Gore’s risky scheme: Himself

The two funniest remarks from the campaign trial last week? The best was delivered by Bill Clinton at a campaign rally in New
York: “If you are for smaller government, then Al Gore is for you.” The second best was the statement from the Federation of
Government Employees declaring that George W. Bush’s criticism of bureaucrats is “hate language.”

Here’s how Martin Dunleavy, the political affairs director for the Federation of Government Employees, put it: “Any time you use
hate language there are repercussions. You’re sowing discontent. If you took out the word ‘bureaucrat’ from what Bush is saying and
put in the word ‘Jew’ or ‘black person,’ people would say that that was prejudice.”

OK, let’s play Mr. Dunleavy’s word game. First, here is what Bush is saying: “This election must bring a victory of freedom and
innovation and a defeat for central planners and bureaucrats.” Where’s the hate? If nothing else, what the economic record shows
over the past century is that bureaucrats are a drag, that central planning is far from the top path for
innovation. Who among us is driving a Russian car?

Sure, take out the word “bureaucrats,” as Dunleavy suggests, and substitute “Jews” or “black persons” and Bush’s sentences become
bald-faced expression of prejudice: “This election must bring a victory of freedom and innovation and a defeat for Jews and black
persons.” Re-worded like that, it becomes “hate language” simply because it makes no sense. In contrast, say it the way Bush is
saying it, pointing to “bureaucrats” as an obstacle to freedom and innovation, and it makes total sense, and thus expresses zero
prejudice.

Here’s another. Bush says, “Al Gore trusts Washington bureaucrats. I trust the American people.” Again, switch the words, as
Dunleavy suggests: “Al Gore trusts Washington Jews. I trust the American people.” What, we’re to buy the absurd notion that both
sentences are the same, that Bush is guilty of a hate crime because he dares to pass judgment on the overblown D.C. bureaucracy? It
doesn’t work.

One more time, just to fully underline the senselessness of Dunleavy’s criticism. A recent Bush press release is headlined:
“Gore’s Drug Plan: A Plan Only a Bureaucrat Could Love.” And more, Bush says a victory for Gore means we’ll soon find ourselves
being “ordered around” by “2,000 new bureaucrats.” And that’s the same as saying “A Plan Only a Jew Could Love,” and that we’re
going to end up being pushed around by “2,000 new black persons”? Sorry, and I guess this will also be judged to be a hate crime,
but it looks to me like the D.C. bureaucrats have hired a mighty wacky bureaucrat to run their political affairs office.

And what’s left to say about Bill Clinton, the bitter-ender who’s finishing his last lap pushing the fictitious view that Al Gore
is the best laissez-faire man to liberate us from Big Government? What’s left to say except that it’s just one more lie? Looking at
Al Gore’s proposed increases in government spending, for instance, the Committee for Responsible
Government comes to this conclusion: “There’s really nothing like it until you go back to the spending programs of LBJ’s Great
Society.” It’s the same with the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation: “Gore’s economic proposal represents the
biggest income redistribution program in history.”

Last month, as a reward for his proposed spending increases, Al Gore was designated as “Porker of the Month” by the Citizens
Against Government Waste.

Adding up all of Gore’s new spending proposals, the National Taxpayers Union reaches two conclusions. First, Gore is proposing to
expand the federal budget by $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years — $160 billion more than the total projected non-Social Security
surplus. Second, for every $1 in tax cuts that Gore is proposing, he’s seeking a hike in federal spending of $6.75. And those tax
cuts, small as they are, are only for “the right people,” as Gore himself explains — i.e., only for those lucky serfs who can
manage to jump through the assortment of hoops that have been set up by the central planners.

Bottom line? “The American Left, whose current standard bearers are Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, still believes in 1920s-era
socialism,” says Loyola College economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo. “Al Gore’s 190-page ‘economic plan’ is as detailed as any of
the former Soviet Union’s vaunted Five-Year Plans.”

Let’s face it. In Al Gore’s world, there’s a government program for everything and everything about the free market is too
“risky.” Personalized Social Security retirement accounts are “Wall Street Roulette,” Bush’s tax cuts are “a risky scheme,”
market-based Medicare reform is too decentralized and uncontrolled, education reform based on more personal choice is a dicey
proposition, cars are a bigger threat than China, and too much drilling for American oil is hazardous to the salmon and caribou.

But most risky of all for Al Gore is the idea that he might have to get his grabby paws off our wallets. Says Doug Bandow, a
senior fellow at the Cato Institute: “In Al Gore’s mind, nothing is riskier than letting taxpayers keep more of their own money.
Which makes his election the riskiest action American voters could take.”

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Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh.