Wacko in Waco

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness,” philosopher George Santayana once noted. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Correct us if we’re wrong, but we’re beginning to suspect that retentiveness is not one of President George W. Bush’s or the Republican Party’s stronger qualities. It’s just about the only conclusion that can be drawn from the president’s recent economic forum in Waco.

To understand why that is so, it’s necessary to take a quick journey back in time. It’s 1980, and Ronald Reagan, promising to cut taxes and reduce the size of the federal government, has just been elected president. The taxes are cut, but reducing the size of the government is another story. Politicians, be they Republican or Democrat, are not inclined to reduce the benefits government directly provides to their constituents, be they rich or poor. The result? Hundred-billion-dollar annual budget deficits and a national debt measured in the trillions, twin anchors on the economic ship of state that far outweighed the relatively brief stimulus provided by the Reaganite tax cuts.

“Voodoo economics,” George Bush the elder had called the Reagan scheme prior to signing on as vice president, and he turned out to be correct. It took nearly 20 years before a Democratic president—working with a Republican Congress—was able to once again right the ship, and heading into the millennium, the federal budget was sailing in the black for the first time in decades. It was the economy, stupid.

And then along comes Dubya, and what does he promise to do? Cut taxes and reduce the size of the federal government. What has this return to Reaganomics wrought, so far, in just two years? Well, let’s see. The stock market has lost $4.3 trillion in value, 2 million more Americans are unemployed, and, as announced by the Congressional Budget Office prior to the Waco conference, a projected deficit this fiscal year of $157 billion. Yet predictably, the best Bush and the cronies he invited to this taxpayer-supported forum could come up with was more of the same.

Keeping in mind that most of the Bush tax cuts remain to be phased in over the next 10 years, we urge the president and all Republicans to heed Santayana’s warning. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Right now, you’re living proof of that.