Peggy Noonan: Now Greenspan tells us!
There is the story about a puffed-up political figure, or maybe it was a movie star, who came out with a memoir and began the requisite tour. A reporter cornered him at a cocktail party: "Did you write this book yourself?"
"Write it?" the man said. "I didn't even read it."
This crossed my mind while reading Alan Greenspan's memoir, in which the war for Iraq was all about oil, though the wise have long been prohibited from sharing this insight with the common folk. In interviews, Mr. Greenspan now corrects that: He meant the war seemed to him, though he cannot claim it did to others in power, driven primarily by American dependence on foreign energy.
In the book he fiercely opposes the Bush tax cuts. He feared the budget surpluses enjoyed in 2000 would be transformed into long-term deficits. He worried that entitlement spending would leave "a very large hole in future budgets." Not facing this was "a failure." He disdains the Great Pork Spree of the '00s. The unifying idea that governed Bush White House economic thinking--"deficits don't matter"--was, simply, wrong. Mr. Greenspan found it a "struggle" to accept that this is what the Republican Party had come to. Scrambling for political dominance became the party's great goal. "The reality was even uglier": They would spend and spend "to add a few more seats to the Republican majority."
This is all strongly, and clearly, stated.
But when the tax cuts, and the impact of spending, were being debated, Mr. Greenspan allowed his congressional testimony to be interpreted as supportive of the Bush plan. And he did this even though he had been warned in advance by those who'd seen his testimony that it would be seen as an endorsement of the tax plan....
Read entire article at WSJ
"Write it?" the man said. "I didn't even read it."
This crossed my mind while reading Alan Greenspan's memoir, in which the war for Iraq was all about oil, though the wise have long been prohibited from sharing this insight with the common folk. In interviews, Mr. Greenspan now corrects that: He meant the war seemed to him, though he cannot claim it did to others in power, driven primarily by American dependence on foreign energy.
In the book he fiercely opposes the Bush tax cuts. He feared the budget surpluses enjoyed in 2000 would be transformed into long-term deficits. He worried that entitlement spending would leave "a very large hole in future budgets." Not facing this was "a failure." He disdains the Great Pork Spree of the '00s. The unifying idea that governed Bush White House economic thinking--"deficits don't matter"--was, simply, wrong. Mr. Greenspan found it a "struggle" to accept that this is what the Republican Party had come to. Scrambling for political dominance became the party's great goal. "The reality was even uglier": They would spend and spend "to add a few more seats to the Republican majority."
This is all strongly, and clearly, stated.
But when the tax cuts, and the impact of spending, were being debated, Mr. Greenspan allowed his congressional testimony to be interpreted as supportive of the Bush plan. And he did this even though he had been warned in advance by those who'd seen his testimony that it would be seen as an endorsement of the tax plan....