05 September 2001

Phil Gramm

There have been a number of good articles on Phil Gramm since he has announced he'll be leaving the Senate at the end of his term (I refuse to use the term "retire" for a politician). Unlike most politicians, Gramm managed to go to Washington and remain fairly true to fairly true principles. He certainly could be an attack dog, and he did gravitate towards the spotlight (like 99 other Senate colleagues), but I don't know that he ever got full credit for being the economics intellectual that he was. Formerly a professor at Texas A&M (which has one of the great free-market, rational choice econ departments in the nation), he was able to tie market economics to politics in ways that made sense to normal, working people -- which perhaps explains why he will never be revered in libertarian intellectual circles like, say, David Friedman.

What I remember most about Gramm is how, when Rodham was poised to foist socialized medicine upon an all-too-willing nation and the only "argument" the impotent GOP had to offer was HillaryCareLite, the Senator from Texas announced that HillaryCare would pass "over my cold, dead body" and proceeded to rally successfully an opposition that already acted defeated. Despite overwhelming popularity most of his eight years, Bill Clinton never again veered from the moderate middle of American politics to his wife's socialist Left, and the nation was better for it. Phil Gramm should get as much credit as Dick Morris for that.

I cannot imagine who among the current group of GOP Senators will take his place intellectually.

[Posted @ 09:53 AM CST]