You probably have your own favorite, which is fine, but for my money the most revealing moment of the presidential campaign (so far!) came during the last debate among the Republican candidates, on January 24. Ron Paul briefly alighted on our fragile planet and challenged John McCain, if elected, to abolish something called the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, which Paul seems to think rivals the Trilateral Commission and the Knights Templar for sinister nefariousness. McCain didn’t answer Paul’s question, but on the more general matter of how he would make economic policy, he did say this:
But I as president, as every other president, rely primarily on my secretary of the Treasury, on my Council of Economic Advisers, on the head of that. I would rely on the circle that I have developed over many years of people like Jack Kemp, Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, Pete Peterson and the Concord group. I have a process of leadership, Ron, that is sort of an inclusive one that I have developed, a circle of acquaintances and people that are supporters and friends of mine who I have worked with for many, many years.
Notice that phrase “people like.” What makes it odd is that those people aren’t like each other at all, at least when it comes to their economic views. A couple of them, if you put them in the same room, would set off an intergalactic explosion like the collision of matter and antimatter.
One adviser, Jack Kemp, is the man who talked Ronald Reagan into embracing supply side economics in the 1970s, which launched the Reagan boom of the 1980s. He’s the world’s bubbliest advocate of tax cuts, dismissing the traditional Republican fixation on balanced budgets as “root canal” economics. Another adviser, Peter Peterson, is root canal economics. He’s a dour Jeremiah who called the Reagan boom a “mad, drunken bash” and thinks steep tax increases on income, gasoline, tobacco, and alcohol, on top of a 5 percent consumption tax, are necessary to put the government’s finances in order. He and Rudman run the Concord Coalition, an advocacy group that regards the federal government’s budget deficit as the country’s foundational economic problem.
Let’s stipulate that a president should seek advice from a wide assortment of counselors. And McCain’s list may very well reveal a refreshingly nonideological approach to policy making that will prove popular in our post-partisan era of change, the future, causes-greater-than-your-self-interest, hope, and so on. Then again, it might reveal something else. You can’t help but wonder…
Well, gee, he wants to listen to both sides before he makes up his mind on something. Contrast that with Ms Clinton or Mr Obama who listen to ONE side before making up their minds again. How willing would either Ms Clinton or Mr Obama be to listen to the other side of abortion, for instance?
And he recognizes his weaknesses and tries to compensate for them. Maybe Andrew Ferguson thinks Clinton/Obama have no weaknesses.
(BTW, I think I’m becoming a McCain fan so my comment might not be totally neutral ^_^).
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
Franklin Roosevelt had no special understanding of economics either. He simply had a willingness to try everything his kitchen cabinet suggested, in the hope that something might work to bail the country out of the Great Depression. (Some economics pundits think FDR’s schemes actually lengthened the Depression and that it was only WWII that pulled the US economy out of the doldrums).
I don’t know if this is a pro-or anti McCain comment; however, I prefer a moderate who isn’t slavishly wedded to a specific economic theory. I haven’t seen proof that a particular theory works or doesn’t work.
It us hard to comprehend why so many of you Americans seem to assume that Republicans “handle the economy” better than Democrats, when ever since the Second World War your national deficit has been increased far more under Republican Presidents than under Democrat Presidents. Marching backwards into the future with blinders on about the perils to you of a dollar that few in the world find an attractive value seems ridiculous to the rest of the world. This is the reason that the fiscal and tax policies that Barack Obama espouses as he campaigns have made him far and away the preferred next President.
I worry that he might just go with whatever adviser is screaming the loudest when an economic crisis hits. However, at least since he’s got a long-term commitment to cutting spending, he’s bound to be better than anything either Clinton or Obama would come up with.