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September 18, 2003 I WONDER WHAT HE'LL TRY NEXT?....In a nakedly political move designed solely to pander to voters in key electoral states, President Bush imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel last year. So how's it going?
Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. Posted by Kevin Drum at September 18, 2003 09:51 PM | TrackBackComments
So Bush promised something and it didn't work out. Aside from his buddies at the top, has anyone every, every gotten a good deal from George W? Posted by: J Edgar at September 18, 2003 09:56 PM | PERMALINKI keep hearing from plain folk in ordinary conversations (in ostensibly republican country) that this Bush is hated. It's visceral. It comes up early in coversation. And, it's said without shame. I've been around a long time and even Nixon didn't bring out this level of hatred in people at the beginning of his unraveling administation. (The second one. The one he won in a landslide in 1972; with Sammy Davis, Jr., grabbing him from behind and giving him a huge hug on the night he addressed the crowds following victory.) Some things, like ice cream, seem to melt in a hurry. Karl Rove knows the problem. HE not only sees an early field of democratic contenders to take his boy down; he sees Hillary coming round the bend. If there was anything that sounded foolish years ago, when Bush first got into office, was the hugh and cry that went up at Lucianne about Hillary being a strong running mate in 2004. Now? Wow. It's a possibility. And, Wesley Clark? That's CLinton's Kosovo policy. ANd, Shalikashvilli's 4 star ... over the army's claims that Clark wasn't wanted. Beats me how Clark will deal with this. But it's less of a noose than Iraq. WHere Bush went in and didn't understand the need for a secure exit policy. Going after Israel, that Tony Blair 'idea' of a road map; just sat on all the gains and made Bush look like a liar. He just thinks he can make policy on the fly. So, where are we now? And, don't you get surprised when you hear people who once certainly supported Bush, not very thrilled at what's going on now? "Read My Lips." What a set of bookends. Posted by: Carol in California at September 18, 2003 10:09 PM | PERMALINKThe article goes on to say that with the ITC reporting on the tariffs tomorrow, the Bush admin may this fall actually revoke (or sharply reduce) the protections afforded US steel producers last spring. What I'm fascinated with is how they would spin such a move if, in fact, it's made. The administration never seems to be able to admit even a minor error, so I really don't see Bush coming out and saying, "Tariffs didn't work out, our bad." Will the president and his advisors be able to swallow their pride? Or will they pull off some kind of misdirection? Then there's the politics of the whole issue, which are quite unpredictable. Supposedly the tariffs have hurt Bush in Tennessee and Michigan, but they help in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, don't they? Another risk of announcing a reversal is it will just highlight the mismanagement of the economy and how the administration doesn't know what it's doing. The interest group politics probably are a wash. Posted by: Dimmy Karras at September 18, 2003 10:20 PM | PERMALINKCertainly makes NAFTA and GATT seem worthwhile. Posted by: equitus at September 18, 2003 10:29 PM | PERMALINKDimmy, here's what they will do/say: "The tariffs have been totally sucessful in creating jobs for Americans. So now we are going to improve them a bit, target them better, in order to produce more jobs. We are the masters of economics, and we are producing jobs, jobs, jobs." Of course, the "improvement" will be that they completely reverse themselves. Just don't expect to see that fact in the SCLM. Or in that other media either. Posted by: craigie at September 18, 2003 10:39 PM | PERMALINKCarol in California: I keep hearing ... that this Bush is hated Your sample size has got to be very small, and also probably not representative of the nation. Even in California there are loyal Bushies. Posted by: squiddy at September 18, 2003 11:24 PM | PERMALINKHealthy Steel Mills Act of 2004, looks like. This man is a walking disaster area. Posted by: Troy at September 19, 2003 01:02 AM | PERMALINKThere's an interesting parallel here with the Iraq debacle. The Post reports that Glenn Hubbard, who was then Bush's economic advisor, accurately forecast how many US manufacturing jobs would be lost if tariffs were imposed. He was ignored by the politicos and White House know-it-alls. Just like the CIA and INR and MIddle East experts were ignored on Iraq, and they also turned out to be right. And recall that Jack Pritchard, the North Korea expert who recently quit the Government, made the same point. He said he quit because the experts were being ignored by the ideologues. There is a real pattern here with the Bushies. Posted by: John at September 19, 2003 02:48 AM | PERMALINKBe sure to read TBogg's post on this - it's very funny. Link to him through Kevin's blogroll. Posted by: Paper Trail in 2004 at September 19, 2003 04:57 AM | PERMALINK"The tariffs have been totally sucessful in creating jobs for Americans. So now we are going to improve them a bit, target them better, in order to produce more jobs. We are the masters of economics, and we are producing jobs, jobs, jobs." Sounds like something out of Atlas Shrugged. Posted by: Chuck Nolan at September 19, 2003 05:00 AM | PERMALINKThat increasing steel tariffs would have this effect shouldn't be particularly surprising. If memory serves, in the late 1980's, tariffs were imposed on imported flat-screen LCD panels, ostensibly to protect domestic manufacturer Micron Technologies. That raised the cost of the panels to domestic laptop computer manufacturers. Of course, because at the time the panels were, relatively speaking, very expensive, that gave a not-insignificant cost advantage to foreign laptop manufacturers, which were not subject to the tariff. Posted by: raj at September 19, 2003 05:04 AM | PERMALINKMaybe letting Karl Rove make economic policy wasn't the greatest idea for the country after all. Who knew? Posted by: JakeV at September 