|
Paul Light
Vice President and Director of the Brookings Institution
Tuesday, May 1, 2001; 1 p.m. EDT
How has President Bush performed during his first 100 days in office? Has the narrow victory in 2000 cast a cloud over the start of his administration?
Paul Light, vice president, director and Douglas Dillon Senior at the Brookings Institutions, will be online Tuesday, May 1, at 1 p.m. EDT to discuss the first 100 days of the Bush administration.
Light has written 13 books, including: "The President's Agenda, Vice Presidential Power," the award-winning "Artful Work: The Politics Of Social Security Reform," "Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability," and "The Tides of Reform: Making Government Work, 1945-1995."
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Atlanta, Ga.: From what has been seen in the first 100 days, do you think that George W. Bush will be seen as one of the worst presidents in recent years in terms of the environment?
Paul Light: There's still not much to go on here. Environmentalists are obviously angry over the Kyoto accords and the recent regulatory reversals, and will probably get even hotter (no pun intended) over Vice President Cheney's energy proposals, which were light on conversation and heavy on drilling, but the administration is clearly aware that environment can be a swing issue in many states, and is likely to bend a little here and there as the administration progresses. Ironically, the polling data suggest that Americans just don't care that much on the specific issues involved in the early Bush decisions -- they're liking George W. Bush as a person and have yet to form a distinct opinion of his policy agenda. That's going to change over time, of course, and environment could become a very significant issue.
Baltimore, Md.: Including the flurry of nominations on Monday, how does the Bush Administration fare in terms of number of nominations to the Senate compared to previous administrations?
Paul Light: Great question. The Bush folks pushed out a staggering 61 total nominations on late Monday, which is a single day record for a first-year president. Clinton did 53 nominations in the final three days of his first 100 days, which was pretty impressive at the time. With those 61 nominations, which came on the president's 101st afternoon in office, the Bush administration can count 140 nominations, compared to 138 in Reagan's first 100 days and 154 in Clinton's. That's no small achievement for Bush. On confirmations, Bush is still trailing Clinton and Reagan badly. The Senate has confirmed just 32 Bush nominees to date, compared to 47 in Clinton's first 100 days, and 74 in Reagan's first 100 days. The Senate is running at sub-glacial speed.
Bush W. is not the first president to use the 100 day clock to light a fire under the process, however. Clinton pushed 53 names to the Senate in the final three up to and including his first 100th day (which both he and Reagan marked as April 29; Bush marked his first 100th day on April 30).
Arlington, Va.: Why is there so long a gap between the President intending to nominate someone and actually sending the nomination to the Senate? Is this when all of the security checks are done? You'd imagine that some administration would order the minimizing of duplicative paperwork and take a chance that the nominee could pass muster later in the process.
Paul Light: The gap is largely due to the FBI field investigation and the Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure review. Both take an extraordinary amount of time. Ironically, having been through the process before may actually slow the whole process down at the FBI, as agents pour through the old and new investigations looking for discrepancies.
Washington, D.C.: Do you expect the pace of the appointment process to pick up? Seems that Bush is a little behind on getting people in place.
Paul Light: Well, now that the 100 days are over, I rather suspect the process will fall back a bit. The real problem isn't in the White House, where presidential appointee adviser Clay Johnson and his team are working harder than any team in recent memory to process names and nominations, but in the Senate, where the confirmation process has completely collapsed. Not all the problems are with the Democrats, incidentally. Some of the holds on Bush nominees are coming from Republicans, including one or two by the senior senator from North Carolina on Bush Treasury Department nominees, we're told.
Falls Church, Va.: I think Bush has gotten a bum rap on the environment. The Kyoto Treaty was never going to be enforced, anyway. The arsenic regulations were inefficient on a cost-benefit basis.
Paul Light: I'm not an expert on environmental policy, but think the administration could have handled the Kyoto decision with a bit more elegance. Our allies abroad were surprised, we now read, about the decision. It is clear that Kyoto was not going to be ratified, but that does not make the global warming problem disappear. The absence of a policy here is not necessary the presence of one.
Washington, D.C.: Do you think that when leaving office Clinton put in place a few legislative land mines for the new administration to disarm? (i.e. arsenic, ergonomics, etc.)
Paul Light: I'm not sure the Clinton people would call them "landmines." There was a veritable bachanal of action at the end of the administration, which is not all that unusual for an outgoing team. I suspect that some regulations were advanced in part because undoing them would highlight differences between the winning and losing candidates for some future campaign, but most were accelerated for what the Clinton people likely saw as legitimate policy reasons.
Delray, Va.: Do you think that the 100 day benchmark is fair? Is it at all accurate?
