Cox Reports

Jeff Taylor & Michael W. Lynch from the August/September 1999 issue

(Page 6 of 6)

Cox: We have the worst of all possible worlds when it comes to U.S. export control. There is paperwork. There are denials of licenses. As a result, there are administrative overhead expenses and lost market opportunities. Competitors in allied countries eat our lunch. When the U.S. government denies a sale, U.S. citizens have a right to expect that it will be for some overriding national security benefit.

If the United States government doesn't lift a finger to win the cooperation of our allies in such an effort, then it is twice shame on us. Until 1994, there was such a regime [the Coordinating Committee for Multinational Export Controls (COCOM), which restricted exports to communist countries]. The Clinton administration led the way in dissolving it. Undoubtedly, COCOM should have been updated after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. But COCOM covered not only the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact but also the PRC.

Reason: Sort of like Humpty Dumpty--it's broken and you want to put it back together again.

Cox: My view is that it wouldn't be hard to put it back together. It would require only that the president desired it. We could begin by talking to our closest allies--England, Canada, Mexico--and asking whether they would commit to a multilateral regime, provided the United States was successful in winning two or three dozen commitments first. Pending approval by such a large number of countries, I believe many of our allies would say yes.

Reason: Let's go to domestic issues. It's budget time again, and it looks like there will be another omnibus bill. I was recently talking with someone who works domestic policy at the White House who says they are putting together a wish list of all the items they expect to get in last-minute negotiations. He said, "I don't know why [Republicans] do this to themselves every year." Why do you?

Cox: Actually we are going to pass all the appropriations bills before we recess this summer.

Reason: You say that with a straight face.

Cox: We have had two conferences two days in a row devoted to this very topic, and we are committed to doing it before we leave in August.

Reason: You have been working on budget process reform for years. Briefly, what would your budget process reform bill do?

Cox: The law on the books since 1974 requires that we finish by June 30. Congress, Republican or Democrat, has never done that. If we were to enact my legislation, the failure to obey that law would have serious consequences. First and foremost, the Congress would lose the capacity to do what they call "improvement" on last year. Everything would be frozen at last year's levels. Second, it would take two-thirds to go outside the budget. Third, the president would be given redundant opportunity to exercise a power called line-item reduction. Not just to line something out, but to pare it back to a level originally set in a budget.

Reason: It seems like a good idea. You have a lot of co-sponsors. Why does it have such a hard time going anywhere?

Cox: Fiscally conservative majorities in the House and the Senate are insufficient. That's the politest way I can put it.

Reason: From the outside looking in, there seem to be few voices for limited government in Congress. Why was the political momentum for limiting government dissipated? How can it be regained?

Cox: It has not dissipated. We have to remember historically where we are coming from. Because of the narrow margins in the House of Representatives--which may have more to do with Monica Lewinsky and impeachment than with a national desire for profligate spending--the realm of the possible is more tightly circumscribed. Being in the majority requires that you spend an awful lot of time in the realm of the possible. The majority is responsible for passing the bills that are necessary to keep the doors open. And if the president sits at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and controls two-thirds of the votes with his veto, that is not always a happy chore.

When Republicans were in the minority, we were always operating in the realm of the impossible anyway, so we were free to spend most of our time on bills that described the world as we would like to see it. There is a little less of that intellectual R&D going on, because of the press of business. One hopes that a presidential election provides an opportunity to write on nearly a blank slate and that the vision will be more clear.

Reason: The Republican Congress made big gains in its first years, particularly in its ending of welfare as an entitlement. Since then, there seems to have been a lot of stumbling. What do Republicans do to make themselves attractive to voters when running against Democrats who are for welfare reform, seen as fiscally responsible, and tough on crime?

Cox: We need to expand the circulation of REASON magazine and diminish the circulation of the Los Angeles Times. I better go vote.

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