REVIEW & OUTLOOK (Editorial): Tower of Babble
Bill Clinton did his best to look attentive at his economic summit yesterday, but to really understand what was going on the President-elect would have needed earphones with instant translation. How else could he, or anyone else, make sense of this economic tower of babble?</br></br>That may seem harsh, but is there a theme we're missing here other than that the country's a mess and Mr. Clinton plans to do something about it? Opening the two-day conference, Mr. Clinton dusted off his campaign stump speech, which may have been only prudent since no conclave of 300 people is ever going to be more than a giant bull session. Some in the Clinton camp have thought this was a dumb idea from the start, which is at least reassuring. Their least-awful solution has been to make the event a kind of economic "Oprah," in which designees from all sides of the Clinton coalition get to explain how they feel about the economy.</br></br>So we have economist Allen Sinai, who supports a cut in the capital gains tax, communing with MIT Keynesian Robert Solow, who wants to raise virtually every tax known to man. David Osborne, the "reinventing government" author, gets to schmooze with Ken Geiger of the teachers' unions, which think public schools with 50% drop-out rates deserve more money. Perhaps they'll all have a mind meld.</br></br>Assorted small-business owners (such as the trendy folk at neo-prep clothier J. Crew), who are supposed to create all sorts of "high-wage jobs," get to mingle with Jessica Tuchman Mathews, who would saddle those same owners with new environmental rules that cost jobs. Our favorite name on the summit list, we have to admit, is Chief Wilma Mankiller, representing the "Cherokee Nation," though we hope not a feminist economic priority.</br></br>Our own view, since Mr. Clinton is asking, is that the U.S. is not in fact in any economic crisis. The economy is now expanding, more slowly than we'd like, but enough so that any "short-term" stimulus would be counterproductive. If there is an economic emergency now, it's in Japan and Germany, which are both in recession and have long-term structural problems. Far from beating our brains out, Japan in particular might soon be asking the Clinton administration for financial help.