Take On the Talking Heads
The Responsibilities of Wealth
by Garry Wills
of Wealth
Feb. 2, 2000 -- Some people were shocked -- shocked! -- to find that President Clinton used his State of the Union address to promote his vice president's campaign. The Washington Post editorialized that this was not even a State of the Union address at all, but a campaign document. The New York Times editorialists were just as certain that this was a politicizing of the State of the Union -- as if the president had committed a violation of some sacred institution when he "managed to bring the campaign trail into the halls of the Capitol." Politics in the State of the Union address? Horror! That has never happened before.
Former Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel brought some common sense to this scene of crocodile tears when he said that Clinton and his writers would be guilty of "dereliction of duty" if they did not try to defend his programs by helping a coadjutor of those programs' formation and promotion.
I have a long enough memory to recall when journalists were chiding Dwight Eisenhower because he did not support his vice president enough in 1960. He was accused of thinking only of himself, not caring what happened to his party or to the man he twice asked the nation to trust as his replacement in case of need. Clinton is often accused of thinking only of himself. Now he is blamed for thinking of Al Gore. What is a president supposed to do -- say he does not care if his party loses?
But in a sense all this talk of the campaign is beside the point. There was nothing substantive in the speech the president gave -- nothing, that is, aside from more frequent reference to Gore than usual -- that would not have been there, even if there had been no campaign going on. The main themes were the same as Clinton has always stressed. The only new features depended on developments in the economy. He proposed more because we can afford more.
The speech was not a mere laundry list of proposals. It had five main themes, each based on the hard facts of our current situation:
1. We are the richest country in the world, by far -- but we also have the most egregious gap in income between the rich and the poor. A dozen or so of Clinton's proposals would alleviate this injustice to the poor -- from universal Head Start to pension plans for the needy, from Earned Income Tax Credits to equal pay for women (the working poor are, many of them, women), from child care to assistance with absentee father support.
2. We are the world's leader in a time of worldwide technological revolution, yet much of our education system is failing to equip people to be part of that revolution. The speech had many innovative ideas to remedy this situation, principally involving better teachers and better equipment (one practically worthless without the other).
3. We are the wealthiest nation in the world, yet we are the only advanced nation without comprehensive health care for its citizens. Clinton would take steps to expand, protect and ensure more care.
4. We are the most affluent society in the world, but our lives are not secure from crime -- largely because of the guns that give us the highest murder rate, the highest accidental death rate by gun. Clinton proposed registering guns as we do cars and hunters. Why is it all right to register hunters, but not the tools they use? He also called for the mandatory training of gun purchasers -- an idea that has been proposed by Jesse Ventura (hardly an enemy of the gun).
5. We are the richest country in a world undergoing a globalization of finance, trade and information. We must stay on top of this transforming process -- by research, by access to all the new kinds of markets, and by staying in touch with other participants in order to influence their decisions. This will involve some loss of unskilled jobs, but they cannot be indefinitely bottled up behind our borders. The answer to that problem is training of the unskilled, which Clinton addressed indirectly in his education proposals and directly in his support of retraining and relocating workers.
These are all sensible proposals and within our means, thanks to the economy. Should Clinton not have voiced them because they might help Al Gore? If they are acted on, the principal beneficiary will not be Gore, but the poor and the unskilled, the victims of guns, those in need of medical care and students in our schools.
Copyright © 2000 Universal Press Syndicate
