Castles in the Air

The editors of the Washington Post have examined the fiscal policy proposals of the president and Gov. Romney and find them both not only wanting but dangerous:

The fundamental Republican myth is that the country’s fiscal problems can be tackled without new revenue — or, in the more sophisticated version of this argument, that they can be addressed by rejiggering the tax code in a way that would promote economic growth, and therefore produce additional revenue, without asking any households to pay a larger share of their income in taxes. In the Romney-Ryan version of the myth, marginal rates can be cut even further, eliminating popular deductions — deliberately unspecified — and counting on unduly optimistic projections to fill the gap. As the Tax Policy Center has demonstrated, that approach would “provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.”

and

The fundamental Democratic myth is that the country’s fiscal problems can be solved by focusing on, and asking for sacrifice from, only a tiny, vilified slice of the population: the wealthy. The central promise of President Obama’s 2008 campaign, reaffirmed in 2012, was that he would not raise taxes on the middle-class, defined as households earning less than $250,000 annually. At the same time, Democrats want voters to believe that Social Security and Medicare can be fixed, to the extend they need fixing, barely touching ever-rising benefits.

In an op-ed in the New York Times David Stockman, director of Office of Management and the Budget under Ronald Reagan is equally harsh:

Mr. Ryan professes to be a defense hawk, though the true conservatives of modern times — Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Robert A. Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, even Gerald R. Ford — would have had no use for the neoconconservative imperialism that the G.O.P. cobbled from policy salons run by Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites three decades ago. These doctrines now saddle our bankrupt nation with a roughly $775 billion “defense” budget in a world where we have no advanced industrial state enemies and have been fired (appropriately) as the global policeman.

Indeed, adjusted for inflation, today’s national security budget is nearly double Eisenhower’s when he left office in 1961 (about $400 billion in today’s dollars) — a level Ike deemed sufficient to contain the very real Soviet nuclear threat in the era just after Sputnik. By contrast, the Romney-Ryan version of shrinking Big Government is to increase our already outlandish warfare-state budget and risk even more spending by saber-rattling at a benighted but irrelevant Iran.

Similarly, there can be no hope of a return to vibrant capitalism unless there is a sweeping housecleaning at the Federal Reserve and a thorough renunciation of its interest-rate fixing, bond buying and recurring bailouts of Wall Street speculators. The Greenspan-Bernanke campaigns to repress interest rates have crushed savers, mocked thrift and fueled enormous overconsumption and trade deficits.

The problem, as I suggested yesterday, is that even extracting pain, however fairly distributed, isn’t enough. We need fundamental reforms to basic institutions and structures of government. Our greatest fiscal problems are, in order, healthcare spending, too much military spending, the inefficiency and obsolescence of our tax code, based as it is on the assumptions of a generation ago, and interest on the debt. As Mr. Stockman notes our biggest regulatory problem is the banking system. The two major political party tickets are united, shoulder-to-shoulder, in refusing to come to terms with any of these pressing concerns.

Over a period of thirty-five years I have arrived at the conclusion that we can’t cut costs in healthcare spending in the context of the fee-for-services system and the insurance system as its presently constituted. Military spending and, importantly, military commitments are so obviously beyond what is reasonably necessary to preserve our security I can barely see how the question is debated at all but, indeed, it’s a subject of bitter debate with the present Republican ticket taking the remarkable position that military spending should be increased.

In the face of such titanic dysfunction I have only a handful of alternatives. I could full-throatedly support one or the other of the two major party tickets, delusional as they both are. I could support a third party ticket in the full knowledge that the very best that will accomplish is the perverse result of injuring the major party ticket that I prefer. I could become a sociopath. I could become a psychopath.

Or, I could be a voice crying out in the wilderness, choose among frankly unhinged alternatives, and hope for the best. That’s my choice.

16 comments… add one
  • Ben Wolf Link

    “Similarly, there can be no hope of a return to vibrant capitalism unless there is a sweeping housecleaning at the Federal Reserve and a thorough renunciation of its interest-rate fixing, bond buying and recurring bailouts of Wall Street speculators. The Greenspan-Bernanke campaigns to repress interest rates have crushed savers, mocked thrift and fueled enormous overconsumption and trade deficits.”

    This is the only part of the article I have a problem with. We’d have to radically transform our monetary system for this to happen and I just don’t see that our economy could handle it, let alone that the political will exists. I do agree a serious house-cleaning of the Fed’s economists is needed.

  • Icepick Link

    Schuler, you could start with a small step, such as not rewarding the parties for their malfeasance. You can do that by voting third party, writing in someone of your choice (I’m going to auction off my vote at the next poker game with the guys – only so long as they insist I vote for someone not currently running, of course), or not voting at all.

    Voting for the current parties merely gives them aid and succor, and gives them NO incentive to change.

  • TastyBits Link

    I once wrote in a candidate. I think it was Cindy Crawford, and she was old enough. She would be no worse, but she is sure a lot better looking. Today, it would be JLo. Kim Kardashian will need to wait until 2016.

