E Pluribus Unum

From the WSJ, April 14 (sorry, no link):

Mr. Rubin affixed the name of the first Treasury secretary to the "the Hamilton Project," an effort by former Clinton administration officials and sympathizers to devise and promote policies that they describe as "strikingly different from the theories driving current economic policies."

Gosh, that would mean economic policies that actually, you know, work.

The piece quotes current secretary John Snow as pooh-poohing the whole idea. But who cares what he thinks? Compared to Rubin, he's a hack.

Hamilton, says Rubin, "stood for the dual proposition that economic activity should be organized around markets, but that government had an important role in providing many of the requisites for economic success."

This is good stuff. Hamilton, of course, was a Federalist, the polar opposite of the Jeffersonian Republicans (as in "French Republic" or anti-monarchists). In fact, Hamilton and Jefferson detested each other. John Adams represented the middle ground, although the Jeffersonians thought he was simply Hamilton's puppet.

The Hamilton Project, financed by Mr. Rubin and others and housed at the Brookings Institution think tank, argues that prosperity is best achieved by "making economic growth broad-based, by enhancing individual economic security and by embracing a role for effective government in making needed public investments."

Democrats would do well to pay attention to Rubin and his project. It's not for me to say whether or not President Clinton was right when he called Robert Rubin "the greatest Treasury Secretary since Hamilton," but we certainly haven't seen any that were his equal since he left office.