If George Bush could sweep away all the political and legal roadblocks to U.S. economic aid for the Soviet Union, he would still be hard pressed to find prudent ways to provide it. Loans from the West, no matter how generously dispensed, could not transform the huge and irrational Soviet economy into a productive enterprise. Moscow is $2 billion behind in its payments to foreign suppliers right now, and is running a budget deficit of more than $100 billion. Transfusions will not provide a cure.
Even food aid would be almost useless, since the primary cause of the Soviet Union's meat...