United States Domestic Policy

Few presidents have faced such a radical shift in circumstances so soon after taking office as George W. Bush. Elected while the nation was still luxuriating in peace and prosperity, Bush has been forced to grapple with recession and a devastating foreign attack on the American mainland. As a candidate, Bush focused on domestic issues--cutting taxes, reforming education, bolstering religious charities.

The Bush administration said Thursday it will define human embryos as children so that states can offer expanded prenatal health-care services to poor women, but women's advocates sharply criticized the move as a poorly disguised effort to weaken abortion rights. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson proposed a regulatory change to the federal-state program that provides health insurance coverage for children from low-income families.

Federal funding for aviation security would triple. Spending to defend against bioterrorist attacks would quadruple. And money to help police and firefighters respond to calamities would increase more than tenfold. Those details are part of the first-ever homeland security budget that was folded into the Bush administration spending plan released Monday. The $37.

President Bush set a goal Tuesday of cutting the use of illegal drugs in the United States by 10% over two years and 25% over five years as he unveiled a national drug control strategy. The program, which the president said is "in the center of our national agenda," is built on three elements: disrupting the market for illegal drugs, helping drug users, and preventing drug use among those who have not gotten involved with it.

Since the shock of Sept. 11, President Bush has pursued a sharply focused foreign policy agenda with single-minded zeal: Terrorism was civilization's mortal enemy, he said, and his historic mission was to stamp it out, beginning in Afghanistan and moving on to Iraq. "My job isn't to try to nuance," Bush said recently. "My job is to tell people what I think. And when I think there's an axis of evil, I say it. I think moral clarity is important."

The Senate approved a bill Thursday that would revamp the nation's energy policy, paving the way for talks with the House on one of President Bush's domestic priorities. The bill is a mix of relatively modest steps geared more toward promoting conservation and the use of alternative power sources. The House bill, taking its cue from Bush, is tilted more toward increasing production.

President Bush will arrive in Los Angeles today bearing a more ambitious urban agenda than his father offered after the city's riots 10 years ago--but still facing charges that his tax cut has made it impossible for Washington to meaningfully confront the most pressing problems facing big cities.

Tommy G. Thompson, the Wisconsin governor George W. Bush has tapped to run the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, could be a breakout star in the new president's Cabinet. He could also be the Cabinet member who inadvertently exposes the blind spots in Bush's thinking about moving power from Washington to the states. Most likely, he'll be some of both. Thompson is a big, beefy pol with a supple sense of policy nuance well disguised by his Damon Runyon diction.

President Clinton, a man shaped by the turmoil of segregation that scarred the South, will make one final appeal to the nation today "to continue the work of healing the racial wounds of the past." "Race has been our constant struggle," the president will say in a message to Congress.

The Bush administration, encouraged by favorable reviews of its first seven days, on Sunday laid out an ambitious agenda for week two by focusing on energy development and tax cuts. Vice President Dick Cheney and White House chief economic advisor Lawrence B. Lindsey suggested that the administration will move swiftly, beginning with a Cabinet-level meeting today, to address national energy concerns brought to light by California's acute electricity shortage.