THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409090006
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
George Bush's son Jeb, who seeks the GOP nomination for governor of Florida, doesn't want his views confused with his father's. He esteems himself as more conservative than his parents, and as having ``provocative'' opinions and the courage to state them. We'll see. A provocative opinion in politics is so rare that if one is heard, the networks may interrupt the soaps with bulletins.
More likely, Jeb is a young fogy running his campaign with funds his daddy raised for him while distancing himself politically from George Bush's record. Jeb is appealing to right-wingers who despise his father for responsibly reneging on his no-new-taxes pledge in order to fight runaway deficits.
Generally speaking, conservatism's young lions don't appear to give intense attention to deficits and debt: They are busy wahooing the demise of liberalism as if they had something to do with it and as if they had the wit or courage to deal with its consequences. (Oliver North proposes simultaneously to cut taxes, increase spending and balance the budget. Isn't that cute?)
One consequence is a welfare culture, reform of which literally begs for provocative ideas. Would Jeb Bush, who favors smaller government, invest tax money in jobs, child care and other services in order to wean welfare mothers from the dole, or would he cut off the dole forthwith? One of these is the Clinton alternative. The other is a ``provocative'' approach. It will be interesting to see if young Bush has the gumption to favor either. And equally interesting to hear his views on how to deal with entitlement-program spending which a bipartisan commission says may ``bankrupt the country'' in 10 years or less.
The commission is headed by Sen. Bob Kerry, Democrat of Nebraska, and Sen. John Danforth, Republican of Missouri. Entitlement programs include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and others. Spending for entitlements and interest on the national debt is projected to consume all federal taxes by 2012. Most of the interest cost, of course, is attributable to the tax-and-spend regime of Ronald Reagan, who did the spending while leaving the taxing to his successors, including the hapless elder Bush and the incumbent Clinton who, interestingly and unnoticed, is making good on pledges to cut federal payrolls. The bureaucracy already has been shrunk by 75,000 workers to well below Reagan-era levels. But even if Clinton hits his larger target (cutting 228,000 jobs by 1998), the nation will remain at grave fiscal risk. There is a great need for the political courage that Jeb Bush professes, and a much greater need for him actually to possess it.
With respect to the latter point, the example of New Jersey's Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is intriguing. Like Jeb Bush, Whitman is an advocate of small and efficient government. She took office in January and pledged to cut taxes while cleaning up a huge revenue shortfall left by her Democratic predecessor, Jim Florio. Whitman delivered; she was hailed for working a miracle and as a possible vice presidential nominee for the Republicans.
The miracle, though, was something else again - the usual cooked books. Florio, according to The Washington Post, had once ``sold'' a state highway to another state agency for $400 million in order to ease his fiscal pain. Whitman diverted $1 billion in pension funding from the short term to the long term, ending conservative management of the state's pension reserves. Over the next five years. New Jersey plans to spend about $5 billion that would have been saved for retirees benefits before the miracle worker took office.
It is all very Reaganesque, and the very same sort of smoke and mirrors that Congress used to avoid enforcing the Gramm-Rudman plan it designed to force an end to deficits.
Jeb Bush, of course, may actually say that Americans have to consume fewer benefits or pay the tab for those they do consume. But since that simple truth may be as terminal as it is provocative, it's more likely that Florida will be asked to expect a miracle - to be billed to the children. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. by CNB