George W. Bush took office after a disputed election in which the country was divided nearly in half. What happens now depends on him. He can spend the next four years waiting for Al Gore’s comeback, or he can seize
George W. Bush took office after a disputed election in which the country was divided nearly in half. What happens now depends on him. He can spend the next four years waiting for Al Gore’s comeback, or he can seize the reins of power and lead.
Forget the first 100 days. He will set the tone of his administration in the first 24 hours.
On that first day, he must establish that he is in charge. He must show that, regardless of the circumstances of his election, he is wholly lacking in self-doubt. He must establish that he will use the powers of his office to further the agenda on which he was elected.
If, in the first 24 hours, the new president does not outrage the Clinton-Gore crowd that desecrated the Oval Office and the Lincoln Bedroom — if he does not deeply shock and offend the adversaries who thought they could steal the election away from him — he won’t be doing what he needs to do.
Here are some things he should do within 24 hours of taking his hand off the Bible: ?
Countermand all executive orders issued by Bill Clinton.
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Reinstate the two “Beck” orders issued by the former president Bush (and revoked by President Clinton) that informed workers of their right to refuse to pay most union dues.
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Order a full and complete audit of organizations that receive federal funds and then lobby for more federal funds, to determine how they launder taxpayers’ money into lobbying efforts.
Specifically, audit Jesse Jackson’s organizations regarding their use of taxpayers’ money.
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Reissue the executive order requiring Family Impact Statements, evaluations of executive branch actions to determine the effect of each action on the family.
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Name a Food and Drug Administration commissioner who will reexamine rules regarding the so-called RU-486 abortion pill in order to better protect women’s health.
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Order his staff to help create new privately funded organizations to represent key parts of a successful conservative/Republican governing coalition.
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Fire all U.S.
attorneys (top federal prosecutors), just as Clinton did upon taking office.
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Cooperate fully with efforts by watchdog groups such as Judicial Watch to find evidence of wrongdoing during the Clinton-Gore administration. Announce that there will be prosecution, to the fullest extent of the law, of any attempt to conceal or destroy such evidence.
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Make special efforts to find and preserve incriminating e-mails.
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Publicly release all materials that supported calls by career prosecutors for action against President and Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Gore.
Executive orders: Facing for the past six years a Republican Congress, President Clinton has, on one issue after another, simply seized power by executive order. He has ordered federal agencies to discriminate on the basis of national origin. He has ordered the federal government to operate using more than 300 languages (an impossibility, but politically correct). He has seized rivers and placed them under his control. He has violated the Constitution by effectively implementing a treaty that the U.S. Senate, which must approve treaties, did not approve.
On Day One, George W. Bush should countermand all executive orders issued by Clinton.
If, somehow, Clinton issued any executive orders that are consistent with the Constitution and with the platform on which Bush was elected, he can reissue them under his own name.
The Beck orders: The Beck case involved a technician named Harry Beck who discovered that 79 percent of his Communication Workers of America dues went for improper purposes and wanted his money back.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 1988 decision, determined that no worker can be required to pay the portion of union dues that goes for activity unrelated to the legitimate representation of workers. Workers must pay only for expenses related to collective bargaining, contract administration and grievance adjustment; they cannot be forced to finance unions’ political activity.
In 1992, then-president George Bush issued two orders to enforce workers’ rights under the Beck decision. One required unions to account for their political activities and other expenses unrelated to legitimate representation of workers. The other required that contractors post notices about workers’ Beck rights and that federal agencies notify workers about those rights.
It was during the Clinton years that radical leftists ousted the AFL-CIO’s longtime leaders, who had helped Ronald Reagan defeat the Soviet empire. With the help of Clinton operatives, they stole the election for president of the Teamsters Union. In turn, the unions helped President Clinton abrogate the campaign finance laws and ensure his 1996 reelection.
President-elect Bush, by enforcing Beck (and not waiting until the eve of the next election, as his father did), would strike a blow for working people tired of being ripped off by crooked left-wing union bosses. And he would level the playing field for conservatives and Republicans.
Taxpayer-funded lobbying: Conservative organizations depend on their members’ contributions for support. But they are outgunned by organizations on the left that use taxpayers’ money to work against taxpayers’ interests. One left-wing group, the National Council of Senior Citizens, has received over $1 billion in taxpayers’ money since its founding.
Every year, billions of taxpayers’ dollars go to eugenics and abortion-industry groups like Planned Parenthood, to groups that promote high taxes and racial discrimination, and to left-wing groups that claim falsely to speak for African-Americans, homosexuals, women and other constituencies.
Armed with results of this audit, President-elect Bush can lead an effort to pass a simple reform: If you get federal funds, you don’t lobby. If you lobby, you don’t get federal funds. He could ask Sen. John McCain to add this to his effort to clean up corruption in Washington.
Meanwhile, it’s time for Jesse Jackson to stop using taxpayers’ money to promote race-baiting and the hateful tearing-down of American institutions.
Jackson is a major recipient of charitable and taxpayers’ funds through Operation PUSH and related organizations. For example, Rainbow/PUSH and Push for Excellence had income of more than $4 million in 1998, and Jackson’s Citizenship Education Fund got more than $2.2 million that year. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly says that Jackson refuses to come on his program to answer questions about how he spends this money.
Said O’Reilly, “The last time federal auditors examines Jackson’s book — in 1982 — they found that Operation PUSH and a subsidiary misused more than $1.7 million… Since most of Jackson’s money is tax-free, it’s important that Americans know his organizations are honest. Yet he still refuses to itemize his tax returns and the government has ignored the situation for the past 18 years. [This program] got ahold of one of Jackson’s Illinois tax statements in 1998 and found more than $1.2 million in unitemized travel expenses.” At our expense, Jesse Jackson compares Republicans to Nazis. George W. Bush must decide whether he wants to do anything about the way Jackson spends our money.
Family Impact Statements: Patterned on Environmental Impact Statements, Family Impact Statements were required under an executive order issued by President Reagan 1987. The order was revoked by President Clinton.
RU-486: The abortion pill actually endangers women’s health, causing bleeding and cramping and sometimes requiring a surgical abortion after all. It was approved for political reasons, and should be reevaluated for health reasons.
New conservative groups: If African-Americans, Latinos and young women voted according to political philosophy, conservatives and Republicans would do much better among them on Election Day. Because there are no effective national grassroots organizations for people in those groups, the left is able to take them for granted and, for the most part, get their votes by default.
Just as President Kennedy used a White House conference to lay the foundation for the National Council of Senior Citizens — which is still an important grassroots lobby for union and Democratic causes — President Bush can use White House conferences to spark new conservative organizations to represent Latinos, African-Americans, and young women. The announcement should come on his first day in office.
Cleaning up the justice system: If Bush truly intends to restore honor and dignity to the White House and to restore Americans’ faith in their government, he must purge Washington of the Clinton-Gore belief that there are different sets of laws for regular people and for powerful politicians and their friends.
After he won an election fair and square, John Quincy Adams was accused of having stolen the presidency. Adams, the son of a president, spent the next four years in self-doubt, awaiting defeat at the hands of the man he had beaten the first time, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.
There’s much more to be done, starting with the second day. But George W. Bush does these things in the first 24 hours, his opponents will be too panicked to notice what he does next.
Richard A. Viquerie is president of ConservativeHQ.com.
