George Will: Skeptical of Predictions

April 20 -- Four decades ago, I was a graduate student at Oxford where I heard a talk by a biographer — and admirer — of Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian revolution.

The biographer said, without a trace of irony, this: "Proof of Trotsky's farsightedness is that none of his predictions have come true yet."

Last week brought two reminders that lots of people are farsighted like that.

A Manhattan Institute study refuted predictions made in 1996, about that year's landmark welfare reforms. The predictions were that welfare rolls would be reduced, by forcing single mothers into dead-end jobs — and poverty.

But the Manhattan Institute study shows that by 2001, the poverty rate of single mothers had declined about 20 percent. And in the first five years under the reforms, single mothers' inflation-adjusted incomes rose 21 percent.

In 2001, the average hourly wage of single mothers was $11.60, more than twice the minimum wage of $5.15 cents. And only 4 percent of working single mothers earned the minimum wage or less.

Cheaper Gas

Here is another prediction that fell flat: Two months ago it was confidently asserted that war would mean skyrocketing oil prices. And for a while war fears did drive prices higher.

But last Wednesday's Washington Post included this headline: "Gas Prices Continue to Fall."

On March 14, the national average for a gallon of regular gas was $1.72.

One month and one war later, the price was down to $1.60 — and still falling.

Today, a gallon costs less, in inflation-adjusted prices, than it did 50 years ago, when my father filled our family Plymouth in Champaign, Ill., paying 29 cents a gallon.

Regarding welfare reform, gas prices and much else, there are a lot of Trotskyites, people farsighted in the sense that none of their predictions have come true — yet.