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ANALYSIS-Bush economic team "missing in action"?
June 28, 2002 05:33 PM ET
By Glenn Somerville
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's decision to personally lead the call for more honorable U.S. corporate behavior puts a sharper focus on the "missing in action" administration economic team.
With worries mounting that the relentless tally of accounting scandals will sow doubt about the integrity of the U.S. business model and could lash back against the economy, Bush plans addresses on Saturday and later in the month in New York to step up demands for greater responsibility.
Analysts say the fact that Bush has to lead the charge -- in effect tackling Big Business that helped put him in office -- raises questions about what his top economic advisers have been doing.
"If you consider that after 18 months we've got burgeoning deficits, a sagging dollar and a general atmosphere of corporate scandal, I don't think you'd say his team has been doing too well," said Marshall Wittmann, a Washington-based senior fellow at the advisory Hudson Institute.
NOT A GLOWING PICTURE
"The war against terrorism has been a 'wild card' for this administration, but even setting that aside it's a pretty bleak picture for the Bush economic team so far ... You'd have to say that they've been pretty well missing in action," he added.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsey, director of the National Economic Council, are at the top of the Bush economic team. It also includes Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, as well as Commerce Secretary Donald Evans among others.
The one solid accomplishment is the passage of the $1.35-trillion tax cut last year, but on other issues -- from energy to the budget and trade -- many Bush administration goals have foundered or been watered down or rejected by Congress.
And their muddled messages on the dollar have created confusion in currency markets partly because they have been coming from multiple sources, and have left open a potential interpretation that the Bush administration is willing to let the currency keep sliding to help exporters.
William Niskanen, chairman of the Washington-based Cato Institute who served on former President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, said what drive the Bush team's economic agenda had evaporated this year.
"I think the actions that have been taken by this administration have been as bad or worse than no actions," he said. "On trade, especially, it's been an absolute disaster -- on steel, softwood lumber and agricultural subsidies -- that has greatly complicated our relations with both trading partners and developing nations."
ANGER OVER TRADE POLICY
U.S. decisions to impose duties on lumber from Canada and imported steel have raised howls from European and Canadian officials, while poor nations protest that fresh subsidies for American farmers hinder their ability to sell into bigger markets.
Niskanen said it appears that Bush is seeking to regain some momentum on the economic front by taking on the issue of of greater corporate accountability on his own.
"But I think Paul O'Neill is the one who should have taken the lead," he added. "He has the credibility because of his background and he has the experience, but then he goes traipsing off to Africa with Bono instead of taking on this issue of which Enron was only the tip of the iceberg."
O'Neill toured four African nations last month, in company with Irish rock singer Bono, to investigate how development aid could be used more effectively.
The vocal Treasury chief has spoken out against corporate misbehavior, saying in a television interview on Friday that unethical executives "ought to be hung from the highest branches of the highest trees."
Wittmann said it seemed unusual for Bush rather than other members of his economic team to take on the issue of corporate governance, which has a political as well as an economic dimension.
"It puts the president in a position of having to demonstrate that he's not hostage to the big-money people who helped lift him into office," he said. "In effect, it means he has to bite the hand that fed him."
But on this and other issues Bush's economic advisers have seemed to be "invisible men," Wittmann said.
"O'Neill has been the boldest in coming forward to point out that this is a potential crisis, but every time he does it he seems to get slapped down," he added.
Lindsey and Hubbard have been "more theologians than advisers" on the risks posed by miscreant corporate behavior, Wittmann said, suggesting they were handicapped because "both were devout free marketeers when we have a situation that cries out for government intervention."
ANALYSIS-Bush economic team "missing in action"?
June 28, 2002 05:33 PM ET
By Glenn Somerville
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's decision to personally lead the call for more honorable U.S. corporate behavior puts a sharper focus on the "missing in action" administration economic team.
With worries mounting that the relentless tally of accounting scandals will sow doubt about the integrity of the U.S. business model and could lash back against the economy, Bush plans addresses on Saturday and later in the month in New York to step up demands for greater responsibility.
Analysts say the fact that Bush has to lead the charge -- in effect tackling Big Business that helped put him in office -- raises questions about what his top economic advisers have been doing.
"If you consider that after 18 months we've got burgeoning deficits, a sagging dollar and a general atmosphere of corporate scandal, I don't think you'd say his team has been doing too well," said Marshall Wittmann, a Washington-based senior fellow at the advisory Hudson Institute.
NOT A GLOWING PICTURE
"The war against terrorism has been a 'wild card' for this administration, but even setting that aside it's a pretty bleak picture for the Bush economic team so far ... You'd have to say that they've been pretty well missing in action," he added.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsey, director of the National Economic Council, are at the top of the Bush economic team. It also includes Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, as well as Commerce Secretary Donald Evans among others.
The one solid accomplishment is the passage of the $1.35-trillion tax cut last year, but on other issues -- from energy to the budget and trade -- many Bush administration goals have foundered or been watered down or rejected by Congress.
And their muddled messages on the dollar have created confusion in currency markets partly because they have been coming from multiple sources, and have left open a potential interpretation that the Bush administration is willing to let the currency keep sliding to help exporters.
William Niskanen, chairman of the Washington-based Cato Institute who served on former President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, said what drive the Bush team's economic agenda had evaporated this year.
"I think the actions that have been taken by this administration have been as bad or worse than no actions," he said. "On trade, especially, it's been an absolute disaster -- on steel, softwood lumber and agricultural subsidies -- that has greatly complicated our relations with both trading partners and developing nations."
ANGER OVER TRADE POLICY
U.S. decisions to impose duties on lumber from Canada and imported steel have raised howls from European and Canadian officials, while poor nations protest that fresh subsidies for American farmers hinder their ability to sell into bigger markets.
Niskanen said it appears that Bush is seeking to regain some momentum on the economic front by taking on the issue of of greater corporate accountability on his own.
"But I think Paul O'Neill is the one who should have taken the lead," he added. "He has the credibility because of his background and he has the experience, but then he goes traipsing off to Africa with Bono instead of taking on this issue of which Enron was only the tip of the iceberg."
O'Neill toured four African nations last month, in company with Irish rock singer Bono, to investigate how development aid could be used more effectively.
The vocal Treasury chief has spoken out against corporate misbehavior, saying in a television interview on Friday that unethical executives "ought to be hung from the highest branches of the highest trees."
Wittmann said it seemed unusual for Bush rather than other members of his economic team to take on the issue of corporate governance, which has a political as well as an economic dimension.
"It puts the president in a position of having to demonstrate that he's not hostage to the big-money people who helped lift him into office," he said. "In effect, it means he has to bite the hand that fed him."
But on this and other issues Bush's economic advisers have seemed to be "invisible men," Wittmann said.
"O'Neill has been the boldest in coming forward to point out that this is a potential crisis, but every time he does it he seems to get slapped down," he added.
Lindsey and Hubbard have been "more theologians than advisers" on the risks posed by miscreant corporate behavior, Wittmann said, suggesting they were handicapped because "both were devout free marketeers when we have a situation that cries out for government intervention."
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