11/30/00 11:50 a.m.
Archer for Treasury
He even fills helps fill the Democrat quota.

By Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth & NR contributing editor

d Feulner of the Heritage Foundation is fond of saying that "people are policy." He's, of course, right about that, as conservatives learned during both the Reagan and the Bush presidencies. George W. has pledged that he will surround himself with the best talent available, so this creates a mandate of sorts for Bill Archer to be the next Treasury Secretary.

Arguably, the treasury secretary slot will be by far the most important position in the new administration. Bush's presidency will be judged on the economy, stupid. Did he keep the prosperity going? Did the stock market rally of the past 18 years continue?

To make sure that the good times continue, Bush must get his tax cut through Congress. He must win quick legislative approval for his Social Security choice plan. He needs someone a) who has deep convictions that these plans are the right one's for America and b) has the relationships in Congress to navigate the president's agenda through the shark infested waters on Capitol Hill.

Bill Archer is one of the most admirable and admired men in Washington. I don't mean that to sound like a backhanded compliment — as though he's the sanest inmate in the asylum. Archer's supply-side tax credentials are also impeccable. As Ways and Means Committee Chairman, he almost single-handedly bullied through Congress the 1997 capital-gains tax cut. He fought valiantly for cap-gains relief even after the GOP leadership was ready to cave in to the left's class-warfare rhetoric. He's an unflinching free trader. He loathes the death tax. He helped pass the most important social legislation of the past 40 years: welfare reform. He believes solemnly in sound money and is an inflation hawk.

In 1983 he was one of the most vocal opponents of the Social Security tax increase that "the Greenspan Commission recommended and the Reagan was hoodwinked by his disloyal advisers into endorsing and passing. He was one of the most effective critics of the Bush 1990 tax hike and the Clinton 1993 tax heist.

What's not to like?

In December 1994, he nearly gave the entire Washington press corps a collective coronary by announcing that as the incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee he wanted to scrap the income tax. There's not a more dogged advocate of overhauling the tax system. There's also no one in Washington who understands the tax system the way that Archer does. (Archer actually fills out his own tax forms!) In 2002 tax reform should be a top national priority for Bush.

Michael Barone writes in the Almanac of the American Politics that "Archer has one of the most conservative voting records in the House." He also notes that Archer is "punctiliously loyal to his convictions" in a town where convictions are an endangered species. I've told Archer that his record of accomplishment is so impressive that he almost makes me want to reconsider my support for congressional term limits — almost. And by the way, Bush says he wants to fill some Cabinet slots with Democrats. Bill Archer was a Democrat when he first came to Congress in the early 1970s.

One of Bill Clinton's shrewdest Cabinet appointments was another well-liked Texan, Lloyd Bentsen. Bentsen, the former Finance Committee Chairman in the Senate, was instrumental in securing the early legislative victories in Clinton's first term. Bush needs someone like that. To his credit, Bush has several distinguished Wall Street CEO's that want the Treasury job. But Archer's a proven tax-cut champion. Bush would be foolish to let talent like this go to waste.