Lawrence B. Lindsey has returned to AEI as a visiting scholar after serving in the White House as the chairman of the National Economic Council. He is the author of Economic Puppetmasters: Lessons from the Halls of Power (1999) and The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy (1990).

Henry Wendt Scholar Nicholas Eberstadt

Nicholas Eberstadt, in the Jerusalem Post (October 30), argues that North Korea will not be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons program: "To protect its own totalitarian system from potentially destabilizing external contamination, North Korea's leadership has specialized in exporting strategic instability and living off the protection payments it extracts from the outside world.  . . . Hopes are still high that North Korea can eventually be talked into trading away, or selling off, its nuclear program. North Korea's money flows cast a somber light on that prospect. It seems exceedingly unlikely that a skilled international extortionist would voluntarily give up such a promising tool for the trade, especially when the alternative of earning an honest living is judged to be potentially lethal to his system."

In the New York Times (November 14), Reuel Marc Gerecht advises against investing unelected bodies in Iraq: "The Iraqi Governing Council, as an unelected body, does not have the popular appeal or cohesion to propel self-government where it needs to go. Neither it nor its successor-if the [George W.] Bush administration is so unwise to replace one unelected body with another-is going to rally the citizenry to take on the Sunni insurgents. There may well be no short-term political solution to the guerrilla and terrorist strikes within the Arab-Sunni triangle. But the hurried 'Iraqification' of the country's security services makes no sense unless Iraqi democracy is pushed forward at least as quickly."

In a letter to the Washington Post (November 29), Newt Gingrich emphasizes what many see as the most promising provision of the Medicare reform bill: "[The bill] deals with the failure of the third-party-payer system by creating portable health savings accounts that accumulate money, earn interest, carry over from year to year, and can be used to pay for qualified medical expenses, all tax-free. . . . This bill returns decision-making authority, insurance ownership, and health dollars to individuals. It will promote competitive market dynamics in health care, thus creating downward pressure on health care costs."

In the Los Angeles Times (November 16), Robert W. Hahn contends that inattention to soon-expiring provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act will eventually hurt the American consumer: "If the preemption provision of the act is allowed to expire [on December 31, 2003,] there is good reason to believe that the proverbial genie will not be easily returned to the bottle. Half a dozen states are expected to follow California in passing financial privacy laws that do not conform to the federal standard. The truly national market for credit, which is the act's triumph, will fragment. Banks, charge card companies, and other lenders will adjust-there will still be ways to make a buck in credit. But the resulting inefficiencies and reduction in competition will come at the expense of . . . middle-income consumers."

Resident Fellow William Schneider

William Schneider, in National Journal (November 22), discusses the 2004 presidential contest: "Many old-line industrial unions have endorsed [Democratic presidential hopeful Richard] Gephardt, who has fought for them for years on trade. But labor is now divided. The unions that went for [Democratic candidate Howard] Dean include white-collar workers, immigrants, minorities, and low-wage service workers-in other words, people who work in offices and hospitals, not factories, and who are less affected by trade policy. . . . Does [organized labor] think Dean can beat President Bush? Dean's people say their candidate has a quality that [former Democratic candidates] George McGovern and Michael Dukakis didn't have: toughness. If Bush hits Dean, Dean will hit back. Labor loves a fighter."