“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I …”

Robert Frost

 

While President Clinton continues to learn the difference between running for the presidency and governing once in office, it appears he has reached a crossroads.  His course will shape our future.

As a candidate, he had the liberty and luxury to make many wide-ranging promises to attract a broad base of voter support.  Attempts to elicit specific details as to how his administration would pay for his vast new programs while concurrently making meaningful reductions in projected budget deficits were routinely deflected with a series of patented one-liners … mostly leveraging the class warfare line of “taxing the rich”.  A media reluctant to insist prominent politicians respond directly to questions asked of them, got little more than, “trust me”.

While election rhetoric focused on the economy, other issues also doomed President Bush’s bid for a second term.  Once in office, and to his credit, the new president used the power of his office to redirect national policy on several controversial social issues on which he had campaigned.  Despite criticism as to the specifics of his actions, his willingness to move forward on such matters as family leave, fetal tissue research, overturning the ban on gays in the military and women in combat demonstrated a level of political courage and statesmanship rarely seen in Washington. 

Yet, the President has been unable to capitalize his few successes.  Controversies surrounding some of those decisions, the unfolding catastrophe in Bosnia, the tragedy in Waco and the White House travel office scandal have created unanticipated distractions.

Meanwhile, the economy languishes in the doldrums, unemployment remains unacceptably high and health care costs, for those covered, continue to escalate.  Predictably, more money and more government remain the beltway solutions to these problems! 

It appears President Clinton is rapidly emerging as far less a fiscal conservative than he portrayed himself during the campaign and an advocate of the redistribution of wealth as a means to the egalitarian society he seeks to build. 

In the White House, the “Big Mac” chomping, regular guy who seemed to enjoy his interactions with voters in small towns across New Hampshire in 1992, has now surrounded himself with many young, inexperienced people whose political agendas are frequently far from mainstream.  Most have been lifelong employees in the public sector or academe, had the advantages of family money or are part of Hollywood’s liberal elite.  As with far too many members of Congress in general, and their staffs in particular, few of his confidants have ever been active participants in the private sector.

Therefore, it’s not surprising they fail to understand:

  • Our current economic slowdown is not simply another recession.  Rather, it is a part of systemic change in the way business is conducted.  Many lost jobs gone forever.  The health of our economy is increasingly intertwined with those of many other nations around the globe.
  • Government creates no wealth … which can only be generated by the private sector.  Removing investment incentives and heavy taxation on the rewards of such business ventures significantly reduces the potential for creation of new wealth.
  • Small business generates almost all new jobs in the United States.  Yet, few small businessmen have convenient access to the power circles which regulate their operations.
  • The United States can no longer continue to run in the red.  With the nation’s total debt approaching $4.5 trillion, steep cuts in projected deficits are critical as is a firm schedule, immune from Congressional tampering, to balance the budget.
  • Our country may not be able to afford all of the “nice to do” programs it currently provides. 
  • The concept of equal protection for all Americans.  Favors for special interest groups, particularly in tax policies, must be eliminated.
  • Institutions of big government are generally inefficient and costly.  A small, efficient and non-intrusive government, focused on expanding opportunity and protecting individual rights, should be a national priority.

Bill Clinton is at a critical juncture in his presidency.  Clearly, he can ignore many of the attacks on his social agenda. 

But, he can not avoid a near-term decision between pursuing a course of fighting for a bigger, costlier and more intrusive government with its predictably higher taxes and large deficits, and the likelihood of conceding a second term … or to aggressively lobby for doing what is right and substantially downsizing the size, scope and cost of government, and probably conceding a second term.

While the former, politically expedient course is an easier road … the latter, “less traveled” path of statesmanship will take the courage and conviction from a man who truly wants a better America.

The choice is his!