McCain Is Right, Bush Is Wrong
Well, on this issue.

By Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth
February 1, 2001 9:25 a.m.

ohn McCain has some pretty cockeyed ideas about cleaning up the campaign-funding system in Washington, but he has one very good idea that the Bush team has foolishly rejected. McCain has proposed that any firm selected for a Commerce Department trade mission should "voluntarily agree to a ban on political contributions to candidates for six months." When I first heard the idea, I thought it was brilliant. Finally, someone was doing something to prevent the Commerce Department from being turned into a cash register for the party in power. It also makes a lot of sense because Republicans need to shake the image that this is a political party of, by, and for corporate America. The McCain idea would be a nice symbolic gesture to voters that this administration-unlike the one they just replaced — isn't for sale to the highest corporate bidder.

But the Bush team doesn't see it that way. Don Evans, Bush's new secretary of the Department of Corporate Welfare…er…I guess it's still officially called the Commerce Department…says the plan wouldn't work because it would exclude so many qualified companies from participating in trade missions. Of course, that's precisely McCain's point.

Don Evans is a sensible and well-meaning man, but his response to the McCain idea is quite discouraging. First, of all, lest we all need reminding in this new era of compassionate conservatism, there shouldn't be a Commerce Department. My studies with Steve Slivinski at the Cato Institute have shown time and again that this Cabinet agency is the epicenter of the corporate-welfare state. Republicans were dead on when they argued in 1995 that this agency should be boarded up. If there has to be a Commerce Department, there at least shouldn't be anymore of these trade missions. Defenders of White House trade missions confuse free trade (a very good idea) with government-arranged trade (a very bad idea).

We at NR and NRO are adults so we can state what everyone knows to be true, but no one likes to say in polite company: The primary purpose of Commerce trade missions is to reward corporations for their generous campaign contributions. This is precisely why the Bushies have rejected the McCain proposal. After all, what's the point of giving CEOs the royal treatment on chartered trade delegation trips, and placing them in the first class aisle seats, if you can't shake them down for money soon thereafter? It's basically a cash-in, cash-out system. It reeks to high hell.

The Clinton administration, of course, under the late Secretary Ron Brown, turned these fundraisers in the sky into an art form. Republicans rightly called foul at how an entire Cabinet agency had been converted into a subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee. Brown was practically selling seats on his chartered planes to the highest Democratic bidders.

Could it be that the Republicans want to do precisely the same thing, now that they control this corrupting agency? The idea of a six-month "voluntary ban" on contributions to the political parties or candidates for firms selected to participate in trade missions is hardly a draconian requirement. Mr. Evans seems petrified that this contribution ban would lead to a lot of empty seats on these round-the-world excursions.

Maybe it would mean they would have to cancel some of these trade missions altogether!

You see, I told you McCain was on to something here.