In the course of the interview, senatorial candidate Tom Campbell said 3 other things that surprised me:
1) On trade: I asked the famously free-trade Campbell whether he thought there might be any case for trade sanctions against a country like China that persistently under-valued its currency. Campbell answered – these are from my shorthand, so please note they are not verbatim replies – that the WTO did not regard monetary policy as a legal basis for compensatory tariffs. But in his opinion that was a mistake in the law. Economically, sanctions against a country that persistently under-valued its currency are justified, and he would be open to them as a legislator if a legal framework for them could be found.
2) Campbell’s libertarianism makes him a reluctant interventionist. He had opposed the Kosovo war, for example, denouncing it as an illegal violation of the War Powers Act. I asked him whether he would have supported the president’s decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan. He said he would. Afghanistan was a war already under progress, he said, and the legislature should not second-guess the military judgments of the commander-in-chief about the resources required.
3) Campbell spoke with intense anger about the administration’s TARP program. Facing a collapse of the U.S. banking system in October 2008, the right response Campbell said was the same as Nixon’s response to the Arab attack on Israel in 1973: “Send everything.” But in the subsequent months, the program has shifted purpose, and now threatens to shift purpose again, as a source of administration financing for job-creation projects. These shifts violated congressional intent. Congress, Campbell said, was entitled to feel it had been the “victim of a bait and switch.”
3 responses so far
1 balconesfault // Feb 5, 2010 at 8:35 am
But in his opinion that was a mistake in the law. Economically, sanctions against a country that persistently under-valued its currency are justified, and he would be open to them as a legislator if a legal framework for them could be found.
Isn’t that kind of a dodge? Clearly, without an activist committment to creating some sort of new legal framework, this whole thing becomes kind of moot – it sounds more like he was appeasing you than taking you seriously.
He had opposed the Kosovo war, for example, denouncing it as an illegal violation of the War Powers Act. I asked him whether he would have supported the president’s decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan.
Ok – but then did you not ask him about the Big Kahuna – the invasion of Iraq? That’s a more critical question in particular for Republican lawmakers who opposed Kosovo – is a libertarian Republican with a predisposition to non-intervention at the end of the day going to be a man of principle, or a man who follows Party direction?
Congress, Campbell said, was entitled to feel it had been the “victim of a bait and switch.”
Had Campbell been in Congress at the time, would he have joined with the legislators who were calling for a much stricter set of stipulations on how TARP would be used, and what kind of strings Congress could attach to the money – or would he have been with the group who believed that full discretionary power should be handed to the President and the Treasury Secretary?
2 sinz54 // Feb 5, 2010 at 10:23 am
balconesfault:
Unless Obama gives support, the whole thing really is moot.
We don’t even know if a new legal framework would face a Presidential veto for interfering with some of the deals that a desperate POTUS is making with the Chinese to keep living with America’s debts rather than really asserting themselves.
3 balconesfault // Feb 5, 2010 at 2:43 pm
desperate POTUS
Sadly, that is probably close to an accurate characterization, after the Chinese holdings of US dollars had to grow by almost half-a-trillion in 2008 alone to keep our currency from plummeting in value.
Under Bush, Chinese holdings of US securities went from 181 billion in 2002, to 1.2 trillion in 2008. Now this, like the deficit, suddenly becomes a problem to Republicans now that Obama is in office.
You must log in to post a comment.