True Conservatism

Joe Scarborough pissed me off again this morning on MSNBC.  He's the conservative host, and he's complaining about Rick Perry.  I guess Perry was Al Gore's campaign manager back in the day, and has a history as a less conservative guy.  Joe doesn't trust him to be a "real conservative".  He twice said that Real Conservatives, "and there are only a few of us left, small government conservatives like me and Paul Ryan..."

Paul Ryan!!??!!  The Paul Ryan who voted for the prescription drug benefit?  The Paul Ryan who voted for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars without paying for them?  The Paul Ryan who votes for the Medicare "Doc Fix" every year?

Look, maybe Paul Ryan has seen the light and is no longer a Big Spending Conservative, but has truly converted to the Tea Party Small Government.  But then Joe Scarborough should consider that Rick Perry has done the same thing- that's what his record says, anyway.

It's amazing how these narratives develop and get stuck in the public consciousness.  "Paul Ryan is a fiscal conservative" is just accepted as fact, like "John Kerry is a flip-flopper", "John McCain is a maverick", etc.  Evidence ceases to matter in the public and press corps.

A Rant About Responsibility

I was at a college planning workshop last week, at which financial advisors led a group of us through the labrynthine system of financial aid and tax-deferred savings for our children.

The workshop was really good, actually.  Among other things, I learned that the system of college aid is that the formula takes parental income into account to a much greater degree than parental savings.  This is good news for those who have put money into 529 college savings plans or even who have regular investments to help for college. [Sorry for the long setup here, I'll be getting to a political point eventually- stay with me]

The trainer put up an example of two hypothetical families in which the parents make $60,000 annually.  One family has $50,000 saved for college expenses, and the other family has nothing saved.  The way the system works is that the family with the large savings gets only slightly less financial aid than the family with no savings- i.e. there's good reason to save, as the college aid process takes only around 5% of your savings, compared to over 20% of your income.

A man from the other side of the room raised his hand and made a comment/ sort-of-question.  He said something like:

Wait a minute!  One of these families is being responsible and the other family is not.  Why should the responsible family, that saved for college, have to pay more than the irresponsible family, that didn't save anything?

The trainer tried to deflect the question and get back to the point, noting that, hey, this is the system, we're just telling you about it, we don't make the rules.  But I was taken aback the more I thought about this question.  I mean, the system is set up precisely to reward saving- that's the whole point of the training and presumably an intentional feature of the system.  This guy seemed upset that the system didn't reward him for saving- when it actually does so.  I guess he means that the system doesn't reward him enough for saving.

But think about the assumptions he is making from the hypothetical example.  The family that didn't save anything is irresponsible.  Is it?  His assumption is that if they didn't save it must be because they're morally deficient.  What if a parent lost a job in the last recession and they had to drain their savings? What if a hurricane destroyed their house and the deductible wiped out that savings?  What if the "responsible" family has money because of an inheritance, and hasn't saved nearly as much as they could have? 

I know this is a lot of outrage over a hypothetical example, but the underlying conservative assumption here is that people experiencing hard times must be at fault for their problems.  And sometimes they are.  But sometimes they're not.  Our public policy needs to reflect that fact- we can't even out luck, but we can ameliorate the worst of the injustices, rather than leave the poor and unlucky to their Darwinian fate.

 

Libya Rebels Win

It's nice to have some good news, and it looks like Gadafi is finished today.  It's hard to see how that could be bad.

I've used this blog to go on record with various predictions, though, so here's one with respect to Libya: The place will be a horrible mess, with lots of violence and perhaps ongoing civil war between factions of the currently victorious rebels.  Lots more innocent people will die.  There may be a massacre of civilians who were seen as loyal to the former dictator.

.....and I don't see how Western forces or support can change that outcome.  The NATO strategy of bombing and supporting the rebels without sending troops in has been a success.  But there remain limits to what can be done without lots of boots on the ground.  We have to stay out of there and leave the results to the Libyans, come what may.  I previously thought that US and European involvement would necessarily escalate, or that a bloodbath would occur in any case and we were only postponing it.  It's looking like I might have been wrong there, and I'm glad I was!  But I think it's really key to get out fast and declare victory now- don't get bogged down again.

Rick Perry- Like W, only Dumber

I know there's a lot of noise now about Rick Perry, much consisting of attacks from the Left, but this video clip really blew me away (from Jon Chait at TNR).

