What Do They Believe? What Do They Say?

I’ve mentioned this before but occasionally (actually frequently) when, in the opening portion of a column or post, I see something that strikes me as off, I can’t get past it. I keep coming back to it and coming back to it. This morning in Paul Krugman’s column this passage had that effect on me:

We should have realized that the modern Republican Party is utterly dedicated to the Reaganite slogan that government is always the problem, never the solution.

I certainly don’t believe that government is always the problem and never the solution. I think there are all sorts of problems that are difficult to impossible to address other than by government. However, wouldn’t it be just as fair to castigate Democrats as believing that government is always the solution and never the problem?

The real Ronald Reagan (as opposed to the mythical one invoked these days) wasn’t opposed to government. I seem to recall that he actually expanded government during his administration and introduced quite a few new programs including an expansion of Medicare (repealed shortly thereafter due to outrage among the people it was intended to help).

Is the distinction between Reagan and Reaganites? Do Reaganites believe, as Dr. Krugman puts it, that “government is always the problem, never the solution”? Can someone give me specific examples of Congressional Republicans who take the that position?

I think there are a lot of people who may take that position philosophically or rhetorically who don’t take it practically. Practically, I think that Congressional Republicans are just as statist as their Democratic counterparts whatever their rhetorical positions.

Again, as I’ve said here before I don’t think that the problem is that government is doing too little or too much. Although I do think that there’s a better argument to be made for the latter than for the former. I think the federal government is attempting to do things at the central level that would be better done at the state or local level. I also think that government at all levels is trying to do things that are beyond the knowledge and abilities of the people trying to do it—managing the economy, for one.

And I think that government just needs to do differently.

As I said last night on OTB Radio, I also think that there are some genuine philosophical differences in how governments should operate going on in the country. There’s a faction that has some ambitious goals in mind and wants to enact laws that give broad powers and discretion to government at various levels to achieve those goals and another group that’s wary of giving government at any level that much power and discretion.

However, I don’t think we’re seeing a conflict between anarchists on the one hand and incipient totalitarian dictators on the other being played out in the Congress and the genuine and sincere differences of opinion out there shouldn’t be lumped into cartoonish over-generalizations.

14 comments… add one
  • john personna Link

    Moderation in all things.

    For what it’s worth though, I find the liberal’s overreach more obvious and less annoying than conservative obstinance. Maybe it’s just that “let’s help them” always plays better than “let them die.”

  • michael reynolds Link

    I don’t get your faith in state governments.

    The governments in Albany or Sacramento are as distant from their people as the federal government. California is 38 million people with an economy bigger than South Korea or Spain. The average Californian probably knows more about what’s happening in Washington.

    You have states like CA that could be countries and states like Wyoming that could be counties. Since we have free and open borders between states any decision to cut taxes in one state or raise services in another can draw people across borders in ways that potentially destroy the very policy which drew them there in the first place.

    None of our successful competitors in the world operate on such a patchwork system of utterly mismatched units, each with so much power. Any rational, well-run country would have long since re-drawn state boundaries.

    I see nothing to suggest that state government is any more competent at managing money than the federal government. Rather the contrary: many states are so screwed right now they make Washington look well-run.

    States are inherently less politically stable, able to be blown this way or that by temporary enthusiasms, or influenced by special interest groups to such an extent that the state government becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary. See: California and state employee unions, or West Virginia and mining companies.

    Similarly, left to their own devices we would now have a nation where an interracial couple married in Minnesota would be subject to arrest in Arkansas. As it is we have legal California medicinal marijuana users who might be locked up for 20 years in Texas.

    Some states are simply irresponsible and make the rest of us suffer. Take Maryland’s chicken processing plants that happily spread salmonella far and wide because the producers own Annapolis. See also: Louisiana and its offshore oil, New Hampshire which leeches off Massachusetts, and of course Mississippi which stubbornly insists on being Mississippi.

  • steve Link

    ” However, wouldn’t it be just as fair to castigate Democrats as believing that government is always the solution and never the problem?”

    I dont read anyone who believes that. I see left of center economists who want govt to set a level playing field, but no one who wants govt to control everything. Not even the neo-Marxists seem to want govt to actually own businesses, though maybe I dont read them enough and miss it when they do.

    “We should have realized that the modern Republican Party is utterly dedicated to the Reaganite slogan that government is always the problem, never the solution.”

    Republicans seem to believe that the military, which is a govt organization, is the best solution for our international relations issues.

    I believe you are correct about Reagan.

    “I think there are a lot of people who may take that position philosophically or rhetorically who don’t take it practically. ”

    I think that you are mostly correct here. The problem is that a lot of their base believe it. It makes it more difficult to actually govern. If you look at actual spending, not rhetoric, it mostly supports your thesis of Republicans being mostly talk about spending issues. They mostly want to cut OP spending.

    Steve

  • Maxwell James Link

    Dave, I think when you start getting that feeling, it’s time to close the op-ed section and do something else for a while. Because irregardless of whether our governance gets better or worse, does less or does more, opinion columnists will just keep doing their thing.

  • The federal government and the state governments aren’t the only choices, Michael. There are also city governments, country governments, neighborhood associations, and school boards, just to name a few.

    It’s not that I have any particular faith in state government as opposed to the central government; it’s that I believe in the principle of subsidiarity or, stated simply, I think that the voters in my ward are more likely to understand the ward’s problems than somebody I’ve never heard of sitting at a desk in an office in Washington, DC. My alderman and I are on a first name basis.