  • TastyBits Link

    From the David Stockman article:

    … risk even more spending by saber-rattling at a benighted but irrelevant Iran. …

    I do not agree with his characterization of Iran, but I do agree that this is a better reason to be concerned. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

  • TastyBits Link

    @Dave Schuler

    Or, I could be a voice crying out in the wilderness, choose among frankly unhinged alternatives, and hope for the best. That’s my choice.

    Welcome to the party.

    I contend that the problem is the gerrymandering. Depending upon where you live determines whether your vote counts. In states where the electoral vote is determined by districts, it is even smaller. This also results in hyper-partisanship. The minority party is irrelevant, and addressing their issues will cause the majority party politician to lose votes.

  • Ben is right. We could redo our financial system to make it more robust…but it simply wont happen no matter how much sense it makes. Why? Because way too many fortunes depend on it. So instead we argue relentlessly over gay marriage, illegal aliens, and other minor ass bullshit.

  • Or, I could be a voice crying out in the wilderness, choose among frankly unhinged alternatives, and hope for the best. That’s my choice.

    Or just stop wasting your time. Voting is a waste. You vote for a giant douche or a shit sandwich….that is what you are going to do? You’d probably have a more productive night watching Real Housewives of Orange County, and with things like Netflix, being close to Chicago, and probably having an impressive array of books at your home your options are far, far better than Real Housewives of Orange County.

    But instead you are going to vote….seriously?

  • Andy Link

    I think I’ve voted third-party in half of Presidential elections. It’s something I’m seriously considering this year.

  • But third party candidates never matter. Ever. Again, it is simply wasting time. Spend time with your significant other, your kids, or even going to see a movie, a play, or going out to eat. Don’t line up the validate these jerks.

  • Andy Link

    Steve,

    I find it difficult to refuse to engage in what I consider a civic duty and it seems to me these “jerks” would be perfectly content to have us stand aside and let the koolaid drinkers “decide” who will run the show. No thanks.

  • Icepick Link

    Steve V., voting third party doesn’t validate the jerks in the two big parties. Personally I see no reason to bother voting third party, but it is impossible to believe that a vote for “Other” is the same thing as voting for the jerks in charge.

    That said….

    Andy, so you want to decide on which jerk is in charge? That’s some ambition you got there.

  • TastyBits Link

    Not voting is a vote for the winner. If the majority wants a jerk, one more vote, for the jerk, is not going to matter.

  • Andy Link

    Ice,

    Andy, so you want to decide on which jerk is in charge?

    In the absence of a candidate I can actually support, I want to do whatever I can to break-up the political sclerosis in the two party system. Voting third party is, it seems to me, better than not voting at all though the difference may be marginal.

    Also, I have seriously considered opening up my vote to the regulars here to decide…

  • Ken Hoop Link

    The only 3rd party worth voting for would be nationalist, ethno-populist, featuring the best parts of socialism, libertarianism ,and national anarchism- and would be anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti neocon and anti neolib.

  • Andy Link

    I was just perusing the NYT archive and came across this from Oct. 7, 1899 on “Independents.” The more things change….

  • Ice,

    Steve V., voting third party doesn’t validate the jerks in the two big parties.

    They are all jerks. Give somebody even a small amount of power and by-and-large they turn into jerks. Even fake power has had that effect (e.g. in a sociology study some subjects are given offices, others desk in a common area, the office people become jerks, the common area people don’t). When you vote for them you validate them and their attempt to gain power.

    Personally I see no reason to bother voting third party, but it is impossible to believe that a vote for “Other” is the same thing as voting for the jerks in charge.

    Even if by some miracle the “other” wins, they will become the new jerks. Power corrupts and all that.

    And weren’t you just talking about the coercive and violent powers government has in another thread? That is how government works, ultimately, through violence or at least the threat of violence. Don’t want to do what the government says, well we have some guys with sticks, guns, tasers, body armor and your name and address in a database…your family too.

    Andy,

    I find it difficult to refuse to engage in what I consider a civic duty and it seems to me these “jerks” would be perfectly content to have us stand aside and let the koolaid drinkers “decide” who will run the show. No thanks.

    Oh, yeah like you going and voting is going to lead to rational government, good government….Hell even better government? It is the same jerks no matter whether you vote or not. And they’ll do the same or similarly ineffective bullshit things regarding serious issues, and distract you with crapola about things like gay marriage or video games, or some such nonsense.

    In the absence of a candidate I can actually support, I want to do whatever I can to break-up the political sclerosis in the two party system.

    By going into the voting booth? Seriously? You are perpetuating the sclerosis.

    Voting third party is, it seems to me, better than not voting at all though the difference may be marginal.

    Yeah, except once they get power people become assholes. So you vote in a decent looking third party candidate, by some miracle, what do you think will happen? My money is on him, or her, becoming an asshole like the last 44 assholes we’ve had.

    The whole notion of voting is believing in castles in the air.

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