Guest Blog: Taking Issue with the Sainted Pillars of the Left and Right
Scott Gillette, an old pal of mine who is currently doing mysterious business in Qatar, resides in a political place somewhere to the right of mine. As such, he took issue with my most recent allusion to the Great Depression. I’m going to let him say his piece from the Middle East. As you read, keep in mind the following questions. These are not meant to be pointed score-points-in-a-debate type questions, but just things I would like to see expanded upon so we can get past what I suspect Scott thinks is boilerplate in my arguments and I see as boilerplate in his:
1. Has the country really “turned leftward?” I see this as so much propaganda. Yes, we elected a Democrat, but being a Democrat does not equal being a liberal, no matter what the right would have you believe. Obama is certainly not a liberal. Nor has the true progressive left gotten what it has wanted out of Obama, like a public option in the health care bill, repeal of DADT, a true jobs bill, accountability for Bush-era miscreants, and so much more. Just today we got more drilling. This is NOT a liberal or left-leaning administration.
2. Scott says that taxes are a disincentive to economic growth. I suppose it’s accepted that they are, and yet, I’m not sure what taxes he’s referring to. Nor am I sure that this is correct. In the 1950s, the top marginal income tax rate was something like 90 percent, and yet GDP grew fairly steadily throughout the ’50s and into the ’60s.
3. As is popular, Scott waves Greece at us. If we do X or don’t do Y we’re going to turn into Greece. Is the situation in Greece really analogous to our own?
Now, here’s Scott:
Response to Things We Read Today: Holy Prophets Edition:
There was a line in your blog that immediately grabbed my attention:
As I keep saying, we’ve been having the same danged argument about philosophy of government for more than three-quarters of a century. Whichever way we come down on it, we need to get past it and get on with the business of running the place.Yes, this is the same “danged argument”, no doubt. But the argument has to occur, over and over again. First of all, members of a free society will always differ about the size and scope of government. Second, and more to the point, different eras require different policies about the proper balance between growth and redistribution, and freedom and security.
When Hoover decried the role of government, his philosophy really didn’t jibe with his government’s actions, as he certainly did try an interventionist tack. I would argue that his intervention was counter-productive, and never provided the benefits of redistribution to the people who needed the most at the time. Basically, he screwed up in every way possible.
Nevertheless, his last gasp against intervention reflects the end of an era, as the modern period of a much larger role for government was born, and has never ended. Indeed, although the modern GOP and the conservative movement in particular have always decried the growth of government, the reality is that they have contributed to it. Nixon’s administration was more liberal than Kennedy’s or Clinton’s. Reagan never really tried to cut spending. The last time the GOP seriously tried to reduce spending was right after the Contract with America, and that effort was very short-lived. The American people didn’t want such cuts. The man who said that “the welfare state is here to stay” wasn’t Barack Obama or Ted Kennedy. It was Newt Gingrich.
I have little patience with those on the right who equate the recent health care package with totalitarianism. Clearly, these people demean the profound suffering that such governments caused by making that analogy. Nor do I consider the country’s recent turn to the left an accident. When the capitalist system falls short during periodic downturns, the electorate often chooses to buffer the pain of such downturns with policies consistent with a social democracy.
Having said that, increased government intervention will have its costs, as it always does. Government intervention means a less dynamic and productive economy, with fewer people taking risks and creating jobs. It can’t be any other way. When you tax something, you discourage future output. One may argue that this effect is minimal, but that position is an uphill battle.
The United States unfortunately faces a relatively long period of diminished expectations, and a greater government role is inevitable. This will lessen the pain, but it won’t foster an environment critical for a future recovery. If the United States does not make growth a priority somewhere down the line, and the government refuses to rein in its spending because the electorate is unwilling to make a shared sacrifice, then the United States will be in the same place as Greece in ten to fifteen years. This must be avoided.
So let the danged argument continue…
Thank you, Scott. I look forward to your elaboration on the questions I asked.
