A friend writes:
"For my money the most revealing moment in last night's debate came when Ron Paul asked John McCain a question. The question was suffused in Paul's quasi-wacko, jittery-eyeball paranoia - it had to do with whether McCain would abolish something called the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, which Paul seems to think rivals the Trilateral Commission and Council of Foreign Relations for sinister nefariousness. Anyway, McCain didn't answer the question, at least not that question. But he did reveal a lot about the way his mind works when it comes to economic matters:
But I as president, as every other president, rely primarily on my secretary of the Treasury, on my Council of Economic Advisers, on the head of that. I would rely on the circle that I have developed over many years of people like Jack Kemp, Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, Pete Peterson and the Concord group. I have a process of leadership, Ron, that is sort of an inclusive one that I have developed, a circle of acquaintances and people that are supporters and friends of mine who I have worked with for many, many years.
"Notice that phrase 'people like.' As if all these people had something in common! The list is interesting for its incoherence; it contains two diametrically opposite trends in economic thinking. Peterson, Rudman, and the Concord Group are all prune-faced, lemon-sucking balanced-budget obsessives who never met a tax hike they didn't like. Kemp wants to cut every tax on the books, both here and abroad, retroactively if possible (I exaggerate only slightly). He also thinks deficit spending is no big deal and wants to return to the gold standard. Gramm is somewhere in the middle, a budget hawk with a weakness for tax cuts.
"Let's stipulate that a president should seek advice from a wide assortment of advisers. It would be reassuring, though, if McCain showed some evidence of knowing that these guys are utterly different in their approach to economics. As it is, he just looks like he's reciting the names that pop into his head when someone raises the subject - people who've either endorsed him or consulted with him. If nothing else, the list might explain why McCain is all over the place in his own economic positions: once in favor of a flat tax, then opposed to the Bush tax cuts because they were too regressive, then in favor of the Bush tax cuts, in favor of the estate tax repeal, then against it ... It all depends, apparently, on who was the last guy he talked to."
