No-growth economics

THE BUSH Administration did not press Congress for a growth package before its Thanksgiving recess, and may not do so until the State of the Union message. The question of timing is important, and as usual in domestic matters the Bushmen have got it wrong. The time to have shown some energy on taxes and growth was the end of this year, not the beginning of next, when their efforts will appear to have been extorted by polls in New Hampshire.

More important than timing, however, is the question of substance, which is intimately bound up with the question of politics. If the Bushmen would announce that last summer's budget deal was a bad deal, struck with dirty dealers (i.e., congressional Democrats), and that their new proposals represent a repudiation of their own naivete, they might regain the offensive. But if, out of a misplaced sense of collegiality toward Congress and a desire to justify the dealmakers within their own ranks, they do not clean the slate, then they might as well put it off till next Labor Day. It only takes one to fight, and so far the only ones fighting are the Democrats. By clinging to the budget deal, the Bushmen reverse Senator Aiken's advice on Vietnam: They're conceding defeat, and staying put.

COPYRIGHT 1991 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning