Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
From: kwee@oracle.uucp (Karl Wee)
Subject: Re: Review of the Republican National Convention
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores CA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 21:23:13 GMT
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In article <1992Aug26.160246.11967@dsg.tandem.com> leung@DSG.Tandem.COM (Steven Leung) writes:
>
>.... Bush's theme
>of getting rid of the uncooperative congress is nothing new. Reagan has
>tried that before and failed, and I doubt that he will succeed this time
>because I think this is what American people really want. While Bush is

Americans clearly don't like Congress as a whole, but they keep electing the
same members to office because these people are able to make their
local constituents believe that they can bring goodies to them from the
national government.

It is a clear trend in American politics that in
presidential elections, people care about national issues most (which is
why liberals were so defeated in the past that Clinton has to be a "centrist"
to have any chance), but in congressional elections, the most important issue
to them is "who can bring home the bacon".  This makes sense because how much
can one member of Congress do to help the country?  The problem, of course,
is that collectively they have created a terrible Legislature.

>.... I think the
>party is trying to use the so-called "family value" issue to divert the
>attention on the econmomy issue....

The problems with
the economy (apart from short-term regulation issues) are so deeply tied
to American culture and institutions (lack of repect for education, low skill
level of the population, and the fact that Americans "want the cake and eat it
too" in so many things, etc.) that there really IS NO clear and painless fix
for the economic problems.  If there was one, both candidates would embrace
it and nobody would be talking about it.

All Clinton does is try to play around with superficial things to make people
believe that he HAS THE FIX for the economy.  He wants government to spend
lots of money for job-training and education.  The problem is whether
this money will be abused (like most of government money) and how effective
it will be and whether there are other, more market-oriented approaches.
Remember the War on Poverty?  Noble cause, great ideal, looked good on paper,
but only created dependency on welfare.

What it DEFINELTELY WILL DO is increase the federal defit
(his plan says it won't, but it's DEPENDING on the assumption that the economy
will be so booming by that time that the extra tax revenues generated will
cover it.  Since training and education are such long term issues, I don't
think for one second that this will happen.) and WORSEN a basic problem of
the economy: too much of our savings go to the public sector, and not enough
is left over for investments and thus job-creation in the much more
efficient private sector.  (BTW, his "tax on the rich" is another step in
this direction.)

Besides, Bush is also pushing for what I consider to be the best parts of
Clinton's program.  On the more important grade-school education issue, Bush
would solve the problem much closer to the core by creating competition among
schools and giving parents choice of where to send their children through
tax credits.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china