The Ownership Society

From Jim Gilliam's blog archives

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December 20, 2003 10:58 AM

David Brooks explains how the Republicans are co-opting DLC ideas:

President Bush has a proposal to combine and simplify the confusing morass of government savings programs and give individuals greater control over how they want to spend their tax-sheltered savings. Administration officials hope, in a second term, to let individuals control part of their Social Security pensions and perhaps even their medical savings accounts.

The Ownership Society idea allows Bush to be centrist and conservative at the same time. It is centrist because it means actively using government to solve problems. In 2000, Bush declared: "I do not believe government is the enemy. But I do not believe government is always the answer. At its best, it can help people find the tools they need to build for themselves. At its best, it gives options, not orders." The Ownership Society platform is designed to update that message for 2004.

But the platform is culturally conservative. Talking with staff, Bush emphasizes that he wants to use these policies to move from an "anything-goes culture" to a "responsibility culture." By giving individuals control of their own retraining, their own savings and their own homes, he hopes to inculcate self-reliance, industriousness and responsibility.

With events like the State of the Union address, an incumbent president has the power to change the subject and reshape the domestic debate. The Bushies haven't done it yet, but they are about to.