BY PHILIP LITTLE
UCLA Today

As he ponders another run for the White House, former Colorado senator and two-time Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart offered his views on politics, the economy, health care, taxes and a possible war with Iraq to an audience of 350 at The Anderson School on March 4.

Hart discussed the need to create a new kind of security — beyond protecting the country’s freedom from aggression — to “restore the values of the republic, the civic virtues.” He described this new security in terms of creating a public legacy that secures the livelihoods and communities of Americans and “leaves our children with a healthy planet and a healthy economy.” Hart said that in its current state, the country “is on course to do neither.”

After his talk, Hart participated in a panel discussion with Professor Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, and Merli Baroudi of The Economist magazine.

Baroudi noted that for all its greatness, the United States has been unable to provide adequate health care for all citizens, yet the country “consumes 14% of gross domestic product on health care — more than most developed countries.”

Hart admitted that in all of his years in public life, health care is the dominant issue for which all politicians have had trouble finding a solution.

On the issue of taxes, Hart proposed consumption and environmental taxes, parti-cularly “on habits that hurt our country — pollution, wasteful energy uses and our throw-away culture.”

Leamer also discussed a paradox he calls “the politics of abundance versus the reality of scarcity,” noting that state and federal governments are trying to finance spending through tax cuts — without making spending cuts or raising taxes.

Hart acknowledged this dilemma. “Being able to afford it all,” he said, “is a fallacy.”