    And I have faith in my community association. I’m a member, I know its members, I know its board, and, if I had the interest, I could sit on its board any time I cared to.

  • michael reynolds Link

    My alderman and I are on a first name basis.

    True, it’s easy to get to know local pols. But is it your sense that Chicago has thereby benefited from good government?

    I still remember getting a phone call from David Bonior. Himself, not staff. “Hey, Michael, it’s Dave Bonior! How ya doing?” We became best buddies soon after I made a campaign contribution. For $500 we were friends. (I wasn’t a constituent.)

    I’m not sure I believe that what we need is more access to pols. I’m starting to believe we need a touch more elitism and distance. I want pols who do the right thing, not pols who respond to the last guy whose hand they shook or who for $500 will be my best friend.

  • Michael,

    Like it or not, the states are still sovereign entities in many respects.

    Steve,

    I dont read anyone who believes that. I see left of center economists who want govt to set a level playing field, but no one who wants govt to control everything. Not even the neo-Marxists seem to want govt to actually own businesses, though maybe I dont read them enough and miss it when they do.

    I don’t think that’s what Dave was suggesting, at least I didn’t take it that way. In most cases I do think Democrats tend to see solutions to problems in society as coming from new government programs or from increased funding to existing programs. There are, of course, exceptions, as there always are.

  • Dave re: local government, you’re an outlier.

    By and large, people don’t know who their local and state elected officials are. Local elections unconnected to Federal elections have, by an far, the lowest turnout of all elections.

    As a consequence, local officials are, in practice, not beholden to their constituents, but rather to the special interests who are able to motivate the small subset of the population that cares about a particular local issue at a particular point in time with enough influence to change an election outcome–which isn’t a lot of people, because of low turnout.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Andy:

    Like it or not, the states are still sovereign entities in many respects.

    Oh, believe me, I know I’m pissing into the wind. But I think states are part of the problem. Look how many federal laws have to be passed not from some overweening desire of the feds to control our lives but because states choose to behave like irresponsible idiots.

    Had quite a number of states not had their heads up their collective posteriors (Um . . . well, you know what I mean) we would not need civil rights laws, or the Americans With Disabilities law, or many environmental laws, food inspection, product safety on and on. The states could have handled those things. Did they? No. States won’t take on the job of inspecting their food plants for example because it’s easy for a particular industry to buy off a state government.

    The sheer, bloody-minded stupidity, backwardness, cupidity and irresponsibility of states has fostered the growth of the central government. So I find the notion that state governments are the solution to much of anything absurd. It would be impossible for us to function as a major world economic, diplomatic and military power if we really took the states seriously. This relic of bygone days is a mess and distorts our political system with unfortunate results.

  • Jimbino Link

    I think that Ron Paul and his son Rand would agree with me that the starting point of any discussion is that the government is the problem, not the solution, especially when it comes to energy, education, medical research, invention and innovation, full employment and growing of food, tobacco, rice, strawberries and peanuts.

  • I can only tell you how I approach such a question, Michael. First, I consider the status quo and try to identify the dimensions in which I think improvements could be made. In the case of government I think it would be better if it were more responsive, more accountable, more efficient, and able to adapt to a changing environment with more facility.

    Then I think about the forces, consistent with human nature, that would move things in that direction. Not that would effect the change, only that would move things along.

    I think that the path to improvement lies in more localization of government rather than centralization. A bureaucracy becomes decreasingly efficient and increasingly costly with the size of the bureaucracy—costs grow at nlogn not linearly (at n). And the kind of adaptability that I think is necessary is not characteristic of large bureaucracies.

    In thinking about California in particular, it’s too damned big. Much more needs to be done at the county level. That will necessarily mean less professionalization of government rather than more as has been the trend for decades.

  • john personna Link

    Here’s an interesting claim (OT) to chew on:

    “He knows of 20 people personally in his community who have mortgages of over $20,000 a month who have not made a payment in over a year.”

    link

    I discount Naked Capitalism a bit, but not entirely.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Dave:

    I don’t argue with your methodology. I do doubt what seem to me to be unexamined assumptions. I don’t think more democracy is a solution, it feels more like a problem. If politicians were required to respond solely to the will of the people I think we’d have chaos.

    We are supposed to elect representatives who then toddle off and do what is best for those they represent — within the limits of the law, fiscal reality, etc… They are supposed to lead.

    More direct democracy turns politicians into order-takers not much different than the disembodied voice at a Burger King drive through. I don’t think we make progress that way. The vast majority of people are without imagination or drive or daring. That vast majority will demand solutions not to next year’s problems but to their own immediate inconveniences. If they are getting medicare their demand will be for more, not for a long-term solution.

    We’ve already moved too far down that road. Politicians strain to lead from the rear and feel themselves terribly bold and adventurous if they take a vote — like Sen. Burr’s vote on DADT yesterday — that requires them to actually do the right rather than the popular thing.

    We need leaders not obedient order-takers.

  • I don’t think they’re so much unexamined assumptions as considered judgment.

    Michael, in my view the ideal would be representative democracy constrained within specific limits. I see less of a problem over the period of the last 40 years or so with too much direct democracy as with the abandoning of constraints.

    In 1996 the Federal Register was about 65,000 pages. Now it’s about 81,000 pages. Not precisely unbridled laissez-faire. In my view that represents a substantial shift of power in favor of an unaccountable bureaucracy. Are you suggesting that’s a move in the direction of mob rule?

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