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Tuesday, December 03, 2002
I really liked Novak’s farewell column to the retiring Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX.) Gramm is a great advocate of classical capitalism and will be missed in the next session of Congress.
Novak and Gramm say that he was a terrible candidate in ’96, but withhold their opinions about what kind of president he would have made. I think he would have been terrible. A free-market specialist, who wants to limit government intervention into almost all aspects of life, which is what Gramm would have been, doesn’t inspire people. Graphs on growth won’t rally people to a leader in times of crisis.
However, he was a great Senator and spokesman for capitalism. He holds a doctorate in economics and tried to pass as many market-oriented bills as possible. He differed from most Republicans in the fact that he was not a supply-sider. He argued against the absurd belief that the lower taxes go, the higher government revenue rises. There are some great moments from the ’96 debates where Gramm fought against nerd Steve Forbes’ supply-side proposals that made no sense in the time of unbalanced budgets. He didn’t object to a proposed flat-tax if spending were low, but as a deficit hawk, he knew that the budget deficit would balloon or the poor would be unfairly taxed.
Since his defeat in ’96, he has maintained his capitalist credentials in the Senate. He has openly criticized his party for its anti-capitalist decisions in the past two years, even though many influential members of the establishment have shunned him for it. He opposed the steel tariffs and the farm bill, which were terrible trades to special interest groups for votes in the Midwest, and recently voted against pork loaded energy and prescription drug bills.
It’s unfortunate that he was forced out of the Democratic Party in the 1980’s for siding with Republicans in economic issues. He would have been a great capitalist spokesman for the party that seems to have very little faith in the market system, even though they claim to support it right before elections.
Fortunately the Senate will have freshman Senator John E. Sununu to uphold the principles supported by Gramm all of these years. I hope the administration listens to Novak’s suggestion and makes Gramm an economic official.
4:07 PM
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