This was a popular gesture, and gesture is everything, constitutional sensibility nothing, in today's theatrical politics. Besides, Republicans have prospered by pretending crime is a federal responsibility. Gesture politics explains the new Republican promise that the tax code will be scrapped and replaced by something unspecified in 2001. It will not be influenced by the argument that such standards are the states' business. Such timidity will haunt conservatives when their plans for partial privatization of Social Security draw objections on the ground that individuals cannot be trusted to make important choices.
People can already save in tax-sheltered accounts, but few do so.
Social Security was designed to correct this myopia, forcing people to set aside funds to protect themselves. Conservatives could begin to recover their lost bearings by speaking sense about tobacco. However, their exuberant participation in the anti-tobacco mob indicates the curtain has closed. It was just a skit. E.W. Scripps Publications , All Rights Reserved.