`BRIDGE TO FUTURE' BUILT ON FAULTY FOUNDATION.

Byline: Gary M. Galles

WHETHER campaigning or at his inaugural, Bill Clinton has identified himself with a bridge to the future. However, his rhetoric has been contradictory and his first-term actions would seem to show that, rather than being a bridge to a better future, President Clinton's administration may really be a bridge to a future that Americans have feared for over two centuries.

The fears that Bill Clinton's presidency brings to mind were those of the Anti-Federalists, who, over two centuries ago, feared that the federal government, which would arise under the Constitution, would be too powerful. With that power would come federal abuse of individual and state's rights. In particular, they were the fears of someone also ironically named Clinton - Governor George Clinton of New York, writing under the pseudonym ``Cato'' - who argued that the power of the president would be abused.

Consider some of George Clinton's concerns about the presidency.

``(His) ambition for power and aggrandizement will oppress and grind you . . . the complication of interests, the science of government will become intricate and perplexed and too mysterious for you to understand and observe.

``The execution of revenue laws (will be) a fruitful source of oppression . . . the extent, policy and practice of it will naturally lead to make odious distinctions among citizens.

``(His) great power . . . may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic . . . This tempts his ambition, which . . . (is) pernicious and the duration of his office for any considerable time, favors his views and gives him the means and time to execute his designs; he therefore fancies that he may be great and glorious by oppressing his fellow-citizens.

``(He) will attach many adherents to him and he will be surrounded by expectants and courtiers . . . if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.

``He will therefore be unsupported by proper information and advice and will generally be directed by minions or favorites.

``The unrestrained power . . . may be used to screen from punishment those whom he secretly instigated to commit the crime and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.

``(There would be) dangerous inequality . . . created among citizens, as relative to their rights and property.

``Opinion . . . may not always be a permanent obstruction against the encroachments of government (beyond Constitutional restrictions) . . . ambition . . . will teach (presidents) where limits are not explicitly fixed to have separate and distinct interests from the people . . . a general presumption that rulers will govern well, is not a sufficient security.

``The doctrine of taxation . . . nothing requires more wisdom and prudence than the regulation of that portion, which taken from and of that which is left to the subject - and if you anticipate what will be the enormous expense of this new government . . . little will that portion be, which will be left to you. I know there are politicians who believe that you should be loaded with taxes, in order to make you industrious . . . but it is an erroneous principle. For what can inspire you with industry, if the greatest measure of your labors are to be swallowed up in taxes? . . . This government . . . will require more money than its commerce can afford . . . this revenue . . . will come to you and be a heavy and ruinous one . . . government . . . therefore must have recourse to . . . a long train of impositions, which there ingenuity will suggest.

``The burdens on you will be insupportable - your complaints will be inefficacious . . . you and the government . . . will, one day, be at issue on this point . . . if government therefore can, notwithstanding every opposition, raise revenue on such things as are odious and burdensome to you, they can do anything.

``Making treaties . . . money may be contracted for and you must pay it and a thousand other obligations may be entered into; all of which will become the supreme law of the land and you are bound by it. If treaties are erroneously or wickedly made, who is there to punish - the executive can always cover himself . . . neither the executive nor . . . his advisors can be brought to punishment for mal-administration.''

It is hard to read these concerns of Cato, without finding connections to Whitewater, Filegate, Lipposuction and other scandals, retroactive changes in taxation, foreign policy blunders, broken promises, violations of civil property rights, indecision and policy flip-flops, health care stupidity, abusive regulatory mandates and more.

Bill Clinton is a young president, but his administration, reflects these very old fears of George Clinton (who found them important enough to justify opposing ratification of the Constitution). Rather than making him a bridge to a better future; this makes him a bridge to longstanding concerns of presidential abuse (and a toll bridge at that).