First of all, Kennedy was very pro-business. He was essentially a
business candidate. His assassination had no significant effect on
policy that anybody has been able to detect. (There was a change in
policy in the early 1970s, under Nixon, but that had to do with
changes in the international economy.)
Clinton is exactly what he says he is, a pro-business candidate.
T he Wall Street Journal had a very enthusiastic, big, front-page
article about him right after the NAFTA vote. They pointed out that
the Republicans tend to be the party of business as a whole, but that
the Democrats tend to favor big business over small business.
Clinton, they said, is typical of this. They quoted executives from
the Ford Motor Company, the steel industry, etc. who said that this
is one of the best administrations they’ve ever had.
The day after the House vote on NAFTA, the New York Times
had a very revealing front-page, pro-Clinton story by their
Washington correspondent, R.W. Apple. It went sort of like this:
People had been criticizing Clinton because he just didn’t have any
principles. He backed down on Bosnia, on Somalia, on his economic
stimulus program, on Haiti, on the health program. He seemed like a
guy with no bottom line at all.
Then he proved that he really was a man of principle and that he
really does have backbone—by fighting for the corporate version of
NAFTA. So he does have principles—he listens to the call of big
money. The same was true of Kennedy.
Radio listener: I’ve often wondered about people who have a lot of
power because of their financial resources. Is it possible to reach
them with logic?
They’re acting very logically and rationally in their own
interests. Take the CEO of Aetna Life Insurance, who makes $23
million a year in salary alone. He’s one of the guys who is going to
be running our healthcare program if Clinton’s plan passes.
Suppose you could convince him that he ought to lobby against
having the insurance industry run the healthcare program, because
that will be very harmful to the general population (as indeed it will
be). Suppose you could convince him that he ought to give up his
salary and become a working person.