[Mb-civic] Bush's eerie silence on tax reform - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Bush's eerie silence on tax reform

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist  |  November 4, 2005

WASHINGTON --KNOWING THAT taxes are among President Bush's favorite 
topics, I couldn't wait to hear his reaction to the report of the 
commission he set up this year to recommend sweeping changes in the 
country's messy system that satisfies no one beyond the lobbyists who do 
so much to make it so messy.

But I had to wait. And wait some more. Eventually, even a patient soul 
like myself couldn't avoid realizing that Bush was not going to say 
anything. Not a word. Not a syllable. Zip. Silence.

The president's affably ineffectual treasury secretary, John Snow, got 
my attention next. I figured he had to say something, but as it turned 
out Snow was careful to say nothing while saying something. Snow called 
the commission's report "a starting place for the recommendations we 
will make to the president."

I may be dumb, but I at least know the brush-off when I see it. The 
former railroad boss couldn't even bring himself to say "good" starting 
place.

By now it was clear that the Bushies were running for cover. The final 
confirmation came from the White House spokesman Scott McClellan. The 
poor guy's had a rough couple of months trying to make chicken salad out 
of whatever, but he adroitly escalated the administration's response 
from brush-off to kiss-off. Said McClellan, with no reference to the 
commission's recommendations whatsoever: "We look forward to moving 
forward on initiatives that the president will outline later with 
members of Congress."

The sight of a president walking away -- make that running away -- from 
what he once declared a top priority is never pretty. But lest anyone 
forget, let's go back to Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican 
National Convention barely a year ago in New York City. At the time, he 
had been having some difficulty saying just what it was that he wanted 
to do with a second term, and he and his advisers had pretty much 
decided that sweeping change in the tax code should be one of them.

So, to great cheers, Bush said the following: "In a new term I will lead 
a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code."

The key word was "lead." But not only has Bush not led at all, he has 
been unable to even follow. A commission can be a big help for 
presidents who don't know much and aren't curious, but rare is the chief 
who names one to develop a proposal and then hides from it. Only Bush 
has done it before -- with Social Security in 2001.

This is very different from Bush's other notable flop this year, in his 
second attempt at dealing with Social Security. In that case he at least 
had a general idea of what he favored -- partial privatization. He never 
made an actual proposal, however, because the math was too much for him, 
and after months of bromides before screened audiences it became clear 
that the more he talked about it the less people liked it -- a bad sign 
in politics.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/04/bushs_eerie_silence_on_tax_reform/
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