Right at the start of the video we get this exchange:

Interviewer: Governor, why does Texas continue with Abstinence Education programs when they don't seem to be working, if fact I think we have the third highest teen pregnancy rate in the country.
Perry: Abstinence works (audience laughs)
Interviewer: But we have the 3rd highest teen pregnancy rate among all states in the country; the question and point is, it doesn't seem to be working
Perry: It works, maybe it's the way it's being taught or the way it's being applied out there but the fact of the matter is it is the best form to teach our children
Interviewer: Can you give me a statistic that shows that it works
Perry: Im gonna tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works...

Please pardon my elite east coast snobbery, but this guy doesn't have the first idea how to be analytical about anything.  He believes abstinence works for him, and common sense tells him it must work for halting teen pregnancy.  When confronted with the fact that it's not working, his mind just goes into lockdown and he insists that "it works" in the face of all evidence.

Look, I don't care that much about this particular topic, and I don't even have an ideological problem with Abstinence Education; I'm sure it doesn't make things worse, and it does send a good message to kids.  But it we're unwilling to look at problems analytically and prefer to "go with the gut" we're doomed to another Bush-administration level mess.

I don't like Mitt Romney much.  He'll say anything and change any position to be president.  But at least the guy's not an idiot.

Vote for Moonbats Because We Don't Trust Democrats? (Updated)

Last night I was talking to a new acquaintance about politics and he said, as many I encounter do, that he's independent but doesn't trust the Democrats to be fiscally responsible.  Here in Massachusetts there are lots of "Bill Weld Republicans" as I call them- socially liberal, fiscally conservative people who cringe at the southern Republicans' fundamentalism but fear the liberals' tax policies.

So many of these people are unhappy with Obama because he's a Big Taxing Liberal.  Now I'm unhappy with Obama too, but he's not a Big Taxing Liberal.

So we start arguing about the budget, and this guy says that he's in favor of tax increases being part of the solution for balancing it.  Yet he still might vote for a Republican. 

So I have to ask: why?  At the debate a few nights ago in Iowa, a moderator asked for a show of hands from all the candidates- would you refuse a budget deal that was balanced 10-1 spending cuts to tax increases?  Every candidate raised a hand to indicate he/she would refuse such a deal.  So you have every candidate from the opposition party insisting on balancing the budget in a way that is completely impossible to accomplish.

Again, I'm not happy with Obama, and if he loses in 2012 he'll richly deserve it.  But at least he's not trying to repeal the laws of Mathematics in his campaign platform.  Anyone who calls himself a fiscal conservative has to vote Democrat.

UPDATE: A correspondent writes:

Keep in mind that the candidates who raised their hands are all trying to win a primary election, and that anyone not raising a hand will have a hard time reaching the general election. They might answer differently if they were trying to win the general election. Or is that too cynical?

Well, nothing is too cynical in Washington, but nevertheless I think we have to consider the promises made by politicians as having some force.  I think Mitt Romney, being a smart guy with an understanding of mathematics, realizes that balancing the budget without any tax hikes at all is impossible.  And as Massachusetts governor he showed himself to be open to different ideas and willing to do things like raise taxes when necessary. 

But if President Romney agrees to raise taxes in 2014, he will be primaried in 2016 by the True Believers in the GOP.  He must know that.  Above all Mitt Romney has shown that he will say and do whatever is necessary in order to be elected (and presumably re-elected) president.  Does he really believe in the Norquistian refusal to increase taxes?  Maybe not.  But will he have the political wiggle room to defy the anti-taxers?  Almost certainly not.

So when every Republican candidate raises his/her hand in the debate, I think we as voters have to take them at their word.  They're all fiscally irresponsible.  The deficit will continue to explode if they're president.  If you care most about lower taxes, by all means you should vote Republican.  If you care more about deficits, you have to vote Democrat.

What Does Barack Obama Really Believe?

Impossible to know, of course.  But this NYT op-ed by Drew Westen has caused a bit of a stir in the liberal blogosphere.  Westen criticizes Obama for failing to lay out a narrative that the People would be able to follow, the way FDR did when faced with a similar crisis:

...when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

Westen says a lot of what I've said in my last few posts, and though it's a long piece I recommend it to those of you who are interested.

