Pitting opposite extremes against one another doesn’t create political balance. Worst-case you get civil war. Best-case you recreate the story of the Zax.
The only thing that can possibly help is a return to moderation, which allows compromise. The only way I see that happening is via a better-educated (and honestly educated) electorate that engages fully in the political process. So we’re screwed.
Erik_J
1902
I find this the most interesting aspect. For such a seemingly smart guy, he’s shit at playing the game.
Enidigm
1903
It’s why I voted for Perry last governors race even though it was largely symbolic gesture since he was doomed to win anyway. A one party government by Republican standards is the only way to get things done since they will stonewall against any revenue increases anyway and spend their time trying to piss on Democrats rather than governing.
More the latter than the former. Here in Utah, the more centrist conservative talk radio went on at length both before and after about the disproportionate power of the primary system, and how it was used to basically oust moderate republicans with 100s of votes before they got to the point that it would take thousands of votes to overcome them.
Yes but threatening to do nothing means the tax cuts expire. Its not the same as the debt ceiling issue, they cant use the same tactics and have them win on renewing the tax cuts after the election.
Houngan
1906
. . . except the Democrats have the political spine of a sea cucumber. One negative press conference where the GOP says that the Dems are raising taxes and they’ll fold like an origami chicken.
H.
Well that is more the fault of the dems then of any tactics used by the republicans. Unless the republicans take over everything in the 2012 elections the tax cuts cannot be extended without the dems agreeing to do it. Hell they wouldn’t have been extended the first time without the dems agreeing to it.
Houngan
1908
Yes, we know. It’s amazing how you make lucid, calm points when criticizing Democrats, but not the other way around.
H.
I’m a bit daft, but we spend a lot on Afghanistan and Iraq, yet that did nothing for our recession (and is a large part of this deficit problem).
Different scenario. We aren’t building tons of weapons for Iraq. We are paying costs of deployment and upkeep. There isn’t a huge boost to manufacturing happening, like there was with WW2. Plus, the scale of the war is VERY different.
Lum wasn’t trying to suggest that all wars help the economy.
The idea of Keynesian demand-management is that you maintain a balanced budget over the business cycle. When the economy is growing, you build up a surplus, and then when the cycle falls, you spend that surplus on stimulative programs to prevent a recession from turning into a depression. This is useful for the economy because it smooths out the bumps; gentler growth in the up-phase (and less capital lost to what Galbraith called “the bezzle”), and shorter and shallower falls in the down-phase. And it allows a government to maintain balanced books and so avoid the problems of, eg, the long-term drain on the budget of paying interest on debts.
The problem with the Iran and Afghanistan wars (I mean, putting aside the moral problem of murdering tens of thousands of people on a false pretext and… &c &c) was that from a stimulus point of view, they were started at the wrong time. The Bush administration artificially created a whole lot of extra demand at a time when there was no shortage of demand in the economy, and they did it at enormous public expense. This had the effect of creating a huge bubble in the economy, which led to a colossal fall… and then when the fall came, there was limited money available for counter-cyclical spending because Bush had been running massive deficits during the up-phase of the business cycle.
So… yes, you’re right, the wars are a big part of the deficit problem. But the argument that “WW2 pulled the USA out of the depression” isn’t just an expression of a simple principle that “war is good for the economy”. Creating more effective demand is only a useful thing to do when there’s a shortage of demand - ie, when you’re in a recession. During the Bush years we saw one side of the anti-Keynesian coin, stimulative spending during a boom. Now we’re about to see the other side of that coin; spending cuts during a recession. We should expect this to produce exactly the kind of economic environment that led Keynes to formulate his theory in the first place; a deep, prolonged recession which shows no signs of ever coming to a natural end.
JeffL
1912
Yeah, the nature of the primary systems overall is a problem. The only people who go vote in primaries, typically, are the more extreme (both sides) as they tend to be the most politically active.
So, as everyone here knows, you end up with candidates who won their primaries because they were more extreme or at least kowtowed to the extremists to get their votes.
To the person that was talking about the media coverage of things like the Wisconsin protests, I saw media coverage and it was overall rather sympathetic. But that is not an organized bloc of voters that is sustained over the years.
