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 onservatives
and libertarians have a disagreement on national-security strategy:
Conservatives think we should
have one. But
conservatives and libertarians ought at least to be able to make
common cause on missile defense: This is a strictly defensive weapon
system uniquely fitted to protecting Americans from threats abroad.
It's true that a robust missile-defense system would enable projections
of American power in ways that would make many libertarians uncomfortable,
but its fundamental purpose is to defend rather than attack.
So one might
think that libertarians would favor missile defense more than almost
any other weapons system. And many libertarians do in fact favor
missile defense. The Libertarian Party's platform includes the following
lines: "We call for the replacement of nuclear war fighting
policies with a policy of developing cost-effective defensive systems.
Accordingly, we advocate termination of the 1972 ABM treaty or any
future agreement which would prevent defensive systems on U.S. territory
or in earth orbit."
Yet the libertarian
Cato Institute came out swinging against President Bush's speech
on missile defense yesterday. In a press release, defense-policy
director Ivan Eland slammed Bush for "trying to pacify ardent
advocates of missile defense on Capitol Hill and within the Republican
Party" — as though this were an unpopular position with the
public (polls suggest otherwise) and Bush had reluctantly thrown
a bone to a special constituency (when, in fact, he campaigned on
the issue).
Eland apes
the language of the Left, calling Bush's speech "premature,"
worrying it will "needlessly roil relations with the Europeans,
the Russians, and the Chinese," and suggesting the whole enterprise
is a "rush to deploy" that is "unlikely to work properly"
and be "expensive." This sounds like talking points written
by the nuclear-freeze activists who now dominate the camp opposing
missile defense. The Cato Institute can remain true to libertarianism,
and still support missile defense vigorously. Here's hoping it reconsiders.
Commissioned
President Bush has established a commission of eight Republicans
and eight Democrats to come up with a plan for a reform of Social
Security based on individual investment. The announcement followed
an intra-administration debate about whether to include sitting
members of Congress on the commission; in the end, the argument
that their inclusion would bog down the commission won out. The
administration also decided to have a commission all of whose members
agreed with the president about the principles of reform. Democrats
are already attacking the commission on this point.
The biggest
gamble the administration has made is on Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Moynihan favors private accounts, but he has in the past wanted
to couple private accounts with a lifting of the cap on payroll
taxes — which, by some estimates, would amount to the largest tax
increase in American history (and would be a quite "progressive"
one). Perhaps for that reason, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
was quite emphatic in telling reporters that the executive order
establishing the commission explicitly rules out payroll tax increases.
Indeed, the other principles the president laid out are precisely
the ones that reformers have advocated: no reduction in benefits
for current retirees or those close to retirement; no weakening
of benefits for disabled workers, widows, and orphans; no government-directed
investment; and voluntary participation in the new system.
The mission
of the commission is, in short, to build support for what will be
the president's plan. Karl Rove has told congressional Republicans
that if it doesn't work, the White House won't push for legislative
action until after the midterm elections.
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