Waco, Texas -- THE JOKE IS that the most dangerous place in America is between Phil Gramm and a television camera.
Americans were safe Tuesday night Aug. 18, 1992, when Texas' junior senator delivered the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in Houston. Mr. Gramm was on center stage with unobstructed access to a sea of television cameras.
In his native-Georgia accent, Mr. Gramm tried to make a case for re-electing George Bush, then trailing Bill Clinton by 17 points. Mr. Gramm sneered at Mr. Clinton's plan to boost the economy and cut the deficit. He compared Mr. Clinton to a used-car salesman trying to unload a lemon.
"Clinton was like a used-car salesman peddling his vehicle for change -- the wax job was shiny, the hubcaps sparkled, the upholstery was spotless, the paint was new," he said.
"But when you look under the hood, you discover he is hawking a model from the '70s -- a Cartermobile with the axle broken and the frame bent to the left. It was a lemon for the nation in the '70s when it sent inflation through the roof and income through the floor, and it is still a lemon today."
Mr. Gramm, a former Democrat, said he judges economic issues by a simple test: "Will the benefits to be derived by spending money on this program be worth taking the money away from Dicky Flatt to pay for it?"
Dicky Flatt, who "never quite gets that blue ink off the end of his fingers," works as a printer in Mexia, a community about 40 miles east of Waco.
"The Dicky Flatt test is the Republican test and when Congress starts using that test, we are going to lick this deficit problem once and for all," Mr. Gramm said. "Bill Clinton does not know Dicky Flatt." Excited delegates chanted "Dicky Flatt, Dicky Flatt."
Mr. Gramm and Dicky Flatt didn't help the Republicans in the 1992 presidential election. Mr. Clinton drove that old Cartermobile directly to the White House where he proved to be the best friend the Republicans could ever imagine.
The Democrats had their chance. But Mr. Clinton changed directions so often that the new joke is that the most dangerous place in America is anywhere behind Bill Clinton. Friends of Bill untrampled by his quick reversals are routinely treated for whiplash. Mr. Clinton may be the all-time king of waffles and flip-flops. By one count, Mr. Clinton has changed positions on Bosnia nine times.
But Mr. Clinton did fulfill his promise to boost the economy and lower the deficit. That's more than can be said of the previous 12 years of Republican presidents. Ronald Reagan's supply-side, trickle-down theory was tested thoroughly. It bombed.
Reaganites preached that decreasing government revenues would increase government revenues. That bit of foolishness ran the federal debt from about $1 trillion to $4 trillion during the Reagan-Bush years. Today's budget would be in balance were it not for interest payments on the debt run up during the discredited experiment with supply-side economics.
The math didn't add up then, and it doesn't add up now. The new Republican solution is to cook the books by ordering up a new way to crunch the numbers.
Now, like Lucy with her football, Mr. Gramm, Newt Gingrich and the rest are back with the same exact plan.
Mr. Gramm needs to ask Dicky Flatt how he likes shelling out 28 percent of his hard-earned federal income taxes just to pay the interest on the debt run up by Reaganomics.
Dicky Flatt might not want to be taken for another ride in a deficit-belching, broken-down Reaganmobile that only goes in reverse.
Rowland Nethaway is senior editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald.