The Junior Senator From New York

Senator Clinton has been brushing up her conservative bona fides over the last year. To her credit, she has been a defender of the War on Terror and has been careful to distance herself from the wackier, left-wing ideas of much of her party.

She does seem to be in a good spot for 2008. She may be loved by the left enough to get the Democratic nomination, while appearing moderate enough to do well in the general.

It's a good plan, but I fear the real Hillary Clinton lives too close to the surface. Larry Kudlow describes a speech she gave to the Chicago Economic Club last week. Kudlow is no great fan of the Senator but said that "eyelids grew heavy as she droned on and on." For those who stayed awake, the message was a call for top-down, command-and-control, and government run economy. Tax cuts are not the cure all but "instead we need the 'right tax system [and] the right investment, including infrastructure. . . . decisions and policies that only all of us acting together through our government can make to set the stage for future prosperity'" Through the government.

Hasn’t Mrs. Clinton noticed the worldwide spread of free-market capitalism that has become such an enormous wealth creator across the globe — including Eastern Europe, India, China, and the rest of Asia? The economic growth principles of higher after-tax returns for work and investment, deregulation to limit government’s reach, and the privatization of government-run companies have become almost commonplace following the Reagan-Thatcher revolution of twenty-five years ago. But Mrs. Clinton would have us turn the clock back in ways that even her husband didn’t support. She defines her goals in terms of “a middle class life, education, health care, transportation, and retirement.” But all this is nothing more than a massive dose of government spending and regulating — a sure prescription for humongous taxes and a declining economy.

All of the things that her husband did as president that were right (Nafta, GATT, MFN for China) are all things the party runs away from. In debates, I suspect she'll never find words to say that her nationalized health plans of 1993 were wrong. She'll have good advisors, but that question will come up, and I can't imagine she'll have an answer ("That was 15 years ago” may work for some). I don't expect it will be hard to bring out these defenses of socialism.

Politics Posted by John Kranz at April 19, 2006 6:24 PM