Silent Cal’s 6 Simple Rules

Good advice for any President. [Link]

1.      “Don’t hurry to legislate.”

For Obama, more legislation is often the answer to our problems, whether it’s gun control, health care reform, or the economy. Obama’s roughshod push for the economic stimulus and various government bailouts reflected that same abiding faith in the healing power of legislation.

Coolidge, in a speech called Have Faith in Massachusetts, expressed a different idea: “Don’t hurry to legislate.” There are natural limitations to what human law can accomplish, and we should not delude ourselves with false expectations. “There is danger of disappointment and disaster,” Coolidge said, unless we understand and appreciate what law can and cannot do. What legislation cannot do, and should not attempt to do, is provide “some short cut to perfection.” As we saw recently during the gun control debate, “When legislation fails, those who look upon it as a sovereign remedy simply cry out for more legislation.”

Invoking the American founders, Coolidge often argued that law “loses its sanctity and authority” when it is “changed and changeable on slight provocation.” In other words, in order to inculcate respect and reverence for the rule of law, reform should be a difficult and arduous task, requiring much time and extensive deliberation. “It is much more important,” Coolidge said, “to kill bad bills than to pass good ones,” because there is no immediate remedy and complete solution in any act of Congress. “There is no magic in government,” he cautioned.

2.      Don’t promise much.

If the public mind rests in the belief that there can be no limit to what the law can accomplish, there will also be no limit to what our elected officials will promise. This is well demonstrated by Obama’s grand claim that his election would be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

“The country,” Coolidge said, “cannot be run on the promise of what it will do for the people.” “[A] sound and wise statesmanship,” he explained, “will undoubtedly find itself displaced by that type of public official who promises much, talks much, legislates much, expends much, but accomplishes little.” In that case, “The deliberate, sound judgment of the country is likely to find it has been superseded by a popular whim.” Coolidge here offers a warning against the very type of president that Obama proved to be.

Moreover, the habit of promising much, he says, precludes the possibility of sound and wise statesmanship. Americans are often fond of asking if there could ever be another Washington or Lincoln in the White House. If Coolidge were here today, he might say our expectations are too high for another Washington or Lincoln to satisfy.

3.      Economize.

More than any other issue, Obama could use a good lesson from ‘Silent Cal’ Coolidge on the issue of economy. As Amity Shlaes astutely notes, Coolidge “did not say ‘savings’; he said ‘thrift’ or ‘economy.’ Indeed, he especially cherished the word ‘economy’ because it came from the Greek for ‘household.’ To Coolidge the national household resembled the family household.” In other words, Coolidge used old words with their old meanings, and economy meant living within your means. In his Autobiography, Coolidge wrote, “There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.”

Coolidge, the last president to pay down the national debt, would be aghast at the nation’s current sixteen trillion dollar debt and record deficits. While the Coolidge era enjoyed unprecedented prosperity—low unemployment, high wages, and low cost of living—the economic picture in the age of Obama continues to look bleak. The style of household management Coolidge brought to the national government saved money, yes, but he always saw the larger point – his purpose was “to save people,” not dollars. A strong economy could satisfy the American people in a way new legislation and empty political promises never could. For that reason, Coolidge said, “After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government.”

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