Paul Light: I actually don't think the administration should be measured for its first 100 days until June 6, which is 137 days after inauguration day. That's when the administration will fully recover the 37 days lost in the truncated transition. It truly is an artificial benchmark, but one we're used to applying. Legislative history suggests that very few of the government's greatest achievements were proposed in the first 100 days of any administration, let alone enacted into law. In many ways the last 365 days of a four-year administration are the most important, though mistakes made in the first 100 days can make those last 365 seem like forever.
Burke, Va.: Mr. Light,
I always enjoy your work on the Civil Service. Do you see the Bush administration pursuing any serious reform on their own, or merely signing onto a decent plan that comes out of Congress. Also, your opinions on OMB's rather curious reasoning in arguing against pay parity?
Paul Light: I'm not sure where the administration is going on civil service reform, nor are they. The Deputy Director of OMB opined last month that he thought the problems were quite solvable with existing authorities, while others in the administration have indicated that they don't think there is cause for concern. We'll have to wait to hear from Kay James, the new director of OPM for more detail, but I couldn't disagree more with the notion that we have a problem here that matters mere tinkering. It's big, it's growing, and it's going to threaten basic service delivery sooner rather than later. The Senate is headed toward declaring a human capital crisis, GAO already has, most agency managers know there is a problem. I'm hoping that the administration won't foreclose action by minimizing this problem. I'm also hoping that we're not seeing some of that old Reagan administration rhetoric that suggests we don't have a problem because mediocre is good enough for government work.
New York, N.Y.: Re: Kyoto: I don't understand why all the Democrats make a big fuss over the Kyoto protocol when it seems that they would vote to ratify it anyway. Why doesn't President Bush just send the pact to the Senate and ask for a vote for ratification, to force the Democrats to go on the record as to whether they are for it or against it? Also, as to all the European countries that are up in arms, I understand that none of them have ratified the Kyoto protocol either. Is this true?
Paul Light: I don't think are allies are up in arms so much as wanting some forward motion on the problem. Again, I'm not an expert here. Some argue that the science is absolutely undeniable on the nature of the problem, while others think we should study this further (no study yet on whether the pages consumed by study reports are contributing to global warming by reducing forest coverage). The Kyoto protocol may have been flawed, and most certainly would not have been ratified, but there is still a problem to be faced.
Ashamed in Silver Spring, Md.: How long will his handlers be able to conceal the fact that Bush is a complete moron?
It's only been 100 days and they're already losing the battle. He's made mis-statements on issues that he should be more than comfortable speaking off the cuff about. He mispronounces words that a ten year old would know like Christmas ornaments as "orntaments" and subliminal as "subliminable"...
Aren't other countries making fun of us over this?
Paul Light: He's no great orator for sure, but has been pretty impressive in moving ahead at the start of the term. As a student of transitions, he's had a much better transition than either his father or Clinton -- no big mistakes, high popularity, a couple of significant policy ideas, but not too much overloading. Sometimes the measure of a president is in the people who join the administration. This administration's pretty talented, and quite conservative. Don't underestimate Bush, I'd say. I'm not sure how smart he is, but he's looking like the Ali of presidents. Democrats are punching themselves out on him and not drawing any blood.
Washington, D.C.: On the appointee page, there are something like 40 percent women and minority political appointees under Bush. Any people with disabilities?
Paul Light: We haven't been tracking disabilities. I'll ask our team what might be done there.
Boston, Mass.: Bush's 100 days reminds me of a kid forgetting to read the book due for his book report, but gives the report anyway.
Times 100.
I do think Cheney is being quite a leader, however. It seems like he's in charge, so why not ask about Cheney's 100 days? Really. I'm curious about how HE has spent his time.
Paul Light: Cheney has been quite remarkable through all this. He's a blend of chief of staff, minister with and without portfolio, department secretary, mentor, chair of the kitchen cabinet, uncle, friend, you name it. I've argued that it's unfair to past vice presidents to ask whether Cheney is breaking the mold. There's no veep in history who has moved so quickly to provide so much counsel in an administration.
Washington, D.C.: As a Republican, I am happy that left-wingers like "Ashamed in Silver Spring" and Barbra Streisand are using so much energy calling President Bush names. They look like fools and spend less time arguing their positions on issues. It just doesn't seem very productive for them. Meanwhile, the president is at 60+ percent in the polls.
Paul Light: That's pretty much the case, although I doubt it is a strategy. Bush is not so much the Ali of presidents as the Stealth President. You can't really tell much about what he's doing, where he's headed, but he's pretty likable along the way, and is actually moving some issues up the agenda. I'm troubled that he's been silent on good government reform -- big opportunity to make a difference on that. And Americans don't really know him well enough yet to form strong opinions. He's kind of like the new neighbor. Pretty friendly, nice guy, fitness buff, good lawn. But we'll have to see whether he's that likable once he turns up the volume on his CD player. Americans have a tendency to give all presidents the benefit of the doubt at the start of the term.
washingtonpost.com:
That was our last question today. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
© Copyright 2001 The Washington Post Company | 
