Senators with scruples? We can only hope.

Bush will overreach at his peril
By Robert Kuttner, December 15, 2004, The Boston Globe

PRESIDENTS get into trouble in their second terms, especially when they interpret reelection as a huge mandate. The details differ, but most of them involve overreaching.

Franklin Roosevelt was overwhelmingly reelected in 1936, and almost immediately overreached in his scheme to pack the Supreme Court. Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide in 1984, but found that his tax cuts were creating serious deficit problems, bogged down in the Iran-Contra scandal, and ended losing the Senate in 1986. And Bill Clinton, reelected in 1996, imagined that he could treat the Oval Office as a boudoir.

What of Bush? His bungling of the nomination of Bernard Kerik to head the Homeland Security Department -- there was much more than a nanny scandal that would have led to a messy confirmation battle -- is pure second-term hubris. And there is a lot more to come. …

Consider his big plans for 2005: Social Security privatization, tax "simplification," making tax cuts permanent, and a forward strategy for US power in the Middle East and the world. …

Social Security. The more the press scrutinizes Bush's privatization scheme, the worse it looks. It's beginning to penetrate public opinion that the plan would reduce the basic benefit by about 50 percent for the next generation and that private accounts would not make up the difference for most retirees. …

Tax "simplification.” Every single version of Bush's so-called simplification plan is really a move to give further shelter to the upper brackets and shift taxation onto consumption. …

Dollar dependency. Many Republicans as well as Democrats (and most economists) are beginning to seriously worry that our entire economy is now dependent on the willingness of the central banks of Japan and China to keep buying our bonds. …

Here’s Kuttner’s money shot: “Though Bush has nominal majorities in both houses, he cannot count on Republican legislators to slavishly support his every move. The more he overreaches, the more Republican opposition he will court.”

We can only hope. The Congressional “leadership” enforces violations of loyalty with a viciousness that I believe hasn’t been seen before. Only the very powerful can risk speaking out against these demagogues from the right, but thankfully some do. The mess this administration is making of this nation, this nation’s reputation in the world, and this nation’s future is frightening.