The Week

Loudly let the trumpet bray! Tantara! Mr. Clinton announces to the media assembled that he’ll hire ten thousand welfare recipients to work in the White House and in other federal offices. Instead of being on welfare, getting tax dollars for doing nothing much, now they’ll be employed, getting tax dollars for doing nothing much.

The next crisis ahead for Newt Gingrich is over how to pay the $300,000 assessment levied on him by the House ethics committee, ostensibly to reimburse it for its work on his case. It has become accepted wisdom in Washington that Mr. Gingrich must cough up his own money, even though the ethics committee has been silent on how he should pay, and traditionally politicians dip into campaign funds to cover such fines. Indeed, the only reason to depart from that practice is to impose as much personal pain on Mr. Gingrich as possible (and on his wife, Marianne, in whose name most of the couple’s assets are kept). This is lousy politics, which will only notify all elected officials, present and future, that the potential price of their public service is financial ruin. As for Mr. Gingrich’s tenure as Speaker-which is sure to be questioned again when the $300,000 bill comes due-that should depend on his ability to lead the House GOP Conference and advance conservative causes, not on his adherence to the latest punitive Beltway whim.

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George W. Bush

Loudly let the trumpet bray! Tantara! Mr. Clinton announces to the media assembled that he’ll hire ten thousand welfare recipients to work in the White House and in other federal offices. Instead of being on welfare, getting tax dollars for doing nothing much, now they’ll be employed, getting tax dollars for doing nothing much.

The next crisis ahead for Newt Gingrich is over how to pay the $300,000 assessment levied on him by the House ethics committee, ostensibly to reimburse it for its work on his case. It has become accepted wisdom in Washington that Mr. Gingrich must cough up his own money, even though the ethics committee has been silent on how he should pay, and traditionally politicians dip into campaign funds to cover such fines. Indeed, the only reason to depart from that practice is to impose as much personal pain on Mr. Gingrich as possible (and on his wife, Marianne, in whose name most of the couple’s assets are kept). This is lousy politics, which will only notify all elected officials, present and future, that the potential price of their public service is financial ruin. As for Mr. Gingrich’s tenure as Speaker-which is sure to be questioned again when the $300,000 bill comes due-that should depend on his ability to lead the House GOP Conference and advance conservative causes, not on his adherence to the latest punitive Beltway whim.