THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512090010
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Jim Miller paid The Virginian-Pilot's editorial board a visit a few days before the official launch of a campaign which aims to take the Republican senatorial nomination away from incumbent Sen. John Warner.
Miller's is a familiar voice, face and forehead. He wears his baldness aggressively. He became widely known as President Reagan's head of the Office of Management and Budget in the late 1980s. He was often seen on television - offering a vigorous sound-bite defense of proposed budgets, lambasting Democrats and arguing for conservative fiscal principles.
The last role came naturally. Miller is an economist by training and inclination and enjoys explaining the way the world works. His evolution from economist to bureaucrat to Senate candidate seems a logical progression. But Miller hardly resembles the typical pol.
He's a man of ideas, for instance. And he steers by some fixed stars. Lots of candidates say they're running to make a difference, but when Miller says it you believe him. He's excellent company one-on-one, less compelling as a public speaker with a throng in front of him. Many politicians are the other way around.
Miller also seems to lack the hard carapace most politicians grow and the hail-fellow-well-met demeanor. Miller comes across as a gentleman - thoughtful, enthusiastic, candid and even a little shy.
There are few surprises in his views. He's an unabashed economic conservative who believes less government is best. He favors a strong defense and a government role in education, but a lot of the rest of government seems disposable to him.
Social Security: The real train wreck waiting to happen isn't over the present budget but over Social Security somewhere around 2018 when the trust fund lock box turns out to contain nothing but IOUs. Miller proposes a transition to an invest-it-yourself model, presumably like that adopted with some initial success by Chile.
Agricultural subsidies: They are ``inefficient and immoral'' as presently designed. He says they reward big combines, not the family farmer and have outlived their usefulness.
Campaign-finance reform: He's all for it. He'd get rid of all PACs and in-kind contributions.
Regulation: Naturally he feels government meddles too much in our lives and the economy. But he makes a useful distinction between two kinds of government regulation. One serves to create cartels. They restrain free enterprise and give some companies a protected status. Think of communications, transportation and agricultural policy. He'd scrap all such statist creations as anti-competitive and unnecessary.
A second sort of regulation, however, is meant to protect public health and safety and the environment. He sees a government role in that regard and would not tear out such regulations root and branch. He'd prune selectively. But he does argue that such regulations grow like weeds, and the dubious ones threaten to overwhelm the essential provisions.
Much of Miller's agenda is not concerned with what government can do, but what it ought to stop doing. Asked about the risk of waning American prosperity and an embattled middle class, Miller doesn't respond with a wish list of government programs but calls for stimulative tax cuts and for improving public schools through competition.
Miller says he'd work for a balanced-budget amendment and term limits, for a requirement that two-thirds of Congress vote for any tax increase and for a rule forbidding government spending to grow faster than the economy. If elected, he promises to limit himself to two terms. One, if his wife gets her way.
Most handicappers give Miller little shot at unseating Warner. Miller convincingly argues that he's a purer conservative than Warner, but since Democrats and independents can vote in Virginia primaries Miller's greater appeal to the conservative wing of his own party may not be decisive. Warner remains popular with the broad middle range of voters and far ahead in fund-raising.
Yet Miller is a splendid fellow and the sort of candidate the country needs more of. You don't have to agree with all his economic theories to appreciate a serious student of ideas who makes a coherent case with vigor. He doesn't appear to have a mean bone in his body at a time when politics resembles a street brawl. And he's a man of conviction who would be unlikely to play the Washington game of promise them one thing and enact another. If he gets a hearing, he'll make the race a more interesting one. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the Editorial Page.
by CNB