Through weeks of mud fights, lawsuits and political turmoil, Americans have been remarkably calm as they have waited to discover who their next president might be. There is a reason. The man we count on to keep the nation on course is still going to work every day and is not expected to leave his ornate Washington office until 2004 at the earliest.
Presidents may come and go but Alan Greenspan prevails. As chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Greenspan has guided the nation through its longest peacetime boom in history, an extraordinary expansion that has added many trillions of dollars to our personal and national wealth.
Greenspan's skillful monetary fine tuning and his artful political skills have left him with a unique God-like status in increasingly contentious Washington. Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much these days but Greenspan's stewardship of the economy enjoys abiding bipartisan support.
With that kind of clout, Greenspan's views are likely to have far more impact on the federal budget in coming months than the political agenda of the incoming president -- selected narrowly in an angry legal struggle.
So say goodbye to George W. Bush's plan to spend much of the projected multitrillion-dollar budget surplus on a giant tax cut. And forget about Gore's proposals for expensive new health care and education initiatives. Greenspan would prefer to continue paying down the national debt and to avoid expensive new spending commitments -- and that's what is likely to happen.
Greenspan's determinedly moderate agenda is conveniently harmonious with the political gridlock the next president is likely to find in the new Congress, which will be as closely divided politically as the nation has been in its choice of president. And his cautious approach to managing the economy offers a reassuring safety belt as the United States faces an uncertain economic future.
In fact, there is a considerable body of opinion that the next four years may be rocky enough economically to challenge even Greenspan's renowned capability.
While the Fed maintains its vigilance against inflation, there is a mounting evidence that the nation could be heading into a significant economic decline -- a cold-water plunge likely to be particularly painful to a generation of workers and investors who have seen nothing but good times.
