Posted on: Sunday, December 8, 2002

EDITORIAL
Shakeup only start for Bush economic team

The departure from the Bush administration of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey is no surprise, especially in the case of O'Neill, who was widely known as inept, tactless and misguided.

But we doubt it was O'Neill's gaffes that earned him the first ticket out of the Bush Cabinet.

Rather, we think, it was his lack of enthusiasm for Bush's tax cuts, which are already enlarging the gap between rich and poor and accelerating the growth of deficit spending.

It's understandable that Bush wants an economic team that will keep history from repeating itself: His father, fresh from success in the Persian Gulf War, lost the White House because the economy was tanking. He may have a better idea than we do what the economy will look like in 2004, but right now it appears to be struggling to avoid a second dip into recession; unemployment last week surged to a nine-year high.

The forced resignations of O'Neill and Lindsey follow the debacle at the now-rudderless Securities and Exchange Commission, where Chairman Harvey Pitt, his deputy and the first head of the new accounting oversight board all departed in humiliating haste.

We must hope Bush's new appointments bring more expertise and good judgment to their jobs than those now departed. So must Bush, if he wishes to govern after 2004.