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  West Wing: Bush's Hopeless Heirs

West Wing Bush's Hopeless Heirs

By Gabor Steingart in Washington

Part 2: Abandoning the Middle Class

The incumbent president is of no great help to the conservatives in their journey of self-discovery. One of President George W. Bush's most salient features is that he has achieved precisely the opposite of what he intended. The national debt has grown since he came into office, and America is far less safe than it was in the past. Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor has only grown wider.

The right wing has no satisfactory answers to the big questions facing American society in the age of globalization. The Republicans seem perplexed as they encounter the phenomenon of an eroded middle class. In the United States, this bastion of capitalism, it is all too obvious that globalization is creating even greater divisions within society. Few members of American society benefit from globalization, while the vast majority struggle to prevent further decline. Many Americans face shrinking wages, a weakening social safety net and declining job security.

Middle-class workers in particular are in real danger of extinction in the United States. Under current conditions, they have simply become too expensive to survive. A regular unionized worker in Detroit costs companies $70 an hour, compared with the $40 per hour which companies like Honda and Toyota pay their US workers. They in turn face wage pressure from South Korean carmakers Kia and Hyundai, for whom an hour's worth of labor costs half as much or less.

A blue-collar worker in Detroit is more expensive because his pay encompasses a social benefits package which is the result of hard-fought achievements in the past and which includes, for example, pension and health insurance for the worker and his family. The cost of employer-subsidized health insurance alone adds about $1,000 to $1,500 to the sticker price of every car that rolls off the assembly lines at Chrysler, Ford or General Motors, according to one study.

As a result, Detroit's Big Three automakers have been trying to reduce labor costs for years. In particular, they have been trying to lure unionized workers away from their plants with attractive severance bonuses of up to $100,000 apiece, the goal being to bid farewell once and for all to costly workers.

In recent weeks, yet another heavy financial burden has been shifted from the accounts of GM to the shoulders of autoworkers. After a strike that lasted several days, the United Auto Workers signed an agreement with GM that largely eliminated the company's obligation to pay the healthcare costs of retired workers.

The situation in the United States has already progressed to the point where the victory march of Asian automakers is not only reflected in their growing market share, but also in the falling wages and weakening social safety net of US autoworkers.

These problems are no longer unique to Detroit. Sixteen percent of the US population, or 47 million people, lack health insurance, a number that has increased by 9 million in the last seven years. These new additions to the ranks of the uninsured are not the result of rising poverty or a sudden outbreak of corporate greed, but of the fact that American companies doing business internationally are now forced to operate under newer and cruder rules of engagement.

The Democrats are trying to confront the new era head-on. One of their plans would involve the government stepping in to fill the gap left by companies providing fewer social welfare benefits. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's idea of establishing mandatory health insurance for all, a plan that failed 13 years ago, has now proven to be wildly successful in the campaign, opposed by only one small group within US society -- the Republican establishment.

As in the days of former President Ronald Reagan, the Republicans characterize Clinton's plan as nothing but big government and seek to brand it as "socialist." Karl Rove, the chief strategist in the Bush campaigns, wants to see his party turn the conflict over healthcare policy into a central issue of the 2008 presidential campaign, presenting voters with choices like government-run healthcare versus the market economy and a healthcare bureaucracy versus free choice of doctors and insurance companies. "Republicans can win on health care," Rove wrote in a recent op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal.

But the opinion polls sing a different tune. A clear majority -- up to two-thirds of those polled, depending on the survey -- wants to see a new system put in place, "even if it means higher taxes" -- a caveat the surveys rightly include. Americans no longer have any confidence in their private healthcare system, especially now that more and more families are being left to fend for themselves. Globalization, as it happens, changes many things: not just the flow of goods, but also the value judgments of voters.

A conservative columnist in the Washington Post offered the Republicans a piece of well-meaning advice: The best thing a conservative can do in times like these is to do his best not to behave like a conservative.