One of the points he makes is that BHO should have come out swinging right from the start, explaining why the recession was so bad, and putting the blame squarely where it belonged- on right-wing policies and politicians.  And such a style would certainly have appealed to me.
My criticism is a little different, though. I don't think BHO could have come out with guns blazing in 2009 after running for president as a conciliatory guy. So I don't fault him too much for the attempts early on to compromise, when he ran on that. But once it became clear that the Republicans were just not going to compromise on anything, and would be totally obstructionist, Obama was incredibly slow figuring this out. In fact I think he still hasn't figured it out. That he's trying to find a budget compromise that Republicans will accept, after they refused a deal where they got practically everything they wanted on the debt ceiling, is just pathetic. I hope to see him start proposing what he thinks is needed and then fighting for it. But I don't think he will, and like Westen I'm not sure what it is that he really does want- it's very possible that BHO is quite happy with all these budget cuts and practically no taxes. And that possibility is what has liberals really upset.

Obama and the "Failure of Liberalism"

It's very satisfying for a liberal to read the likes of David Frum, former Bush administration and down-the-line conservative who has been purged from the Right for pointing out that the Republican party was getting way too extreme.  I'm sure conservatives feel similar glee in reading liberals who have turned against the Democrats, like Joe Lieberman or Dennis Miller (I'm sure there are better examples- as you can probably guess, "liberals who have been mugged" isn't my favorite genre to read).

Anyway, Frum (who still identifies himself as a conservative) this week writes:

Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?

And in the second piece he responds to those who point out that the liberals haven't done much to help the economy recover:

My conservative friends argue that the policies of Barack Obama are responsible for the horrifying length and depth of the economic crisis.
Question: Which policies?
Obama’s only tax increases – those contained in the Affordable Care Act – do not go into effect until 2014. Personal income tax rates and corporate tax rates are no higher today than they have been for the past decade. The payroll tax has actually been cut by 2 points. Total federal tax collections have dropped by 4 points of GDP since 2007, from 18+% to 14+%, the lowest rate since the Truman administration.
If so minded, you could describe Barack Obama as the biggest tax cutter in American history.

We have not seen a major surge in federal regulation, at least by the usual rough metrics: the page count of the Federal Register has risen by less than 5% since George W. Bush’s last year in office. Trade remains as free as it was a decade ago.
While the Affordable Care Act itself will eventually have major economic consequences, most of its provisions remain only impending.
Energy prices have surged, but that’s hardly a response to administration policies. Conservatives complain about restrictions on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but on a planet that produces 63 million barrels of oil per day, a few thousand more or less from the Gulf will not much budge the price of oil. Rising oil prices are a story about Chinese and Indian consumption and Middle Eastern political instability, not about US drilling or lack thereof.
The Dodd-Frank bill does somewhat curtail the activities of some banks and investment firms. But is it seriously argued that this could be the cause?

Conservatives complain about excess government spending. Fine. But isn’t the evil of excess government spending supposed to be inflation rather than recession? And where’s the inflation?

There’s a strong case for condemning Barack Obama for the things he might have done, but did not do. He might have cut payroll taxes more and faster. He might have pushed for more expansionary Federal Reserve governors. He might have designed a better stimulus. All true. But the things he did do? Texas Gov. Rick Perry today urges us to believe that the economy is gripped by the worst slump since the Great Depression because Obama spoke disrespectfully of the owners of private jets. To which I can only say: Really? That’s the indictment? Really?

Well said.  Paul Krugman is constantly taunting the "Very Serious People" who keep predicting hyperinflation or rocketing interest rates if the US keeps borrowing, while all evidence continues to show neither happening, just as Keynesian economics predicts in a Liquidity Trap.

The biggest problem for liberals now, though, is that nobody in power is listening to us.  So a mainly Democratic government here is thoroughly on board with austerity, which economists predict will lead to a new recession.  Wall Street seems to agree this week.  And the failure of macroeconomic policy is laid on.... the liberals! Because they're the ones in power.  But since the administration is pursuing mainstream conservative policies, the Republicans have contrasted it by calling for a caricature of conservative policies that were way out on the fringes of political thought only a few short years ago.  And true liberals are left shouldering the blame for our liberal policies, which have never been implemented.

So that's Obama's real sin- no matter what policies he pursues, he must realize by now that he'll be painted as a far-out Leftist.  Yet he keeps clinging to the false notion that he can be acclaimed as a centrist.  And in the process of this futile effort he pulls the whole country way over to the Right.  Tip O'Neil wouldn't recognize the Democratic party.  There is no place for liberals to go.

Where is the liberal equivalent of George W. Bush, a politician who unapologetically sticks to principles, doesn't care if the other side hates him, and gets his base energized and voting?  Republicans are loaded with pols like that, and we don't seem to have any.  So Republicans can rule effectively and make things happen- if only their policies were better it would be great!