President Bush should use his new-found power wisely

President George W. Bush has a luxury few presidents have enjoyed: For the last two years of his first term, his party will control both the U.S. House and the Senate.
The president will have the opportunity to pursue his policies with vigor, and he is entitled to do so. But now, even more than before, he should be careful that his policies reflect the mood of the country.
The Republicans hold control of the government only by slim margins in both the House and Senate, and to suggest that the president has been given an unqualified mandate would be an overstatement.
A total of fewer than 50,000 votes in three states -- Minnesota, Missouri and New Hampshire -- gave Republicans control of the Senate. And some races took strange turns that do not lend themselves to making strong statements about mandates.
None was stranger than in Georgia, where U.S. Rep. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican, defeated the Democratic incumbent, Max Cleland. Chambliss ran a campaign that questioned Cleland's commitment to keeping this nation safe from its enemies, even running one ad that juxtaposed pictures of Cleland, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Chambliss made it a point to visit every military base in Georgia and enjoyed three campaign visits by the president, who said he needed a man like Chambliss in the Senate. What's strange about that? Only that Cleland would seem to have impeccable military and patriotic credentials. He is a Vietnam veteran who lost two legs and an arm there and was a former director of the Veteran Administration. Chambliss spent the war years in college and law school.
Historic victory nonetheless
Such anomalies notwithstanding, it remains that the GOP gained two seats in the Senate and five in the House, which is remarkable. By post-World War II standards, the sitting president could have expected his party to lose 22 House seats and two Senate seats in this election.
President Bush has resisted any urge to gloat in the wake of his victory, and has even called for the existing Congress, which reconvenes this week, to take a bipartisan approach to some of his legislative priorities, especially homeland security.
But don't expect much heavy lifting until after the first of the year, when the new Republican majorities take their seats -- though the balance of power has already shifted. With the appointment of an independent to serve as an interim senator from Minnesota, following the death of Democrat Paul Wellstone in a plane crash 11 days before the election, the Senate now has 48 Democrats, 48 Republicans and two independents.
Anticipated priorities
The presidential priorities will be homeland security, clearing the backlog of his judicial nominations in the Senate, taxes and the economy, prescription drug coverage for senior citizens and Social Security reform. He can expect to face considerable pressure from social conservatives on right-to-life issues that include restricting stem cell and cloning research and access to abortion.
Given that he campaigned on the need for his version of a new Homeland Security Department, and given the success of that campaign, the president will almost certainly get what he wants, a department of 170,000 workers exempt from collective bargaining rights.
His tax priority seems to be making permanent the $1.35 trillion in tax cuts that were enacted last year and are set to expire in 2010. There he should tread more carefully. The combination of higher defense costs and lower tax income due to the weakened economy has brought a return of deficit spending.
The prevailing theory behind the president's first round of cuts was that since the government was taking in more than it needed, it should return the money proportionally to those who were paying it. But at a time when the economy is in a slump and Washington is spending more than it is taking in, tax cuts should be aimed more at boosting the economy. That would mean cuts at the lower and middle end of the tax scale, where the recipients could be expected to spend much of what they got back, boosting the economy.
Lasting effect
Even before last week's election, we said that the president was entitled to have his judicial nominations acted upon. We believe it would be a mistake, though, for the new Senate to simply rubber-stamp the president's nominees. Given the numbers in both the 2000 and 2002 elections, neither the president nor Congress can claim a mandate for building an ultraconservative judiciary that would affect the American justice system for a generation.
Both parties want to expand prescription drug coverage for the elderly. The trick will be providing senior citizens with meaningful help on their prescription bills while keeping the cost to the federal government within range. If the president pushes through a bill that is more show than substance, it will do him and his party more harm than good in the long run.
As to privatizing Social Security, any plan that allows younger taxpayers to divert part of their Social Security payments into private investment accounts is going to have to show how those losses can be absorbed by the system. How can money be redirected without either increasing the Social Security tax rate for workers or cutting the pensions of present Social Security retirees or people who will retire in the next 10 or even 20 years?
The president's approval numbers remain above 60 percent, and given those numbers and the results of last week's election, he could easily get carried away. But he not only has a responsibility to respect the loyal opposition, it is smart politics to do so. He dare not forget that his father had approval ratings in the 90s only two years before the voters turned on him and elected Bill Clinton.