White House Wager

Benjamin Zycher from the February 1993 issue

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She is unlikely to receive a formal appointment, for the nepotism charge is something that Clinton will want to avoid; ironically, that will make her all the more dangerous, since her constant presence and unofficial status entail both a permanent voice and an absence of countervailing opposition. In a word, she will be unaccountable as she passes on judicial appointments, presses for a federal child-care bureaucracy, pushes the truly loony idea of women in combat, and encourages a large expansion of litigation activity by children and activist lawyers.

It is not going to be pretty. Clinton will bring 3,000 leftists into the bureaucracy, even if he doesn't want them, because an attempt to keep them out would alienate every constituency that elected him by keeping quiet during the campaign. And Clinton cannot and will not appoint the kind of cabinet officers who would keep them on short leashes.

Moreover, Clinton's "ethics" noises–officials of the Clinton administration, upon leaving office, will have even fewer options than is currently the case to capitalize on their contacts and government experience–will make matters worse, since few sensible people can afford to go to medical school or whatever after serving in the federal government. Most of those who will have a think tank or something similar to which to return will not be defenders of liberty and property; their goal, and the standard by which they will be measured, will be to out-Bush the Bushies on everything from regulation to spending to taxation.

Clinton already has announced an "economic summit," block party at which deals will be cut among career politicians fat cats, established interest groups, and defenders of the status quo. Newcomers and others pressing for more competition in government and markets will be excluded. This is "change"?

My opponents in this exchange are Dwight Lee and Richard McKenzie, and I am proud and fortunate indeed to be able to list them among my dear friends. The term "gentleman and scholar" properly applies to remarkably few; Dwight and Richard are prominent among them. They have performed God's work over many years, most recently as they have explained the role of market forces as constraints on government expansion and as they have debunked completely and courageously the many fantasies about the 1980s and about the Reagan legacy believed and propagandized by the political left.

However, they apparently have been traumatized by the fact that for the first time the newly elected president of the United States is younger than they. That the ascent of Bill Clinton to the presidency has induced them to descend into a fantasy world of their own represents an ironic mystery best left to the sofas and ink blots of the psychologists. Their view that market forces over a four-year period will constrain severely the ability of the Clinton administration to engage in mischief is one that can be believed only by their nanas, their dogs, and other such innocents.

Accordingly, Dwight and Richard and I have agreed to be our respective honoraria for this exchange on the following proposition: By October 1, 1996, the relative size of government–federal, state, and local government spending as a pro-portion of GDP–will have gone up from that on October 1, 1992. I say that it will; they say that it won't.

We're putting our money where our mouths are; President Clinton also will put our money where his mouth is.