From the February, 1995 issue of Crisis Investing Unfortunately, Dick Cheney isn't a proven incompetent or lightweight, which is why he's so dangerous. Like Jack Kemp, Dick very much wants to be president. Let's look at this darling of big government conservatives. To start with, Dick has never in his whole life, until just now, had a job outside government. He is, in other words, a professional political hack. He's just been hired by Morgan Stanley (undoubtedly for seven figures) not because he knows the first thing about investment or finance, but to retail the connections he garnered in a lifetime of politicking. Dick started out as a Ph.D candidate in politics at that bastion of the free market, the University of Wisconsin. From there he solicited a job at the Office of Economic Opportunity, one of the most destructive bureaucracies, where he was an apparatchik for years. His next step was to seek election as the congressman for Wyoming, where he always voted to raise the debt ceiling, kited checks at the House bank and always voted yea on tax increases. Dick is on the board of the Council for Foreign Relations (a club for big government internationalists), and both the Boston Globe and the New York Times have referred to him as a "pragmatic conservative" (translated, that means someone who votes for big military and has no abiding principles). Dick has made the intelligence community (see above comments on "Bud" McFarlane) and the military his hobby, although he's never been in the military. He wants to keep a full complement of troops stationed in both Europe and Asia, he involved the military in the War on Drugs, and he considers revitalizing the U.N. and its "peacekeeping" forces an achievement. Dick knows that war is the health of the State, and approves. He fancies himself a foreign policy expert, but his experience consists completely of talking to his opposite numbers in foreign bureaucracies&emdash;which is to say, ambitious political hacks like himself. I'd say he could double his knowledge of the real world just by taking a two-day hike in Mexico and talking to some common working people. There's more&emdash;and nothing good that I can determine. You probably would not have heard much of this elsewhere, because Cheney's (like most politicians') spin doctors try to make sure that conservative audiences only hear what will appeal to them, and liberal audiences only hear the things they like. What Now? Many are jubilant about the Republican victory; I'm pleased myself, because they're an improvement in some ways. But it's most unlikely they'll roll back the Statute; they'll slow its growth in some areas, but augment it in other s. the idea of a flat 17% income tax is a great one (for openers), but already it seems like they're more interested in imposing their social values. All Gingrich really has to do is shut up, reduce taxes and regulations radically, and he'd be the most poplar man in the country. Will he? The Republicans have always founds a way to blow it in the past, an just come across as me-tooers who are really just moderate, as opposed to radical, collectivists. At best, they talk the talk but rarely walk the walk. Bill Bradford recently pointed out that even if the Republicans eliminated all entitlements except Social Security and Medicare (which account for $512 billion in 1995, and are skyrocketing as the population ages), federal spending would drop by $323 billion. That would cover the estimated '94 deficit of $203 billion. But they're not going to eliminate all entitlements, they are going to add spending for lots more police and prisons, orphan asylums and, almost beyond belief, more billions for the bloated military and intelligence communities. I don't doubt that some of the Republicans have good intentions and true hearts. But the system itself is completely out of control and, as with the Reaganauts, even the sincere reformers will be co-opted into the system, or drop out in disgust. In any event, the Republican party's nomenclature are people like Kemp, Dole, Bennett, Cheney and hundreds of others like them. They're entrenched, and aren't interested in anything like a free market revolution. From a personal perspective, I think it's important to let these types know they're not loved and respected. At least I don't love or respect them. I say that not to be a wet blanket in the face of the positive things about the Republican victory, but because the essence of government in Washington is unlikely to change. For my part, when I talk the talk, I like to walk the walk. At a small private gathering in New Orleans, for instance, when Cheney was introduced to me, I refused to shake hands with him, and told him why. He took it like a practiced pol, but I'm sure it threw him off stride for the next 24 hours. These types live for the adulation of the public; when you treat them with contempt, it can cave in their precarious mental balance. It's your patriotic duty as an American to politely, but firmly, make these people feel disdain. Anyway, to give you some idea of how hip Cheney is, he thought (at first) that I rebuffed him because I was a Democrat! If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The solution is to show these power mongers zero tolerance, personally as well as professionally. Look for an update on the Bush/Cheney campaign in upcoming issues of International Speculator.   Return to Top