After George H.W. Bush, focusing on what matters -- Dec. 6, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The National Day of Mourning, the state funeral and the private burial are over, but let’s not tuck away the shared experience of celebrating former President George Herbert Walker Bush’s life.

If we take nothing from the week’s events, the pause in our toxic partisanship will be just that: a pause.

Indeed, TV commentators in recent days kept assuring us our national dyspepsia will be back before we know it. Some seemed to almost relish its return, perhaps because meanness and name-calling animate the airwaves and Internet.

I don’t doubt they’re right. There’s little appetite for civility, the conventional wisdom tells us. But if that’s so, why were millions of Americans mesmerized by the farewell to a president whose calling card was gentlemanliness?  

Even those of us who were not fans of some of Bush’s politics and policies – the Willie Horton campaign ad and his choice of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court come to mind -- were drawn to his life’s lessons.

It would be a shame to waste this moment of reflection.  

Bush, who was 94 when he died, orchestrated his funeral at National Cathedral from words to hymns. He chose as speakers those who would talk about his roles as father, friend, patriot, president and parishioner.  

His biographer Jon Meacham explained in his eulogy that after Bush’s near-death experience as a Navy fighter pilot in World War II, “To him, his life was no longer his own. There were always more missions to undertake, more lives to touch and more love to give.”

In death, Bush fulfilled one final mission: He reminded us what matters in life.

“His life code, as he said, was `Tell the truth. Don’t blame people. Be strong. Do your best. Try hard. Forgive. Stay the course,’” Meacham said. “And that was and is the most American of creeds.”

When Meacham read his eulogy to Bush, the former president came back with typical humor and humbleness: “That’s a lot about me, Jon,” he said, according to Bush spokesman Jim McGrath.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a close personal friend, called Bush a man “of such great humility,” adding dryly, “Those who travel the high road of humility in Washington, D.C., are not bothered by heavy traffic.”

Bush’s simple credo was: “What would we do without family and friends?” Simpson said.

Former President George W. Bush said his dad was genuinely optimistic, “And that optimism guided his children and made each of us believe that anything was possible.” 

His father “looked for the good in each person and usually found it,” the 43^rd president said.

The implicit comparison with President Donald Trump, who sat on the front row with every other living president, was stark. Trump did not speak, although he’d already said plenty about Bush and the former presidents, several of whom were frosty towards him.

When Bush died Nov. 30, Trump put out a glowing statement and was by all accounts very gracious to the Bush family, sending his plane to transport the casket and family to Washington, inviting the Bushes to stay at Blair House and paying a sympathy call there. He was acting the way a president should act.

But he and Bush were far from close. Trump had gutted the presidential campaign of Bush’s son Jeb with the epithet “low energy.” The elder Bush was quoted as calling Trump a “blowhard.”

As recently as July, Trump mocked Bush’s “thousand points of light” concept of volunteerism, saying at a campaign rally in Montana, “Thousand points of light – I never quite got that one. What the hell is that? Has anyone ever figured that one out?”

When the elder Bush was president, Trump said he liked and supported him but blasted Bush’s goal of a “kinder, gentler” country.

“I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist,” Trump said in a Playboy interview in 1990.

That was absurd then and even more so now.

But if we want a kinder, gentler America, we have to start acting like it.  And that would truly make America great again.     

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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But will they thank the president? -- Nov. 16, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A great American tradition is again about to take place -- and I don’t mean overeating, arguing over politics, watching football and shopping.

Before those time-honored Thanksgiving rituals, the president of the United States will issue a couple of pardons everybody can agree on.

If all goes according to plan, two photogenic and well-behaved turkeys from Minnesota will be driven to the nation’s capital. They will spend the night in a luxury hotel before being delivered Tuesday to the White House, where President Donald Trump will exercise his power to pardon. 

The two lucky birds then will make the trip to Virginia Tech, where they will join Tater and Tot, the turkeys President Barack Obama pardoned last year, to live out their lives in a special enclosure called “Gobbler’s Rest.”

