Bush Echoes Presidents Past in Empty Talk of Economics

They don't expect politicians to have all the answers, and they certainly don't want 10-point programs. But they'd surely appreciate seeing some hint that their leaders had studied the problems thoroughly, weighed the competing interests and charted a course that was clearly independent of the special interests that have seized control of the political process. But in this State of the Union, all they got was easy platitudes and an assurance to every business and industry PAC that their money had been well spent.

In his repeated patriotic references to the sacrifices of America's fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush wasn't shy about tapping into the willingness of Americans to embrace shared sacrifice for a worthy common goal. But in the economic sphere, he continued to serve up the fiction of the free lunch.

And can anyone doubt that Americans would respond to a bit of conservative compassion for those who start out in life with two strikes against them, a frank assessment of the obvious trade-offs of free trade, or a shared sense of outrage at corporate executives who toss aside pension and health care benefits for tens of thousands of retirees and then load themselves up with $100 million golden parachutes? But there was none of that -- in the speech or in the economic and budget program that lies behind it.

I find it interesting that the president could take credit for saving $14 billion through the elimination of more than 140 non-security domestic programs without bothering to mention a dime he could save from the Department of Homeland Security or the Pentagon, which on his watch have become cesspools of waste, fraud and fiscal abuse.

And does anyone really believe that a president and vice president who became wealthy from their association with the oil and gas industry, who never failed to tout the industry line and who presided over the biggest transfer of wealth from consumers to industry in the history of mankind -- that these same leaders will move us beyond a "petroleum-based economy" to one based on "wood chips, stalks or switch grass"?

Earlier yesterday, I was anticipating the speech with Regina Herzlinger, a professor at the Harvard Business School who did some of the early work on consumer-driven health care, which is at the heart of the health care initiative the president barely mentioned last night. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more market-oriented. Yet here she was complaining of how timid the Bush program was in the face of a health care crisis that leaves one quarter of working Americans without health coverage, that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars every year and threatens the competitiveness of U.S. companies in global markets.

"He's in his last term. He's got this great opportunity to do something bold about something that's really important," Herzlinger said. "And look what we get. . . . What the heck has he got to lose?"

Nothing, it would seem, except Republican control of Congress.

Steven Pearlstein will host a web discussion today at 11 a.m. at washingtonpost.com. He can be reached atpearlsteins@washpost.com.