I’d love to see a “common sense” moderate movement come out of what has been happening, that is as organized and active as the Tea Party. One that carried a lot of voting weight and leverage. One that actively, every frikken day (because the Tea Party is active every frikken day) is out there making noise. The problem is that moderates and common sense people tend to be more focused on their daily local lives, perhaps to their detriment. But man, I’d sure get active if there was a movement that was organized that came out of what just happened in Washington, a “Mad as Hell” movement. I’ve got Republican friends at work who are as pissed as I am at all of this, and can’t believe the Tea Party would resort to hostage taking of the nation’s economy.
You know, the reasoning makes sense, but this just isn’t borne out by the results on the Democratic side. What was the last truly liberal Democratic nominee for the Presidency? I’m not even talking about the lefty equivalent of Palin or Bachmann, just someone as liberal as Reagan or Bush I was conservative, let’s say.
Edit: thinking about it now, the difference may be that Democrats, as disorganized as they are, tend to accept that their candidate is going to have to deal with conservatives of both parties once in power, and therefore just try to get someone elected (for example, I’m way farther left than any of the 2008 candidates, but I certainly didn’t vote for the leftmost option). By contrast, Republicans maintain a solid enough coalition that they can afford to vote for less moderate candidates, maybe?
That was nominated? One could certainly make the argument for Humphrey or McGovern. I don’t know much about Mondale or his campaigns.
I actually have an Austrian-school friend that doesn’t see the US public spending on WW2 as the most obvious example of Keynesian stimulus spending EVAR. Or he says, “if that was Keynesianism, F that, what with wage/price controls, etc.” I explain that obviously it was a superexaggerated instance of public stimulus spending, that no one is suggesting doing anything like that right now, but he just figuratively puts his fingers in his ears and sings “lalalala.”
jeffd
1916
Looking forward: given that the GOP is willing to destroy the economy to get what they want, and that Democrats (rightfully) aren’t: where does this go? Is the inevitable endgame the GOP chipping away at the welfare state, one debt ceiling at a time while Democrats are reduced to fighting a rearguard to protect what pieces they can? Will we eventually provoke a Constitutional crisis via the 14th amendment and hope the Supreme Court sees things the way liberals do?
jeffd
1917
It’s worth pointing out that there’s no reason for this to be inevitable. The state of play is that moderates don’t bother with primaries, but that’s generally a choice moderates make: they don’t care about political outcomes enough to be involved.
I also think that it’s not the fundamental flaw in our democracy. Our system is pretty much designed to reward extremism, and that’s not solely (or even primarily) a function of partisan primaries. The fact that it is almost impossible to get anything done leads parties to fall back into rhetorical trenches in an attempt to at least keep their bases happy, which ends up being a reinforcing mechanism to the extreme partisanship we see. I honestly think we are seeing the beginnings of the failure of our Constitutional order, viz, the reduction of the USA to a banana republic.
They will hold other legislation hostage, including raising the debt limit again. Sure, if it was ONLY about enacting new legislation that extended the tax cuts the Democrats could play hardball and keep it from happening, but the Republicans will threaten other bills.
Let’s not forget that the reason wild-eyed libs don’t get nominated as major party candidates to the Presidency (nor to many other national offices) because of WHO FUNDS OUR ELECTION CAMPAIGNS. TV and radio time don’t come cheap, and the bulk of the funding thus comes from the people and institutions who have the money to spare in great quantities. With few exceptions those people tend not to support crazy liberals.
MikeJ
1920
I’m sure the Republicans figure they will get a great deal out of the second round committee and that Obama will capitulate again on extending the Bush tax cuts and (if he happens to win re-election) again on the next debt-ceiling increase. Maybe that’s even the most likely sequence of events.
But the default scenario where there’s cuts primarily to defense and doctors over ten years and the end of the Bush tax cuts doesn’t seem like the end of the world. The timing is not good, but it’s in the rough shape of something that needs to happen in the medium term.
What alternative plan will the defense and medical lobbies advocate for? I guess they could focus on gutting medicaid, social security or the consumer side of medicare, but those are pretty popular targets. Why wouldn’t they be for closing some tax loopholes in other industries? It seems to me that this would be the most politically acceptable alternative to the broad American public. Basically I don’t see why these lobbies align with the Tea-party on this. Maybe I’m just in denial.