Unlike the other 238 million turkeys raised in the United States annually, these turkeys will never grace anyone’s dining room table.

So, naturally, the question on Americans’ minds is: Will the turkeys thank Trump?

This president loves to be thanked. You could say he demands it. He asked in a tweet Wednesday whether the three UCLA basketball players would say “thank you President Trump” for securing their freedom from a Chinese jail.

The young men stupidly shoplifted in three stores in China while on a team trip and got caught. “They were headed for 10 years in jail!” Trump tweeted.

As presidents often do, he intervened and the three were released. They did thank the president and the U.S. government. Trump then tweeted “You’re welcome” and urged them to “give a big Thank you to President Xi Jinping, who made your release possible and HAVE A GREAT LIFE!”

He also advised: “Be careful, there are many pitfalls on the long and winding road of life!”

Speaking of pitfalls, it’s not true that Trump revoked Obama’s turkey pardons and ordered the birds executed by firing squad. A satirical website ran a “news” story to that effect earlier this year and gullible readers have been spreading the fake news ever since.

But it’s not fake news that the feathered fortunates traditionally spend the night before their White House appearance at the historic Willard InterContinental Hotel, where the luxurious rooms cost upwards of $350.

Rolls of brown paper, pine shavings and plastic tape are involved in preparing for the guests, Time magazine reported. No word yet on whether the new hotel of choice will be Trump International on Pennsylvania Avenue.

When it comes to giving thanks, though, the pardoned turkeys should be especially grateful to Virginia Tech.

Yes, Trump will pardon, but it would be news if he didn’t. What happens next to the celebrity turkeys hasn’t been pretty.

The National Turkey Federation started giving presidents a turkey for their Thanksgiving feast with Harry S Truman. John F. Kennedy decided to send the turkey back to the farm in 1963, saying, “We’ll just let this one grow.”

George H.W. Bush was the first president to use the word pardon. He announced on Nov. 14 1989, the turkey had “been granted a presidential pardon as of right now.”

Over the years, the freed turkeys were dispatched to Disneyland, petting farms and Mount Vernon. Sad to say, wherever they went, they often died months, or even days, later.

“The bird is bred for the table, not for longevity,” Dean Norton, the director at Mount Vernon in charge of livestock, told CNN in 2013.

Fed a high-protein diet, the turkeys grow large but their organs can’t keep up. They can’t fly or roost in trees like wild turkeys and don’t live as long, he said.

That’s why the turkey federation sends two turkeys every year – in case one falls ill before the big White House event.

The federation contacted Tech last year and said it wanted to start a tradition of sending pardoned turkeys to universities with strong poultry science departments, the Roanoke Times reported.

Tech’s Poultry Science Club built the enclosure in a show barn in Blacksburg and welcomed Tater and Tot about a year ago. Faculty credit the students’ good care with keeping the turkeys alive and thriving.

Thank you, Virginia Tech. And Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Merry tax cut? Not so fast -- April 27, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but don’t spend your shiny new Trump tax cut just yet.

To update an old saying: There’s many a slip ‘twixt the lip and the cut.

President Donald “Santa” Trump promises “the biggest individual and business tax cut in American history.” So far he doesn’t have a plan or even a bill in Congress.  

The one-page outline the White House handed out Wednesday read more like a campaign flyer than a legislative blueprint. It’s hard to argue with any of these goals: 

“Grow the economy and create millions of jobs. Simplify our burdensome tax code. Provide tax relief to American families – especially middle income families. Lower the business tax rate from one of the highest in the world to one of the lowest.”

Briefing reporters, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn were short on details but long on -- irony alert -- hope and change.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something really big,” Cohn told reporters.

“Under the Trump plan, we will have a massive tax cut for businesses and massive tax reform and simplification,” Mnuchin said.

The lack of details gives Trump room to negotiate with reluctant members of Congress. Democrats predictably blasted Trump’s proposal for mostly helping himself and other wealthy taxpayers,

although he won’t release his tax returns so we’ll never know how much. He’ll need support of Republicans in Congress who traditionally have been wary of inflating the federal debt.

