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Gramm Meant What He Said

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By JOHN YOUNG Cox News Service

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 21, 2008

I never thought I'd have to come to this, defending Phil Gramm on anything.

Phil could fend for himself - always in a position of power, always on the public payroll. And if he wasn't, wife Wendy was, while he decried all the people on the public payroll.

But now I come to Phil's defense for saying - what? - exactly what the leader of his party has been saying for months?

He - George W. Bush - has been saying all is well. Gramm, John McCain's go-to guy on the economy, put it more indelicately. He said the economic hard times are "mental," and "we've become a nation of whiners."

OK, that goes beyond indelicate. That's about as diplomatic as castrating cattle.

Phil apologized. Said he didn't mean it. McCain said "Phil Gramm doesn't speak for me." Aw, come on, boys. Gramm said what he meant and meant what he said.

After all, it's basically one of the foundations of conservative fiscal philosophy: You can't help it that some people don't benefit from laissez faire capitalism, globalism and deregulation. The rising tide lifts all boats. Of course, some will be treading water and clinging to debris. More each day. They should get a boat. And all that requires is a credit card.

As W. famously said, we must "make the pie higher."

Stop whining. Go shopping. Consumerism is virtue. Credit is no vice.

Bigger is better, no questions asked, when it comes to business. Multinational always trumps national. And not just in Scrabble.

I come to Phil's defense - all he's saying is what made Ronald Reagan an icon. But I must admit this is a bad time for him to be saying anything.

After all, he was one of the great voices on behalf of banking deregulation.

The subprime mortgage crisis and the nosedive of housing is directly related to letting lenders do their own thing.

Meanwhile soaring energy prices reflect a lost opportunity for a president to model the axiom that market forces matter.

If Americans consume less gasoline, coal and natural gas, prices will moderate.

Instead it's been consume, consume, consume and, of course, drill. That, too, is about growing that pie higher.

The whole idea behind trickle-down economics - tax cuts for those who don't need it - is for the wealthy to consume, or "invest," as they say. In the process those stationed below the banquet table will get some of the drippings.

That's not happened in an age of concentration of wealth and where jobs go global. For sure, it's happened for Gramm's constituency, the already wealthy.

And let's face it: Recession is a distant concern for those whose jobs are not on the line.

Inflation driven by oil prices, driven by insatiable consumption, is a distant concern for those who can afford rising prices. After all, if a man can afford that Escalade, he can afford to fill it up.

Ever since the days of Reagan we've been led to believe that consumption was next to godliness, and that the size - or height? - of the pie was all that mattered. We were led to believe that deregulation would get us to greater prosperity and better services.

For a few, that was true. For the rest, well, any discomfort is mostly mental. Right, Phil?

John Young is opinion page editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald .

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