The Week

■ And what about the burden of national health care on small business? “I can’t go out and save every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America,” says the First Lady. She has found the Nineties idiom for “Let them eat cake.”

■ Why should we suppose that health-care costs will decline given that the Clinton reform will increase health-care demand? Why, counters Mrs. Clinton, ask why? “When Franklin Roosevelt proposed Social Security, he didn’t go out selling it with actuarial tables and books of regulations. He basically said, ‘Look. Here’s the deal: You pay in; you’re taken care of.’ … If he’d had to have been pressed to the wall saying, Well, what about the spouse who didn’t work, and what about somebody who only worked 20 quarters instead of 24 quarters?’—I mean we would never have had Social Security.” Or, to put it another way: a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon . . . you’re talking deficit reduction.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

■ And what about the burden of national health care on small business? “I can’t go out and save every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America,” says the First Lady. She has found the Nineties idiom for “Let them eat cake.”

■ Why should we suppose that health-care costs will decline given that the Clinton reform will increase health-care demand? Why, counters Mrs. Clinton, ask why? “When Franklin Roosevelt proposed Social Security, he didn’t go out selling it with actuarial tables and books of regulations. He basically said, ‘Look. Here’s the deal: You pay in; you’re taken care of.’ … If he’d had to have been pressed to the wall saying, Well, what about the spouse who didn’t work, and what about somebody who only worked 20 quarters instead of 24 quarters?’—I mean we would never have had Social Security.” Or, to put it another way: a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon . . . you’re talking deficit reduction.