/31/01: In America, punishment should fit the crime
12/28/01: What I'd like to see in 2002
12/24/01: Don't heckle ink monopolists
12/21/01: Mumia finds safety in numbers
12/19/01 The self-help PBS shopping network
12/17/01 Caught on tape
12/14/01 Know when to hold 'em
12/10/01 Old friends
12/06/01 I read the news today, oh boy
12/03/01 It's not cricket
11/28/01 Admissions and omissions
11/26/01 Guns and abayas
11/21/01 Depraved minds think alike
11/19/01 Guilty, a la carte
11/14/01 Interpreting the entrails of Election 2000
11/12/01 Life and liberty
11/09/01 Safety is as safety does
11/07/01 More hot air on global warming
11/05/01 Bumped Pakistani's molehill
11/01/01 Freedom snuffed out
10/29/01 Give war a chance
10/26/01 Airline bill needs liftoff
10/22/01 The Riordan Principle
10/19/01 Before America gets tired of the war on terrorism
10/17/01 Patriot games
10/15/01 I was a 'McCainiac,' and I have seen the light
10/12/01 University of Censorship's fall semester
10/11/01 Poor little rich boy, Osama
10/07/01 Don't feed Israel to the beast
10/05/01: bin Laden is not our Frankenstein monster
10/04/01: Where no man has gone before
09/26/01: Who's bloodthirsty?
09/26/01: What's to understand?
09/20/01: Barbara Lee's line in the sand
09/14/01: You gotta love this country
09/13/01: ENTER TERROR
09/11/01: You can't clone ethics
09/06/01: NOW's goal: equal rights for women without equal responsibility
08/30/01: What's love got to do with it?
08/24/01: A clean, well-lighted place for junkies
08/20/01: Bush should stand up for justice
08/08/01: Don't give Peace (Dept). a chance
08/03/01: Lose a kid, pass a law
08/01/01: Welcome to France, killers
07/30/01: Why it's easy being green (in Europe)
07/26/01: If disabled means expendable
07/23/01: Condit should not resign
07/18/01: Feinstein should learn her limit
07/16/01: A drought of common sense
07/13/01: The catalog has no clothes
07/05/01: It's Bush against the planet
07/03/01: The man who would be guv
06/29/01: Wheeled, wired and free
06/27/01: O, fearful new world
06/25/01: End HMO horrors
06/21/01: Either they're dishonest or clueless
06/18/01: Freedom is a puff of smoke
06/15/01: In praise of going heavy: Yes, you can take it all
06/13/01: McVeigh: 'Unbowed' maybe, but dead for sure
06/11/01: Gumby strikes back
06/08/01: Los Angeles' last white mayor?
06/07/01: Kids will be kids, media will be media
06/04/01: Draw a line in the sand
05/30/01: Just don't call him a moderate
05/29/01: Operation: Beat up on civil rights
05/24/01: Of puppies, kittens and huge credit-card debts
05/22/01: Bush needs an energy tinkerbell
05/18/01: Divided we stand, united they fall
05/16/01: Big Bench backs might over right
05/15/01: Close SUV loophole
05/11/01: Kill the test, welcome failure
05/09/01: DA mayor's disappointing legacy
05/07/01: If it ain't broken ...
05/03/01: They shoot civilians, don't they?
04/30/01: Executions are not for prime time
04/12/01: White House and the green myth
04/10/01: The perjurer as celeb
04/04/01: Bush bashers don't know squat
04/02/01: Drugging our oldsters
03/30/01: Robert Lee Massie exercises his death wish
03/28/01: Cheney's nuclear reactor
03/26/01: Where California and Mexico meet
03/16/01: Boy's sentence was no accident
03/14/01: Soft money, hard reform
03/12/01: Banks, big credit lines and consumer bankruptcy
03/09/01: Free speech dies in Berkeley
03/02/01: When rats have rights
02/28/01: Move a frog, go to jail?
02/26/01: They knew they'd get away with it
02/20/01: How Dems define tax fairness
02/16/01: The jackpot casino Carmel tribe?
02/14/01: You can fight school success
02/12/01: Hannibal -- with guts this time
02/08/01: A family of jailbirds
02/05/01: Reality's most demeaning TV moments
02/01/01: Justice for the non-Rich
01/26/01: Hail to the chiefs of D.C. opinion
01/24/01: A day of mud and monuments
01/22/01: Diversity, division, de-lovely D.C.
01/19/01: Parties agree: Give back the money
01/17/01: Get tough with the oil companies, or forget pumping more Alaskan crude
01/15/01: Mineta better pray that no attending confirmation senator has ever driven to San Jose during rush hour
01/12/01: Europeans should look in the mirror
01/10/01: Dems' reasons for dissin' Dubya's picks
01/08/01: Jerry, curb your guru
01/03/01: A foe of Hitler and friend of Keating
12/28/00: Nice people think nice thoughts
12/26/00: The Clinton years: Epilogue
12/21/00: 'Tis the season to free nonviolent drug offenders 12/18/00: A golden opportunity is squandered
12/15/00: You can take the 24 years, good son
12/13/00: Court of law vs. court of public opinion
12/08/00: A salvo in the war on the war on drugs
12/06/00: Don't cry, Butterfly: Big trees make great decks
12/04/00: Florida: Don't do as Romans did
11/30/00: Special City's hotel parking ticket
11/27/00: No means yes, yes means more than yes
11/22/00: The bench, the ballot and fairness
11/20/00: Mendocino, how green is your ballot?

© 2000, Creators Syndicate