Does he “get it” or not?
Andrew Ferguson explores the mind of John McCain on economic matters:
McCain’s method in domestic matters no less than in foreign affairs is military: He surveys a set of facts, identifies a villain, fixes him with his steely gaze, and then goes after him. McCain’s longstanding efforts to tighten regulations on the campaign finance system also contain an important personal component. At first it was a reaction against the accusations of impropriety that dogged him in the Keating Five scandal of 1989, and then, after 2000, against the attack ads, paid for by Bush allies, that damaged his presidential campaign. Here the villains were PACs, lobbyists, and freelance partisans who bought political advertising during an election–and had to be stopped. More recently, he has championed a “patients’ bill of rights” to tighten regulations on the HMOs, insurance companies, and employers he considers to be stingy with health benefits. Pharmaceutical companies should be reined in, he’s said, because they’re the “bad guys.”
What’s unsettling is that you can never predict who the next bad guy will be. No consistent economic principles can be extracted from McCain’s grab bag of policy positions, and no amount of textbook baloney about the free market, deregulation, and limited government will deter him from bringing his malefactors to justice. McCain’s economics aren’t ideological but improvisational–a campaign with shifting fronts, running on indignation. And a very large number of voters, probably a majority, will find this approach appealing because they don’t buy all this textbook baloney about the free market and limited government either. When President McCain finds his villain and pursues him however he can, they will likely cheer their president and egg him on–unless, of course, he fixes his steely gaze on them.
As for his team of economic advisers, they continue to see in McCain a picture of their own aspiration. “He’s a deficit hawk above all,” Rudman told me. “Has been since the day I met him.” “He understands that the solution to our long-term problems will involve some shared sacrifice,” Pete Peterson says. “And I think his leadership skills will be very effective in putting this idea of shared sacrifice across.”
“I tell him: ‘Stop mentioning Pete Peterson!’” Kemp says. “And he gets that. You look at Reagan. He ran a conventional Republican campaign in ‘76: limit spending, balanced budgets. Then Art Laffer and I and some others managed to talk to him. And in 1980 he ran as a growth candidate. I see something similar happening with John. “It’s true he doesn’t have the same historical interest in economics that Reagan had. Reagan got it instinctively. But when I talk about the Bush tax cuts and John says, ‘I don’t think we should give money back to people who don’t need it,’ I say, ‘John. John. That’s not why we cut tax rates. We do it to incentivize people to put their capital at risk for new investment and capital formation.’ And he gets that. He gets it.”
We’ll just have to see if McCain “gets it” or not.
February 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
“John says, ‘I don’t think we should give money back to people who don’t need it,’ I say, ‘John. John. That’s not why we cut tax rates. We do it to incentivize people to put their capital at risk for new investment and capital formation.’ And he gets that. He gets it.”
Err… does the fact that John McCain is pretty darn old - and been in Congress for way too long - to be coming to grips with basic economics tell such people *nothing*? This kind of response should scream “I am a liberal!” to anyone who pays any attention at all.