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Introduction: The New Administration: What Is to Be Done?
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15823 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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1 / 1989 |
590 Words |
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What will President-elect George Bush do about the serious domestic and foreign problems confronting him and the nation? They abound on all sides and come in all sizes: budget and trade deficits now running about $150 billion annually; a $2 trillion national debt; rising medical costs and numbers of homeless; signs of economic leveling off and creeping inflation; the impact of glasnost and perestroika; uncertainty about Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan; communist influence in Nicaragua and Angola; South Africa, Cuba, NATO, U.S.-Japan relations--the list is almost endless.
Based on what Bush said while campaigning as well as his eight-year association with President Reagan, it is possible to draw a few general conclusions. He will not raise individual or corporate income taxes. He will push for a capital-gains tax cut in hopes it will foster new investments and more jobs. He will propose an across-the-board spending freeze on all federal programs, with the exception of Social Security and other entitlement programs.
He will support a strong national defense in the belief that peace is best advanced through strength. He will negotiate with the Soviets but, as a one-time director of the CIA, has no illusions about their strategic goals. As a former ambassador to China, he understands the critical importance of the world's most populous nation.
Bush's biggest challenge will be the establishment of productive relations with the Democratic Congress, whose more partisan members may try to cut short the traditional honeymoon between the executive and legislative branches. Americans apparently don't mind divided government--they keep placing the White House in the hands of one political party and the Congress in the hands of the other--but the strain on the officials of the two branches to make government work is palpable.
These are a few of the things that President-elect Bush has promised that he will do or try to do, starting this month. But what should he do? In this month's Special Report, THE WORLD & I offers the considered answers of nine distinguished academics and experts.
Murray Weidenbaum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies looks at America's most pressing domestic problems, while David Abshire, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, and Michael Moody examine foreign policy. Thomas Mann and Charles Schultze of the Brookings Institution suggest how to cut the federal budget. Charles Heatherly of the Heritage
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