Ways to Be Wrong

John J. Pitney, Jr. from the October 1999 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Reuss takes credit for many things, including terms in common usage. He recalls appearing before the Ways and Means Committee to talk about tax loopholes. He says he is still proud of his elaborate exhibit, "which I called my Flow Chart." Reading that line, I couldn't help picturing Dr. Evil doing two-finger quotation marks around "flow chart."

There are some items for which Reuss conveniently neglects to take credit. He devotes a chapter to the House Banking Committee, which he chaired from 1975 through 1980. (The part where he assumes the chairmanship is titled "The Banking Committee Reborn.") While mentioning the 1980 banking law, the chapter overlooks its key provision, which increased federal insurance on savings and loan accounts. By signaling the operators of shaky thrifts that taxpayers would bail them out from bad investments, the law triggered the S&L debacle of the 1980s.

Reuss tells how he led a minor investigation of Watergate but leaves out his major proposal for ending the controversy. On June 1, 1973, he wrote an article urging Nixon and Agnew both to resign so that Democratic House Speaker Carl Albert could become president. (Agnew's own ethics scandal had not yet come to light.) During the Lewinsky affair, Democrats accused the GOP of attempting a "coup," but never did Republicans dream of something as nakedly partisan as Reuss' proposal.

Reuss shows us just how mean-spirited a liberal can be. He applauds a 1998 stock market downturn because it may have cost the affluent "enough wealth and income to measurably decrease inequality." Apart from its sheer nastiness, that sentiment is also nonsensical. More than 40 percent of American households own stock, either directly or indirectly: Market crashes hurt the not-so-rich types whose pension funds lose value. Fortunately, stocks recovered after Reuss wrote that line.

One brief anecdote is revealing, about both Reuss and other politicians. An ardent supporter of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s, he was disgusted to learn at a field hearing that some of his constituents favored private-sector financing. He recalls approvingly that a Democratic colleague slipped him a note saying, "You're too good for these people!"

"Too good for these people": There's a sentiment that politicians often harbor but rarely utter. Elected officials contract arrogance the way coal miners get black lung disease: just by breathing the air for too long. Without meaning to, Reuss helps us understand how government goes bad.

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