Some Christmas Jeer
A year with my supply-sider family.

Stephen Moore is president of the Club for Growth.
December 20, 2001 9:30 a.m.

ear Friends and Loyal Readers:

Here's a quick year in review for the Moore family. Read on at your own risk.

First off, absolutely no more Margarita Parties at the Moore household. Everytime we have a Margarita party we have another baby.

David Julian Moore arrived on April 11th 2001 at 3:30 p.m. while Steve was doing a telephone-radio interview on cutting the capital-gains tax — yes, in the delivery room. He even had the audacity to ask Allison to keep the noise level down. Now that David is eight months old, we have concluded that he has inherited Steve's looks and Allison's brains and coordination. Genetically, this is a nightmarish outcome. We were praying for an athlete, but so far he's shown us nothing.

In some ways though David is saintly. Ever since he was three months old he goes to bed at 9:00 and doesn't awake until 7:00 the next morning. (The secret of our success? We put a smidgeon of Valium in his bottle every night! Sometimes Steve even takes a swig or two.)

There's an old saying that the big difference between having two kids and three is that you have to switch from a man-to-man to a zone defense. That hasn't worked for us though. Will's eyes light up like a neon billboard when he sees us in a zone. So we have had to switch to gimmick defenses like a box in one where Steve tries to defend Will (who we've nicknamed "Osama") mano-a-mano, which is no small feat, while Allison takes the easy assignment of playing a zone on the other two.

Will was described by his teacher on his last report card as "uncooperative, unruly, and utterly unteachable." Steve's relieved that none of the political correctness that the education blob's trying to indoctrinate Will with is actually sinking in. Will is a complete skeptic when it comes to things like recycling, global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, progressive taxation, and spelling. Will's science-fair project for this year is to figure out how to clone himself — and there's some genuine concern at Haycock School that he may actually succeed. He's obsessed with the idea of winning the $25 million bounty for bin Laden and his theory is that the monster has escaped Afghanistan and he is hiding out in the U.S. working as a general manager of a 7-11. His attitude is that if he captures bin Laden, "I'm set for life and the first thing I'm going to do is go tell that Miss Winchester what she can do with her spelling assignments."

Justin and Will have what we both think is an unhealthy fascination with the inheritance tax. "Let me get this straight," Justin asks. "The only way we can avoid paying an inheritance tax is if you both die in 2011? This was followed by a litany of weird technical questions. Would you have to die in fiscal or calendar year 2011? Do we get double if you were pushed off a train or fell out of a tall building? Hypothetically, of course, what would happen if you died of arsenic poisoning? Would we get all the money at once or would it come in installments? Would we have to give David a share?"

We answered no to the last question, just to keep him safe.

Will someone out there please help us get Allison a job? It's not so much that we need her income, but that when she sits at home idly day after day she becomes a compulsive shopper. This year she's been acting as if it's her patriotic duty to single-handedly revive the American economy with her frenetic pace of consumer spending. Last month the number crunchers at the commerce department calculated that consumer spending was up three percent "with Allison Moore of Falls Church Virginia personally accounting for one percentage point of the nationwide increase." George W. Bush called to commend her for "your heroic contribution to the war effort." Without skipping a beat, Allison replied: "Mr. President, the $24,000 debt on our credit-card balance is my little way of telling the terrorists that they can never defeat us. And I promise that I will continue to spend until bin Laden and every terrorist on the face of the globe is successfully hunted down." With Allison around, who needs a congressional economic-stimulus package.

Steve too has done his part to nudge the economy along. A few months ago he bought a cherry red Camaro convertible. When he asked his 22-year-old college intern what she thought of a 41-year-old guy driving a hot car like that, she replied: "Mr. Moore, frankly, that car screams midlife crisis!" In fact, Allison got Steve a license plate that reads: "NVR GRU UP."

On more than one occasion Steve has been cruising around town with the top down and a gorgeous 20-something blond has pulled up beside him: he looks longingly at her, she gives him a "come hither look," and then the mood is spoiled when she sees David drooling in the baby seat and then Justin and Will start making weird faces at her. She sticks her finger in her mouth and zooms off and Steve is left screaming at the kids:" How many times do I have to tell you tyrants to stay out of sight when I'm hitting on girls?" And then Will, with a puzzled look on his face says, "but daddy, we already have a mommy." And then Steve says, "Yes, but imagine, just for a moment, how nice it would be if you had a much younger mommy."

Steve continues his job as the president of the Club for Growth, trying to inject some spinal fluid into the Republican party. He might as well be working to try to put a man on Uranus. Increasingly, he finds himself in agreement with his friend Kate O'Beirne who says that it is no wonder that Republicans are the pro-life party, they always find themselves in the fetal position. A few weeks ago Steve was a guest on The O'Reilly Factor and the next day he was inundated with e-mails from hundreds of adoring fans from around the country all asking the same question: "Was that a zit on your forehead or are you growing a third eye?" (It was a zit.)

Steve published his third book this year (co-authored with the late-great Julian Simon) entitled It's Getting Better All the Time. This optimistic book hit the bookstores four weeks before the September 11th attacks. Not only is the proposition suspect now, but 40% of the people who actually bought the book are demanding their money back.

We're normally upbeat people, but let's face it: 2001 has been a pretty rotten year. The World Trade Centers attacks. George Harrison dead. The economy in the tanks. Paul O'Neill named the treasury secretary. Barbara Streisand and Alec Baldwin have reneged on their promises to leave the country if George W. Bush was elected president.

The only good news is that Allison is pregnant again. Nooo. There isn't enough Tequila in the whole world to allow that to happen again.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Stephen Moore