One provision left off the outline was a “border adjustment” tax on imports pushed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to help pay for tax cuts. Putting the best face on the situation, Ryan said the White House was “basically along the same lines that we want to go,” and Congress and the White House were “moving and getting on the same page.”

Trump’s big idea is to cut the corporate rate more than 50 percent to 15 percent, reduce the number of individual tax rates from seven to three, raise the personal deduction and eliminate most other deductions -- and pay for it all through accelerated economic growth of 3 percent.

As Popeye’s friend Wimpy would say: “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

We’ve seen this movie before. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan endorsed supply side economics and big tax cuts in 1980, promising economic growth would pay for them. His rival George H.W. Bush mocked Reagan’s plan as “voodoo economics.”

President Reagan got his tax cuts and the economy did boom for a while, although economists still argue whether Reagan’s tax policies were responsible. Eventually Reagan raised taxes several times.

After President George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003, the economy never achieved liftoff, bumping along at an average growth of 2.1 percent annually for eight years. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were partly to blame for the sluggish economic growth.

Estimates of the cost of Trump’s tax cuts range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion over five years and up to $7 trillion over a decade. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget made the first estimate, The New York Times the second.

While tax reform is a worthy goal, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group dedicated to fiscal responsibility, “it is inconceivable that a tax cut of this magnitude could pay for itself through economic growth.”

The White House predicts “trillions” of dollars in new revenue through growth. It’s worth remembering that Trump is unencumbered by fear of more debt.

“I’m the king of debt. I love debt,” he said during the campaign.

No doubt Republicans and Democrats alike would love to redo the huge, complicated tax code with its Swiss cheese loopholes, and many people would love to file their taxes on a “large postcard,” as Mnuchin put it.

But getting there won’t be easy.

Trump’s goal of eliminating deductions except for mortgage interest and charitable donations faces stiff opposition from Democratic members of Congress from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

Plus, it’s too early to know how Trump’s tax plan will affect most Americans.  

“We will be back to you with very firm details,” Cohn told reporters. He didn’t say when.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Now, more than ever, it's time for newspapers -- Nov. 24, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s the holiday season, so here’s a suggestion for your shopping list: Give a newspaper subscription. Better, give two – one local and one national.

To me, getting the newspapers – yes, two -- off the sidewalk in the morning and sitting with them and a cup of coffee is one of the joys of life. People who read newspapers prefer to read them in print, studies show, but fewer people are experiencing that joy.

It’s an irony of our time that newspaper circulation continues to decline when we need to know more than ever what our elected officials are doing. Our democracy needs voters who can distinguish between truth and lies.

We need real news, reliable information from sources we can trust. Real news is the antidote to toxic fake news, click-bait stories that deliberately mislead readers for fun and profit.

Average weekday newspaper circulation fell 7 percent last year, the most since 2010. Sunday paper circulation also declined. Both were because of fewer print sales. Digital circulation rose 2 percent, according to the Pew State of the News Media report in June.

For newspapers to survive and do their watchdog work, they need advertising revenue, which also is in decline.

I recommend giving the print product because we all spend too many hours in front of screens. If your friends and family prefer getting their news digitally, by all means give them a digital subscription. Three-fourths of newspapers now require a subscription to read online. 

Bashing the news media is always in fashion for politicians. President-elect Donald Trump has said about the news media: “They are so dishonest…70 to 75 percent are totally dishonest. Absolute scum. Remember that. Scum. Scum. Totally dishonest people.”

He has said he wants to open up the libel laws so he can sue newspapers, although he had second thoughts when someone told him he might get sued more as a result.

Trump, who rarely mentions The New York Times without the word “failing,” is thin-skinned. He doesn’t like news stories that are critical of him and his policies.

With 13 million followers on Twitter and 12 million on Facebook, he prefers to bypass the media. On Monday, he put out his plans for his first 100 days as president in a YouTube video.

But who broke the story of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server? The Times in March 2015 ran a page one story that led to the FBI investigation.   

