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April 12, 2008

Arthur Foulkes: Clinton makes history in Clinton

By Arthur Foulkes

CLINTON — Clinton Mayor Jerry Hawkins said he heard from an old-timer that Harry Truman may have passed through Clinton during his 1948 presidential campaign against Thomas Dewey.

Other than that possible visit, it seems likely that no other U.S. chief executive has visited the tiny Vermillion County town in its history — until Friday. That’s when former President Bill Clinton rolled into town to speak on behalf of his wife, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton chose well. His visit to South Vermillion High School seemed to go off without a hitch.

The crowd at South Vermillion was fired up. When Clinton was introduced, the 1,500 or so students and adults gathered to hear the former president applauded, cheered and waved signs.

It seems Clinton could have kept his speech short and still pleased his audience. But instead, he spoke for just less than an hour, trying to convince the crowd to support his wife in her race against Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic Party nomination for president.

“Indiana will matter in this process,” Clinton said, then — switching into political analyst mode — added that he thinks Hillary will win the Democratic nomination if she wins the party primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Before Clinton arrived at the high school gymnasium, the news media were herded into a fenced-off pen for Clinton’s speech. At first, the little enclosed area made me feel we were special; after all, we got chairs to sit on and camera operators had a raised platform on which to stand. We also were given bright “Hillary for President” press tags to wear around our necks. It only was after Clinton’s speech ended that we realized our little pen was really a cage.

“No,” was the rapid answer from a young Clinton campaign worker when another reporter and I asked if we could leave the cage and approach the area of the gymnasium where the former president was shaking hands and greeting supporters. I have read that the Clinton campaign is very tightly controlled. Nothing I’ve seen makes me doubt that.

Bill Clinton is an excellent public speaker and connected very well with his audience. He hit all the right notes with many Democrats. He complained about health-care costs, college costs, tax breaks for the richest one-tenth of 1 percent, oil company tax subsidies and trade deficits with China, Japan and Korea.

Hillary Clinton’s answer for the health-care crisis is to offer everyone health insurance coverage in a large government-supervised insurance pool. “You can’t get costs under control until everyone is covered,” Bill Clinton said.

Of course, what Clinton didn’t say is that third-party payer insurance plans actually increase demand for health care and, therefore, prices. Nor did he mention that the health-care industry is in its sorry state today in part because of such insurance plans and because of government regulations — promoted by physician groups — that sharply limit the supply of doctors and medical services that can be legally performed by non-MDs.

Nor did Clinton say that lowering marginal tax rates will naturally give the largest break to the people paying the most in taxes. Nor did he mention that, while oil and gas companies did get some tax breaks with the 2005 energy bill, they also lost some breaks and ended up paying more in overall taxes. (The best answer, of course, is to end subsidies for all companies, gas and oil companies included.)

The former president also failed to note that making sure every American can go to college, as he and his wife promise, would cost a fortune and leave us with (even more) devalued college diplomas than we have now.

Clinton’s comments on China, Japan and Korea also were a little misleading, I believe. He implied Americans are forced to endure bad trade agreements with these countries because we “borrow” money from them. Imagine hitting your bank president in the head, Clinton said.

What is actually happening is that China, Japan, Korea and a lot of other foreign investors see U.S. bonds and other securities as good investments. They purchase them, which gives U.S. importers the foreign currency they need to buy foreign goods that U.S. consumers want.

I’m not saying we don’t have bad trade agreements. Any trade agreement longer than one page is too complex. The best trade agreement is the one in the U.S. Constitution that simply prohibits trade restrictions among the 50 states. This is what helped make America the richest country on Earth.

What Clinton espouses is “managed trade,” which creates regulations, bureaucracies, special interest politics and hampers wealth creation.

Like many other politicians, Clinton said it is time to let the Iraqis take care of themselves. He gave a great analogy of a neighbor whose house burns down and needs a place to live. All of us would put the neighbor up for a few days or even weeks, Clinton said. But if the neighbor is still living with you in five years, you know he’s not there because of the fire, he’s there because you’re taking care of him. The same logic applies to aid to Iraq, Clinton said.

This is a brilliant story to illustrate the disincentive of government aid and subsidies in any area of economic life. Clinton seemed to understand how this works with the Iraqis; but he didn’t attempt to apply that same logic to subsidies to American companies and to Americans themselves.

For fans of Barack Obama, Clinton’s speech gave some indication as to how seriously the Hillary Clinton camp takes her Democratic Party opponent. Bill Clinton was careful not to mention Obama by name during his speech. A final reference at the end of the speech to “[Hillary’s] very impressive opponent,” came after enough mentions of Republican John McCain that a listener couldn’t be sure about whom Clinton was referring — McCain or Obama.

Clinton is an impressive politician and combined humor and seriousness for an effective speech. He also showed some appealing humility, saying he believes his wife would be a better president than he had been.

But his humility had its limits. Clinton noted that his re-election in 1996 set the “high-water mark” since the days of LBJ among Democratic presidential candidates in terms of electoral votes. That sounds impressive, but since only one other Democrat has been elected president since LBJ — Jimmy Carter — this is really another way of saying Clinton received more votes in the Electoral College in 1996 than Jimmy Carter got in 1976. Big deal.

Bill Clinton gave a good show to the faithful in Vermillion County. The crowd seemed happy with what they heard and saw. Unfortunately, his “solutions” to America’s problems are all government solutions. He talks about partnerships among government, labor and business. But so-called “public-private partnerships” always lead to anti-competitive cartels, restrictions on economic freedom and impoverishing special-interest politics.

What Clinton is selling may sound wonderful and appealing as you are drawn in. Eventually, though, you may find that what made you feel special and cared for early on — like our little media pen — is really a cage, and you are not allowed to get out.

Arthur Foulkes is a Terre Haute native and long-time resident. He can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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