Left Behind

Touting the upcoming report from the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, Hank Paulson, Erskine Bowles, and Melissa Kearney have an op-ed in the Washington Post on the steps we need to take to keep Americans from “being left behind”. In my estimate they’re whistling past a graveyard:

First among them is a commitment to truth, which must be rooted in rigorous analysis. There can simply be no good policymaking without first establishing a common set of facts about what is happening in the world and what any given policy or proposal will likely accomplish.

Second, good policymaking requires that lawmakers trust one another. This takes time, the ability to convene in confidence and a mutual commitment to shared goals. This is precisely how, in 1997, President Bill Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) negotiated the first balanced-budget agreement in a generation, and how, in 2008, a bipartisan majority in a Democratic-controlled Congress gave President George W. Bush the unprecedented powers necessary to stem the financial crisis and prevent another Great Depression. And both Bush and his successor, President Barack Obama, had the courage to take highly unpopular actions to save our economy, resisting pressure from their base to put the national interest ahead of partisan politics.

Third, our leaders must be willing to make principled compromises. Finding the middle ground has never been easy, and nobody wants to lose a negotiation. But today, our leaders are equating compromise with moral failure, making it that much harder to begin a discussion, much less reach agreement.

In a day in which everyone has their own facts, slogans are more important than an understanding of basic principles, and politics is strictly zero sum, I see no prospect for any of those guidelines being followed either in this Congress or probably the next. However in the interest of bonhomie here are my prescriptions:

1. We should adopt a point system for immigration like those of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
2. We should expand the number of H2-B visas available.
3. We should adopt a system of reciprocity with respect to trade.
4. We should start phasing out the subsidies we’re providing to so many industries.
5. We should stop using the tax system as a device for promoting social change or influencing economic behavior. It should have no purpose other than raising revenue.
6. Congressmen should be required to spend at least half their time in their home districts and/or home states to be eligible for re-election.
7. The power of the Congressional leadership should be decreased.
8. We need to control prices in health care. The mechanisms for doing that are less important than the fact of it.

I’m under no illusions. None of my prescriptions will be implemented. But none of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group’s recommendations are likely to be implemented, either, so we’re even.