And it’s not just the big, national newspapers that do excellent work. Reporters for the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune devoted 18 months to a project that uncovered a pattern of violence, neglect and 15 deaths in state mental hospitals in Florida.

The Portland Press Herald in Maine ran a six-part series documenting severe ecological changes in the warming ocean from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod.

Newspapers and the news media are not perfect, of course. The botched prognostications of the presidential election results hurt credibility. Reduced budgets have led to staff cuts and curtailed coverage.

Trump is the latest in a line of presidents and presidential contenders who have used the news media for target practice. Lyndon Johnson scolded the media that criticized his Vietnam policy. Richard Nixon had journalists on his enemies list. 

During the 1992 campaign, President George H.W. Bush loved the bumper strip that read: “Annoy the media. Re-elect Bush.”

Bush, though, distinguished between the reporters covering him and the talking heads he thought unfair. Trump has shown universal disdain, although he cares deeply what’s said about him.

Trump reportedly rises at 5 a.m., reads several newspapers, including The New York Times, and watches the morning TV shows – and then he tweets.   

For all his bluster, even Trump recognizes the value of newspapers.

At his meeting with the Times’s reporters and editors Tuesday, he called it “a great, great American jewel, a world jewel.” And he said. “I hope we can get along.”

Right. We’ll see how that works out.

But reading a daily newspaper -- or two -- will give you the best chance of knowing what really happens around the corner and in the nation’s capital.   

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Here come the conventions -- again -- July 7, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In a year of voter anger and disgust, we’re about to see the coronations of two presidential candidates most Americans don’t like in a spectacle of speeches paid for by fat cats and lobbyists.

National political conventions we will have – Republicans July 18 to 21 in Cleveland and Democrats July 25 to 28 in Philadelphia – but why?

Because that’s the way we’ve always done it, since the 1830s anyway. Conventions are a relic of the 19^th century, like getting ice from a horse-drawn wagon.

Not even shiny new convention apps or 360-degree cameras can save the conventions from their retro feel. Their original purpose was to select each party’s presidential nominee and platform, but they’ve evolved into four days of infomercials.

A few months ago, there was talk of a brokered or contested convention, which would make the occasion both newsworthy and significant. Then Donald Trump shocked the world by nailing the GOP nomination before Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic one. Anti-Trump forces still hope to derail his train by changing convention rules, but don’t count on it.

And most people – especially the nominees -- don’t care about party platforms. Sorry, Bernie.

The vice presidential candidates likely will be announced before the conventions, so there goes another shred of news. You could go on vacation off the grid for a couple of weeks and miss nothing, politically.

To be fair, some political scientists argue that having national political conventions every four years is good for our democracy. Conventions give the parties the opportunity, unfiltered by the news media, to reintroduce themselves and their values to voters, they say.

But convention viewership on television has been sliding since 1960. An exception came in 2008 when nearly two-thirds of all U.S. households – a record -- watched at least one convention, an analysis by the Nielsen TV ratings firm found. The numbers dropped in 2012. 

Drawing the most convention viewers does not translate into more votes for the party in November, however. Studies show most voters watch only the convention of the party they already favor.

“It’s safe to say that ratings have little to no electoral meaning,” University of Virginia professor Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball blog said in an analysis of the numbers.

This summer’s conventions may draw the curious. What will Trump’s family say? What will Bernie Sanders’ supporters do? And if, heaven forbid, the protests outside turn violent, people will watch.

Trump’s wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and sons Eric and Donald Junior will speak in prime time, along with famous sports and entertainment figures. No one ever knows what Trump himself will say.

President Obama previewed his role at the Democratic convention Tuesday in his first joint appearance with Clinton. He still has the power to energize the Democratic faithful in ways Hillary Clinton can only dream of.

Speaking at a national convention can be a career boost, as Obama demonstrated in 2004, so expect a parade of Democrats hoping to make a connection.

Many Republicans, though, are avoiding Trump’s party. Among those staying home: both Presidents Bush, 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and 2008 nominee John McCain. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will not attend, nor will boxer Mike Tyson. Trump tweeted that Tyson wasn’t asked to speak.