April 1st, 2010 at 2:27 pm
It’s always funny to me that these folks never worried about the “size and scope” of government when Sainted Ronnie and Bush pere et fils were ballooning our deficits and wielding our military against any third world tyrant that pissed them off.
April 1st, 2010 at 3:17 pm
I think Scott makes rational points. Where he and I differ is that he thinks the US will have to rein in spending, but I think it will have to raise taxes.
Steven, to your point #1: frustrated as I am with the current administration, I think it’s hard to argue that the country didn’t demonstrate a leftward swing the the past two election cycles. It’s not that Dems or Repubs became more liberal, it’s that independents voted Democratic in large numbers. You can argue that Democrat doesn’t really equal Liberal-with-a-capital-L, but surely it’s more liberal that Republican.
Also, I don’t think it’s fair to say that Obama’s not a liberal. It’s just that that he’s above all a pragmatist. I think Nate made a convincing argument that this was just about as good as a HCR bill as could have been passed in the current environment. It’s a disgusting fact but a fact no less that the filibuster + a loose democratic coalition that includes Blue Dogs and a Lieberman = a less Democratic Senate than would appear at first glance, 60 seats (now 59) or not. I think DADT will prove to be a long term win for Obama.
Where you and I agree 100% is that I am absolutely horrified and outraged that the previous administration is being let off the hook for it’s legal and moral sins. Fuck pragmatism in that case–the precedent undermines the foundations of our democracy.
April 1st, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Very well put, Mike K - especially the last paragraph.
April 2nd, 2010 at 12:38 pm
I disagree that the country has permanently shifted to the left these past two election cycles. Relatedly, I believe that broad-stroke attempts to portray the electorate, or the media, as having turned or as being biased (in either direction) are almost always mischaracterizations of the actual political reality. Such shifts do happen, but they’re glacial in nature: they happen over the course of one or two generations, not one or two election cycles (like the South’s shift to voting Republican). The 24 hour news cycle, always clamoring about the next big trend/event, probably exacerbates the sense that permanent shifts are happening when in fact we’re just witnessing tiny swings of the pendulum back and forth.
And ultimately, that’s what I think we saw in the last two elections: not a permanent leftward shift in the electorate but a reaction to the ineptitude of the party in power. Just as many now expect the Dems to lose ground in the upcoming mid-term elections.
Personally, from my half-informed position, I think the medium-to-long term trend (10-40 years or so) has been for the country to become more liberal, socially, but more conservative, fiscally. I may not actually be correct about this, but the point is that the electorate and/or media needn’t trend, inexorably, in one direction only. Lots of complex, even contradictory, forces are at work in determining its disposition. Decrying things like “the liberal media,” or “the country’s conservative culture,” is often mainly a way of registering one’s astonishment that so many others could have such different beliefs from your own (what you consider to be superior) ones.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Interesting points of view expressed here. I agree with Stephen (and Louis) that the US has not taken a leftward turn. If you look at the poll numbers where specific questions are asked about issues ranging from the role of the federal government, taxes, spending, the deficit, healthcare, abortion, gay marriage, etc., etc., the US has been consistently right-leaning throughout my 40-year lifetime.
What has changed over the past 1-3 years is that we have a much more liberal government, which has taken this country in a leftward direction that is almost irreversible. Once you create a multi-trillion-dollar entitlement program, it is difficult (if not impossible) to take it away.
Despite the poll numbers, where an overwhelming majority of those polled were against this healthcare bill, the Democrats in congress, along with President Obama, forced this bill through regardless, using a parliamentary trick to do so. That doesn’t sit right with most Americans.
Americans elected President Obama not because they agreed with his liberal agenda of bigger government, higher taxes, and more government intervention. They elected him because the economy was suffering, and because they wanted to be “a part of history.” Now that the economy is in even worse shape, the Republicans will likely regain all three houses in 2012. Hopefully, they can reverse some of the damage that has been done (but I’m not counting on it.)