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I think Ezra Klein’s a smart guy, but I found his response to this post deeply unconvincing. To support his assertion that the 2001 tax cuts were some sort of half loaf Bush had to accept in the face of centrist opposition in the Senate, Klein writes,

Bush initially sought a $1.6 trillion tax cut. The votes didn’t exist. So the price tag was reduced to $1.35 trillion, and since a filibuster looked unbreakable, the bill went through the budget reconciliation process, which meant that its deficit-increasing provisions — that is to say, most all of it — would sunset in 2010.

Weak tea. Bush gets the biggest tax cuts since 1981 through the Senate via reconciliation, with 85% of the total he asked for, and that’s some bitter centrist pill he was forced to swallow? And how does Klein know that Bush just didn’t negotiate smartly, making the opening bid higher in anticipation of a hair cut during the negotiations?

Also, if conservatives were disappointed in the tax cuts, I don’t remember them complaining.

Harvard Professor Roger Porter, who has worked for three Republican Administrations, says the President has kept his word through new tax policies that included across the board tax cuts, doubling the child care credit, and a reduction in estate taxes.

"He got an enormous amount done,” said Porter, with the Kennedy School of Government.

"There is no question whatsoever that an objective observer would have to conclude that he did in fact achieve the goals that he established,” said Porter.

Klein adds,

Medicare Part D was loathed by many House conservatives. Tellingly, Dick Armey wrote an op-ed opposing it, and Tom DeLay had such trouble passing it over conservative objections that the Department of Justice opened an investigation into the tactics he used to pass it.

That’s right — it um, passed.

Back to Klein,

There’s a sort of comfort in believing that George W. Bush got everything he wanted, because it suggests that if liberals could only emulate his tactics, they too could get everything they want. But Bush’s domestic policy was appalling to most conservatives.

Again, Klein and I recall the Bush era differently, because I don’t remember a conservative rebellion against Bush. The fact is, conservatives were the only group to support him until the bitter end.

Anyway, that’s a red herring. The issue isn’t whether Bush was insufficiently conservative for his base, the issue is whether or not he was successful in getting the legislation he wanted through congress. And the record shows that he was, until his presidency was crippled by Iraq and Katrina. And Bush, unlike Obama, didn’t enter the White House with huge partisan margins in both houses, after winning the bigger percentage of the popular vote than Ronald Reagan in 1980.

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  4. Cease Fire! Ezra Klein Agrees with Jane Hamsher!
  5. Ezra Klein Doesn’t Know Why the Public Plan is So Important