On the death of William F. Buckley, Jr., publisher of The National Review, Rush Limbaugh became the “elder statesman” of the conservative movement, the New York Times Sunday Magazine reported in its July 6 cover story. The writer, Zev Chafets, said he asked Limbaugh what his own presidential agenda would look like. Here is Limbaugh’s answer, interspersed with a few remarks of my own:

1. Open the continental shelf to drilling. Ditto the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. [This—the apparent sum total of Limbaugh's environment-imperiling energy policy—would produce a few relative trickles of oil in the distant future. The Natural Resources Defense Council says, for example: "It would take 10 years for any Arctic Refuge oil to reach the market, and even when production peaks—in the distant year of 2027—the refuge would produce a paltry 1 or 2 percent of Americans' daily consumption."]

2. Establish a 17 percent flat tax. [Taxing Limbaugh at the same rate as the 14 million Americans in his weekly audience is what we should do, right? Limbaugh "was on the verge of signing a new eight-year contract with his syndicator," Chafets wrote. "He estimated that it would bring in about $38 million a year." One of Limbaugh's five houses is "24,000 square feet"; its main guest suite "was designed as an exact replica of the presidential suite of the George V Hotel in Paris." One of his half-dozen cars is a "Maybach 57S, which runs around $450,000 fully loaded." His "newest airplane, a Gulfstream G550...cost him, he told me, $54 million." One advocate of a 17 percent flat tax was former House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey. "A group of conservative Republican economists," the American Legion Magazine reported in December 1995, "has charged that" Armey's plan "would result in 'significantly higher taxes' for the middle class." ]

3. Privatize Social Security. [Creating private accounts would "make Social Security's financing problem worse, not better," and "could dampen economic growth, which would further weaken Social Security's future finances," a 2004 Century Foundation report said. Moreover,the report said, "Privatization has been a disappointment elsewhere"; "The odds are against individuals investing successfully"; "What you get will depend on whether you retire when the market is up or down"; "Wall Street would reap windfalls from your taxes"; "Private accounts would require a new government bureaucracy. "Young people would be worse off"; "Women stand to lose the most"; "African Americans and Latin Americans also would become more vulnerable under privatization," and "Retirees will not be protected against inflation."]

4. Give parents school vouchers to break the monopoly of public education. [I.e, transfer tax dollars from schools that accept all children to fee-based private and religious schools that select the students they want, and that are not accountable to the taxpayers.]

5. Revoke Jimmy Carter’s passport while he is out of the country.

6. Abandon all government policies based on the hoax of man-made global warming. [Hoax? "If we don't begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next several years, and really on a very different course, then we are in trouble," NASA climate scientist James E. Hansen warned in June. "Then the ice sheets are in trouble. Many species on the planet are in trouble." The overwhelming majority of qualified, unbought scientists agree.]

Chafets wrote that “No. 5 was a joke. I think.”

No’s. 1,2,3,4 and 6 are bad jokes. I think.

Chafets handed Limbaugh a golden opportunity to write a broad, even visionary, presidential agenda, but his “actual concerns” turned out to be as thin as one of his La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel stogies. Not a word about the war in Iraq, for example. Or the estimated 47 million Americans who have no health insurance and the 25 million who are underinsured. Or foreign policy and how the rest of the world regards us. Or torture. Or the stagnant economy, inflation, joblessness, and the staggering national debt we will bequeath to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Or energy conservation. Or the weapons programs with a projected cost of $1.7 trillion, twice what it was in 2000. Or government secrecy. Or George W. Bush’s habit of appointing federal regulators who had devoted their careers to undermining the regulations they would swear to enforce.

“I consider myself a defender of corporate America,” Limbaugh said, without elaborating. Fine. But just what, exactly, is he defending? The federal government spending “roughly $75 billion a year,” according to the libertarian CATO Foundation, “on programs that provide subsidies to private businesses”? Corporations spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually on lobbying in Washington and state capitols? Pharmaceutical manufacturers lying to the FDA and physicians about the safety of their drugs? Tobacco companies addicting children to smoking? Auto manufacturers refusing to provide life-saving seat belts until Ralph Nader forced them to do so? Coal-mining and other industrial companies refusing to provide safe workplaces? Health-insurers blocking universal health coverage while finding loopholes to deny coverage, drowning physicians in wasteful paperwork, and over-paying their executives? CEOs awarding themselves huge compensation even when they fail at their jobs? Hedge-fund billionaires paying taxes at lower rates than their receptionists?

The conservative movement’s elder statesman can give himself all the time he wants in his radio programs to answer questions such as those raised here, one by one, and in depth. Will he? Don’t bet a Gulfstream 550 on it.