Beginning in 1976, taxpayers paid for the national political conventions. The post-Watergate idea was to avoid corruption by using public funds from the tax return checkoff for presidential campaigns. In 2012, the Democratic and Republican parties each received about $18.2 million for their conventions. Not this year.

Congress turned off the spigot in 2014 – except for $100 million in security grants to law enforcement agencies in the two host cities. The security money has been allocated separately since 9/11.

So, this year, lobbyists, labor unions and corporations that have supported conventions in the past are bearing more costs and having even more influence. This is progress?

Anachronistic though they are, conventions live on. So, enjoy the spectacle of balloons and funny hats, but don’t take the speeches too seriously.

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Once more, it's `Message: I care'

 By MARSHA MERCER

In 1992, when a beleaguered President George H.W. Bush blurted out “Message: I care” at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, he accomplished the exact opposite of what he intended. 

Voters believed that Bush was even more out of touch with the economic problems of everyday people than they’d thought.

We’re about to see whether President Barack Obama’s appeal for “a better bargain for the middle class” works better than the elder Bush’s awkward “I care.”

Washington insider Bush lost his re-election bid against outsider Bill “I feel your pain” Clinton in large part because the Arkansas governor could credibly argue that he’d change Washington.  

In 2008, Obama used his fresh face as a Washington neophyte to his advantage. Today, though, Obama is undeniably an insider, having been elected president twice. And yet he’s fighting for his agenda and his place in history by distancing himself from the capital.   

“Too often Washington has made things worse,” Obama said Wednesday at Knox College in Illinois. He repeated the thought in later speeches.

Obama is blaming Republicans for thwarting his vision, and, yes, he has faced a wall of partisan opposition since Day One.  But the fact is, Obama can’t even count on his Democratic friends in the Senate for support. 

Plus, he is the chief executive, and as the sign in Truman’s Oval Office read, “The buck stops here.”  

When Obama dismisses troubling revelations in his Executive Branch – bias at the IRS, cover-ups in the State Department and widespread snooping at the National Security Agency – as “phony scandals,” he fails to instill confidence that he will do whatever it takes to clean up the mess.     

Reactions to Obama’s new campaign to prove he cares about the middle class were predictably political.

“It’s a hollow shell; it’s an Easter egg with no candy in it,” opined House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as if House Republicans’ voting about 40 times to repeal the health care law known as Obamacare was a solid-chocolate bunny.

Obama is largely recycling his proposals that have stalled in gridlocked Washington. He apparently thinks he can mobilize his grassroots base over the next eight weeks to pressure the GOP to come his way.  But Obama is not in a position of strength.  

His job approval rating is down to 45 percent in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll.  The only bright spot for Obama is that people hold Congress in even lower regard than they do him. 

Only 12 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, and just 32 percent say their own member of Congress deserves to keep the job. More than half say it’s “time to give a new person a chance,” the poll found. That’s the weakest support for Congress in nearly 20 years.

You’d think these numbers would chasten lawmakers, but not Congress. Members are rewarding their poor performance with a five-week vacation. Obama also has a vacation planned -- Aug. 10 to 18 in tony Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. 

In September, Republicans threaten to play high-stakes roulette with a government shutdown. Dozens of conservative Republicans are demanding that money to implement and enforce the health law be struck – or they’ll refuse to keep the government open.  

That won’t help Americans sour mood.  Only 29 percent think the country is on the right track – a 19-month low.

Obama’s place in history depends on his keeping his signature health care law alive now and in the future. That means keeping a Democratic majority in the Senate after 2014. Some analysts say it’s possible that the Senate’s fragile Democratic majority could crumble in the next election. In the House, incumbents tend to have a lock on re-election, so the GOP is likely to maintain its control.

  

So, Obama hit the road for one last campaign.  Critics complain that he shouldn’t be in campaign mode, but had he stayed in town, they’d criticize him for failing to lead. It’s hard for a Washington insider to win -- even when he says he cares.

©2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.