Cato vs. Missile Defense
Aping the language of the Left.

By NR’s John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
May 2, 2001 5:00 p.m.

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.