VOICE FROM AMERICA
Laffing all the way to the bankruptcy
One of the consequences of the Ameri- can love of success is the widely held assumption that presidential elections are always won by the right man. No matter what kind of devil the winner turns out to be, the loser is always presumed to have been worse. For example, despite the shame brought upon the office of the presi- dent by Richard Nixon, one almost never hears the argument that the country would have been better served by George McGov- ern; it may even be that the name McGov- ern has come to mean 'can't govern' just so that Americans may still congratulate themselves on preferring Nixon. So deep is the loathing of failures in the American psyche that even the most hostile critics of the Bush administration are quick to ridicule the suggestion that Michael Dukakis might have done better. Thus one way of viewing the public defenestration of Bush that has occurred over the past sever- al weeks is as a psychological foundation for a Clinton victory.
'At a reception in the Canadian Embassy, Bush struck me as a man unhap- py in his work,' the leading conservative columnist, William Safire, wrote this week in a deeply pained assessment of Bush, in which he confessed that he might vote for a Democrat for the first time since he stopped writing Nixon's speeches.
I tried to cheer him up with a prediction that he would take Texas, then in jeopardy because of the first Perot diversion. 'Do you mean that, or are you just saying it?' the President responded. His need for reassur- ance was uncharacteristic; when I replied that a three-way race would enliven life because, after all, punditry is my job, he shook his head sadly and muttered, 'We're talking about my job.
Further characterisation of Bush as Born Loser is offered up daily to the public by sources inside the Bush campaign, who say that their boss is sick, dejected, overdosing on Halcyon, or otherwise unfit to lead the country. After the second debate, the steady dripping of her colleagues forced Ms Mary Matalin, the campaign's deputy direc- tor, to explain that 'the people who are anonymously appearing in these stories are the lowest form of life. The President has never, never in my presence shown any sign of backing down or resignation.'
Alas, she is too late. Having selected Bill Clinton as their next President, the Ameri- can people are now engaged in the tribal ritual of glorifying their decision. In this rit- ual there is no place for loyalty or principle. The Clinton platform calls for $200 billion in new public spending funded by taxes on the rich and on foreign corporations. It calls for the government to stick its nose into the market-place in all manner of ways. Never mind! Just in the last few days the Governor of Arkansas has been endorsed by a group of 24 Republican com- puter-industry executives, several former officials of the Bush administration, and a parcel of neo-conservatives as keen to win now as they were in 1980, when they stopped being Democrats to join up with Reagan. But perhaps the most delightfully absurd case in point is that of Arthur B. Laffer, formerly an economic adviser to President Reagan.
You may recall that Laffer is known for a single graph drawn on a cocktail napkin. The Laffer curve provided the economic justification for the great American shop- ping spree of the last 12 years. The curve showed simply, so that even a child or a President might understand, how tax rev- enues can actually increase with a decrease in tax rates, e.g. lower taxes from 100 per cent to 50 per cent, and how people will return to work, earn money and so pay more tax. Of course, when actually put to the test the theory came to grief; a fair measure of its failure is the $4 trillion pile of debt now facing the American taxpayer.
In spite of this, however, Laffer still believes in the higher wisdom of his curve. And if anyone should take a stand against Clinton on a matter of intellectual integrity it is he. While Bush dutifully tours the nation trying to peddle Laffer's bogus for- mula to sceptical voters one last time, Clin- ton spends about half his waking hours mocking Laffer's life's work as 'trickle- down economics'.
Yet writing this week in the New Republic Laffer explains that he will vote for Clinton. The details of this conversion are of inter- est chiefly because they illustrate how American economic conservatives are re- arranging their views to ride on the Clinton bandwagon. Laffer claims that he is deeply disturbed that George Bush once raised taxes, that Saddam Hussein remains ill power and that America isn't even more friendly towards Israel. About economic policy he writes obliquely that the only tangible evidence that would harbinger a disastrous Clinton presidency is his 'Putting People First' pamphlet. If Clinton were to succeed in getting these proposals enacted, they would, in short order, lead to major economic dislocations, losses in out- put, production, productivity, and a return of inflation.
Since the pamphlet in question is nothing less than Clinton's economic platform, this is just a tortured way of saying that if Clin- ton does what he says he's going to do, the American economy is doomed.
Like many of the Republicans consider- ing a vote for Clinton — about one in five — Laffer wants it many ways at once. The conservative traitors all pretend to have high-minded reasons for their treachery Some are repelled by the way Bush has pandered to the religious fanatics and the bigots; others are shocked by the sleazY undertones of the Bush campaign; still oth- ers cannot forgive Bush for raising taxes. And so on. But is it not true that any good economic conservative should still prefer Bush's free-market beliefs to Clinton's social democracy? And is it not also true that the Bush campaign of 1992 has been nearly identical to that of 1988, right down to the last call for divine intercession? The only difference now is that Bush appears set to lose.
Of course it is unthinkable for anyone i.n politics to admit, even to himself, that he is simply responding to the mood of the times. But in the end that is what is sweep- ing Clinton into the Oval Office in such grand style — the same mysterious momen- tum that determines the length of women 5 skirts, and causes rational men to pay MIlions of dollars for drip paintings. The new President's lucky aura will last as long a5 people believe that he can pass a little of the luck along to them. When they learn once again that he can't, and send him back to Arkansas, they'll have only one thing left to say: 'That Clinton, he really was bad, but not as bad as Bush.'
The Wasp
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