John McCain has been called many things: American Hero, political maverick, Lazarus of the current presidential campaign. After his win in the New Hampshire primary yesterday, he's sure to be called much else. But I've never heard him called an
"Alan Greenspan Republican."
That is, not until I read David Leonhardt's probing analysis of the Arizona senator's economic plan in today's New York Times. (Free registration may be required.)
Contrasting McCain with his opponents Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani (Bush Republicans) and Mike Huckabee (Fair Tax Republican), the economic columnist says that the senator feels that laissez-faire economics might not solve every problem.
Like former Fed Chairman Greenspan, McCain thinks "that the government sometimes has to alter the incentives that a free market creates, to avoid a bad outcome," Leonhardt writes. "When forced to choose between the power of incentives and the magic of the market, Mr. McCain is willing to go with incentives."
One such bad outcome is apparently global warming. Thus, McCain reportedly wants to hike the cost of energy use by setting a ceiling on how much carbon the nation can emit by means of a "cap and trade" program. (Our cover story this month supplies an in-depth look at corporate carbon trading.)
What's more, McCain would like to tinker with health-care payment incentives and have the government refuse to pay for such things as unnecessary surgery. The workings of a free medical market might not be enough to provide the cost cuts he thinks are needed. Though they're not precisely in the fiscal sphere, such views might be dubbed Greenspanian—suggesting a future occupation for the senator if he fails to get to the White House. Ben Bernanke must be quaking in his boots.
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