Searching for the Next Marcos

Ever since the United States furnished Ferdinand Marcos with air transportation to Hawaii, I have been trying to make sense of U.S. foreign policy. More to the point, I have been trying to figure out who’s next. I propose to answer my question with a prediction, using as my guide the famous advice of the astute former attorney general John Mitchell: Watch what we do, not what we say.

Consider first the domestic analogue to foreign policy. You could try to discern U.S. domestic policy by reading presidential statements and senatorial speeches. On the other hand you could turn to the budget and the tax code and find out who gets the money and what are the incentives. What domestic policy does is not necessarily what it says. (No one opposes saving in a speech, for example, although wedoina tax code that penalizes people who put money away.)

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Tom Bethell

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Ever since the United States furnished Ferdinand Marcos with air transportation to Hawaii, I have been trying to make sense of U.S. foreign policy. More to the point, I have been trying to figure out who’s next. I propose to answer my question with a prediction, using as my guide the famous advice of the astute former attorney general John Mitchell: Watch what we do, not what we say.

Consider first the domestic analogue to foreign policy. You could try to discern U.S. domestic policy by reading presidential statements and senatorial speeches. On the other hand you could turn to the budget and the tax code and find out who gets the money and what are the incentives. What domestic policy does is not necessarily what it says. (No one opposes saving in a speech, for example, although wedoina tax code that penalizes people who put money away.)