Andrew Samwick notes that today’s Republicans routinely reject proposals that were mainstream Republican policy positions twenty years ago and outlines a budget strategy I could get behind:
I would start my budget policy changes with letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for everyone and cutting defense spending by at least 10%. I would then move to the entitlement programs, phasing in increases in eligibility ages and other benefit reductions linked to income. The small piece of the federal budget that’s “non-defense discretionary” would also see reductions, but that’s not where the heavy lifting can be done. I wouldn’t stop until the budget was in balance on average over the business cycle and the debt-to-gdp ratio was projected to remain steady at a number not larger than about 60 percent.
but I think he gives the president a little too much credit here:
Transported to a different era, Obama would have been a Rockefeller Republican — actively using the government’s powers to try to solve public policy problems and willing to go to the voters to get more revenues to do so.
Leaving the political strategery part aside (would Obama have been a Republican 30 years ago?), I’m skeptical that President Obama is “willing to go to the voters to get more revenues”. This is the Barack Obama who pledged not to increase taxes for those with incomes below $250,000, right? If it were so, why didn’t he seize the opportunity of letting the “Bush tax cuts” lapse? I know, I know. Fragile recovery. If the reduction in tax rates then didn’t produce economic stimulus, why would reversing those reductions produce dis-stimulus now? I don’t think you can have it both ways.
The Obama of the imagination continues to flourish. To my mind he’s just a guy who, like all the other guys, wants to be re-elected and has largely followed the lead of the last guy. I think it’s calculation, not conviction.
I think that Dr. Samwick is on target here:
What was not wildly successful was the impact of the 1990 budget deal on President Bush’s re-election campaign. If politicians are not rewarded at the polls for the choices they make, don’t expect other politicians to make similar choices.
Add to that the importance of the vast amounts of money that are needed to run a modern campaign for federal office and you’ve got our problems in a nutshell. The most highly motivated contributors and voters also tend to be the most radicalized.
” I’m skeptical that President Obama is “willing to go to the voters to get more revenuesâ€
I think that he was referring to the ACA.
“If it were so, why didn’t he seize the opportunity of letting the “Bush tax cuts†lapse?”
It would have been filibustered. No chance of passing. Why fight battles you cannot win?
“. If politicians are not rewarded at the polls for the choices they make, don’t expect other politicians to make similar choices.”
The best example I can think of is Marjorie Margolie-Mezvinsky (sp?). When she cast the deciding vote that passed the budget that actually did lead to surpluses, Republicans jeered her and chanted goodbye. They knew that she would get booted out of office when she voted for a bill that included raising taxes. She did. How many Republicans do you think will be willing to break the Norquist vow?
As to the rest, when I read that piece yesterday I thought that Samwick was right on, though even he underestimates the amount that is needed to be trimmed from Medicare.
Steve