ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 23, 1996 TAG: 9609230003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
IT'S NO secret that the performance of the economy is a big reason, probably the biggest, for President Clinton's lead in the polls. Conditions aren't perfect, but several measures - inflation (down), employment (up), the gross domestic product (growing steady if unspectacularly) - are doing well.
The president, of course, wants to take credit. Actually, the economy is far too big, and the American system of governing too fractious, for anyone to control.
But as a Christian Science Monitor analysis recently noted, presidents and their policies can exert some influence over the course of economic affairs - even if that may include, in Clinton's case, what he hasn't done more than what he has.
He has not, for example, fallen captive to any particular economic theology du jour. This may betray lack of a strategic vision; on the other hand, it may reflect a more sophisticated understanding of economics than is found among politicians who tout magic-bullet solutions to economic problems.
Nor has Clinton made the kind of big mistakes by which other presidents have messed up the economy. He has done nothing on the order, for example, of Richard Nixon's failed wage and price controls in the early '70s, or Ronald Reagan's policy in the early '80s of tax cuts without spending cuts.
Clinton did not replace inflation-averse Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and the president has avoided the traditional game of credibility-crippling second-guessing of the Fed about interest rates.
Finally, Clinton did not yield to union-led protectionist pressure from within his own party to scuttle the North American Free Trade Agreement. Instead, he completed the work of predecessor Republican administrations by pushing NAFTA through a reluctant, then-Democratic Congress.
The above may lack the drama of massive tax-cut programs or hot-button social issues. But in contributing to generally glad economic tidings, they seem to be producing a big political payoff for the president.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB