“On what issue or issues (if any!) have you changed your mind in the last 10 years- and why?” Their responses follow.
“REGRETS, I’VE HAD A FEW,” sings Frank Sinatra. Lucky him: only a few. The editor’s invitation to set down the issue or issues on which I have changed my mind is followed, mercifully, with an order to keep the apology to 500 words.
So herewith a generic apology, one that covers a multitude of errors: I have confused the ability to formulate sensible policy with the ability to implement it. Those, I now know, are two different things.
The Bush foreign policy, based on protecting America by encouraging the spread of democracy, and by taking the fight to the terrorists is, in conception, terribly attractive, especially when personified in its early days by the swashing of Don Rumsfeld’s buckle.
Then came the implementation: the inability to stop the massive looting that followed the successful occupation of Iraq–you remember, the stuff that happens; the failure to provide our troops with the proper armor, a problem that persists to this day; the unwillingness to back tough talk with sufficient troops; the inability to keep the lights on and the air conditioners whirring in Baghdad.
The policy remains the right one, in my view, but I no longer confuse that with our ability–perhaps willingness is a better word–to implement it.
Then there is economic policy. Again, the right policy: tax cuts in the face of a recession, and long-term cuts to stimulate risk-taking and work. Unexceptional, to Reaganites and latter-day Keynesians alike. But, oh, the implementation. When a period of above-trend economic growth followed the brief recession, and additional revenues streamed into the Treasury’s coffers, they were not used to restore balance to the federal budget. Instead, a spendthrift Congress and a veto-shy president proceeded to squander the proceeds, and more, on bridges to nowhere and subsidies for–get this–rich corn growers and profit-laden oil companies.
But Sinatra concludes his semi-lament on a high note: “I did it my way.” Which brings me to Alan Greenspan, the soon-to-be-gone chairman of the Fed. Greenspan conceived a policy that set the nation on a path to sustainable, non-inflationary growth, and implemented it–and he did it his way, ignoring the inflation-targeters, the model-builders who think they can reduce policymaking to a set of equations, and the politicians who wanted him to raise interest rates faster, or not at all.
There’s a lesson there, I suppose. If the person who can conceive a policy knows how to implement it–in Greenspan’s case, sees a need for liquefying the financial system in the face of a crisis, and knows how to do it; and then decides on slowing the economy a bit, and knows how to tap on the brakes–all will be well. The president is great at policy conception, less good at taking the steps needed to see that conception through to birth and maturity.
Irwin M. Stelzer is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and a columnist for the Sunday Times (London).