19, 2003 05:54 AM | PERMALINKWith Arabs as a key swing voting bloc in Michigan, and with 90% of them saying they'll vote against Bush now despite the majority having voted for him last time, there's no way Bush takes Michigan anyway. He's got a far better chance in Pennsylvania. Posted by: phil at September 19, 2003 05:57 AM | PERMALINKSounds like something out of Atlas Shrugged. Ya know, I used to think Objectivism was about as bankrupt a philosophy there could be... but that was before I was introduced to Straussianism. Is Ann Coulter the secret love child of Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss? Posted by: Harry Tuttle at September 19, 2003 05:57 AM | PERMALINKIrrelevant. Anyone doubt that OBL or Saddam will be "caught" next summer/fall? The steel tariff blowback recasts Clinton's decision not to impose such protection. It need not be the case that Clinton was some sort of high-minded, free-trading internationalist, he just wasn't the moron that Bush is. Posted by: Ross at September 19, 2003 06:20 AM | PERMALINKYes, raising tariffs on steel was bad economic policy. Yes, W is a walking disaster area. It doesn't follow that there's a political price to pay. Our very own Democratic party has a host of elected officials who would have imposed exactly the same policies for exactly the same reasons. Why? They know, too, that it's usually good politics in the steel-producing areas. But, you say, the auto workers, and other manufacturing workers have been hurt because the price of steel went up. Yes, that's true. And it may even come to pass that they will be unhappy with Bush's policies. But I wouldn't believe it simply because a free-trade economist says so - remember, he's got an axe to grind. For a straw in the wind, I checked out the UAW website. If there's an industry adversely affected by higher steel prices, it's auto. What do you find there? Very little about the steel tariff, from what I could find. But I did find this story, entitled "Stand up for Steel: Rally Demands Action to Save Steel Jobs," from March 2002, still up on the site. (Sorry, don't know how to link; you can use this address, though: http://www.uaw.org/solidarity/02/0302/front06.html). The article reports on a rally of UAW, USWA, and other union members, who were there to hear David Bonior and other politicians call for a 40% tariff increase on steel. This tariff, they explained, would help prevent the "extinction" of the US Steel industry, which is threatened by unfair foreign competition, and save “your barber shop, your beauty parlor, your church and your communities.” Shortly after the tariff was imposed (and this, from the AFL-CIO website), the comment was: "Although President George W. Bush’s decision to impose high tariffs on many steel imports is not as comprehensive as Steelworkers would have liked, it still 'raises our hopes that America’s steel industry can be saved,' USWA President Leo Gerard said." John Sweeney had much the same to say. (http://afl-cio.org). Generally, the union movement is heavily committed to tariffs, for the reasons poli sci texts have long understood: when jobs are lost to competition, it hits some people very hard, while the benefits, though broadly shared, are relatively small. I probably won't base my vote on a tariff decision. The guy who loses his job probably will. I suspect that the UAW leadership (and members) are tempted to cut the USWA loose. On one view, the unions' interests are opposed. But the commitment to protection runs deep, as does the logic of solidarity. If they part ways on this issue, what about the next? If autos and other products are harmed by the steel tariff, well, then, shouldn't those products be protected as well? All of which is to say, Karl Rove may have missed the boat on this one, politically, but I'm not buying yet. Posted by: TedL at September 19, 2003 06:21 AM | PERMALINKLose votes on tariffs? Not a chance. Too complicated for the sound-bite voter. You can take the plethora of legitimate reasons to oust Bush and throw them away because a couple weeks before the election, Bush's smear squad is going to pull something out of its hat no matter who the Democratic nominee is. It will be just close enough to the election not to be refuted through research (especially by this sound-bite media). Whose FCC loves ya, babe? Posted by: chris at September 19, 2003 06:36 AM | PERMALINK"It looks like it was working for awhile . . . But now it's fallen apart." I know, I know, but we need to be careful of believing our own PR. Since today is 'talk like a pirate day' I will simply say: "Stay the course, mateys." Posted by: Tripp at September 19, 2003 06:41 AM | PERMALINKUnfortunately, probably the only votes it will lose him are at places like the Cato Institute. Posted by: kokblok at September 19, 2003 06:57 AM | PERMALINKPerhaps Bush is hoping that he'll still be able to get credit with the steelworkers for having tried . . . this had to be the stupidest and most widely-criticized decision of this administration, given the apoplexy it induced on the Right (the Wall Street Journal and National Review went ballistic and have been calling for Bush to reverse the tariffs ever since) as well as the usual knee-jerk vitriol from the Left. Brink Lindsey had a piece in the last issue of NR arguing that Bush was hoping to use the tariffs as a bargaining chip in multilateral trade talks, but those have been unraveling (due in large part to French intransigence on agricultural tariffs), and as in other aspects of his foreign policy, Bush has had to revert to serial bilateralism to make up for the breakdown in multilateral institutions along the U.S.-French divide. Thus, there's no point in keeping them around just as a prop for talks that are going nowhere. In an ideal world, the Democrats would learn something by watching this, but enthusiasm for free trade seems to be at a pretty low ebb with a number of the Democratic presidential candidates. As usual, even when Bush stumbles, the Dems are already face-down in the mud next to him. Posted by: Crank at September 19, 2003 07:05 AM | PERMALINKJon Stewart: "Boy, everything this administration touches turns to s**t." 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