Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Most Important Question on the Ballot?

It so often happens that the most important question for the next president rates barely a mention during the preceding election. How much discussion did we give in 2000 to the issue of the threat of terrorism? In 1992, Bill Clinton's personal behavior was brushed aside as tabloid trash - yet it soon came to dominate and consume his presidency. And so on.

By definition, I suppose, we can only guess at what the big question for the next president will be. But here's my nomination:

How will you use and how quickly will you unwind the huge ownership position the US government has taken in the nation's banks and financial institutions?

Paul Krugman recently advanced the idea that the government may be obliged to order banks to lend money. (This was his answer to the old "pushing on a string" problem - the government can insert capital into banks, but what if the banks are too frightened to use this capital?)

I don't myself think we are anywhere close to this being necessary - but what if it should happen? You do not have to be very anxious to imagine great possibilities for abuse. Will this lending have to be regionally "balanced"? Should unionized firms be favored? Or firms that locate manufacturing plants in America? How about special consideration for minority owned firms? Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Right now, everybody agrees that government ownership is undesireable. But people will get used to anything. Four years from now, some in Washington may well who want to retain a small ownership stake as a way to enhance government monitoring and regulation. And even if today's mood persists, the terms and conditions of reprivatization will surely prove bitterly controversial, with Democrats pushing for the toughest possible terms (even at the risk of prolonging government ownership) and Republicans pushing for the speediest possible liquidation (even at the risk of receiving a lower price than might be available later).

It's this consideration, even more than foreign policy, that motivates me to vote for John McCain. I know I can count on him to dislike government ownership - to shun any political use of financial power - and to liquidate as rapidly as possible.

Barack Obama? I worry that he'll succumb to the temptation to abuse this power for utopian ends. Whether he is (or was) a socialist in any dictionary definition way I do not know. I doubt it. But there's no question that he's a redistributionist and a utopian. I heard yesterday a clip of him speaking at a rally a few days ago. He urged supporters to keep working till the very end because, "Power does not surrender." It's a phrase of pure Alinskyism, a reminder that with all that Obama has left behind in his upward quest, the habits of mind he learned in his 20s remain in place underneath.

Whatever exactly Obama may have meant by his words, they count as a warning: He sees wealth as power - and power as something to be taken and used. I prefer leaders who think in terms of markets - and see markets as spheres for choice and freedom.

I haven't much liked McCain's campaign in 2008. But our job as voters is not to act as campaign reviewers, handing out three stars for a good performance and booing a bad one. Our job is to act as citizens and to discern as best we can the quality of the candidates and their philosophies of government. A bad performance by a candidate makes the citizens' job more difficult - but no less imperative.

10/29 07:59 AM