Caitlin Hall

The past is getting closer.

For a couple of weeks in September, it seemed that the timbre of American politics had changed drastically. However, the surreal bipartisanship brought on by Sept.11 was not an enduring phenomenon; six months later, it has already faded to a distant memory. In its place, we have experienced a return to the issues that defined the 2000 presidential race - tax cuts, debt, Supreme Court nominations and Medicare.

The problem is, election-year rhetoric took its toll the first time around, and this time the issues feel a little stale. It's too bad; there's a reason they were such prominent issues during the campaigns. Though everyone got tired of hearing Al Gore whine about "the top 1 percent," he was right. Just look at the tax cuts in order this year - they are undeniably biased toward the economic elite. Look at the scary judicial nominee - Charles W. Pickering - who was barely rejected last week by the Senate Judicial committee.

The election-year issue that has had the greatest relevance to post-Sept. 11 politics, however, is one that was only implied during the debates - deficit spending. At the outset of his campaign, Bush claimed that his proposed budget would run a deficit only if something unexpected transpired - as if that could happen in four years as leader of the free world - something like a major catastrophe, war or recession. As fate would have it, all three occurred.

What's really interesting, though, is not how we ended up in the red, but what Bush is doing to get us out. He's proposed a staggering increase in the military and domestic defense budgets, something which is strategically, though not fiscally, responsible. I won't fault him for that. It does, however, put a palpable strain on other areas of the national budget.

That's where Bush really gets into trouble. Too often, politicians don't live up to the promises they make at election time. Bush has the opposite problem. He is entrenched in his election-year promises, regardless of whether they are still effective or even relevant. He is still stubbornly clinging to the aforementioned tax cut, which is especially irresponsible at this point.

Heaped on top of the financial woes impressed upon him by the current situation are a slew of other problems and campaign promises that require attention - and, not surprisingly, money. However, because of the military increases and huge tax cuts, there simply is none. As a result, funding for vital programs is being slashed or severely restricted.

Take as an example Medicare. During the presidential race, Bush and Gore both pledged to expand Medicare to cover prescription drug benefits. Bush reaffirmed this commitment during the recent State of the Union address, where he pledged "to give seniors a sound and modern Medicare system that includes coverage for prescription drugs." That would cost an enormous amount of money - some $100 billion over the next five years.

Of course, there's no real way to cover that cost with money as tight as it is now. So Bush is doing exactly what Democrats feared during the election - severely reducing benefits to cover the cost. His budget proposals call for a 17 percent decrease in payments to doctors to be phased in over the next couple of years. The initial cut alone - 5.4 percent - has prompted nearly one in five doctors to stop accepting Medicare patients and caused many HMOs to leave the program, dropping 2.2 million people in the process. Lord knows what the health care system will look like once Bush's term is over.

The troubles Medicare is experiencing are a symptom of Bush's self-righteous, reckless crusade to be able to claim he followed through on his promises when he runs for re-election - the same attitude that prompted him to say the tax cut would be reduced "over my dead body."

It's time for Bush, and the American public for that matter, to realize that life doesn't run in four-year cycles, even if the presidency does. Most things are a little more unpredictable, and everything that has happened in politics as a result of Sept. 11 certainly doesn't fit within the framework of a pre-terrorism schedule.

It's time for Bush to look beyond the elections of the past and future and start making responsible choices for the country. Now.