When you’ve lost Norm Ornstein and Tom Mann, you’ve lost the center, you’ve lost most of the country. Mssrs. Ornstein and Mann have an op-ed in the Washington Post in which they blame Republicans for the poisonous atmosphere in Washington these days:
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
Rather than analyze the op-ed in detail pro or con, I would urge you to read the op-ed in full. While you’re at it, also read this extensively annotated retort at Patterico’s Pontifications:
Although Ornstein and Mann claim to “have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted,†they provide no links to all the op-eds they did about the extreme statements about Republicans being Un-American, comparing them to fascists, Nazis, racists and so on made by Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi (on her own and with Steny Hoyer), George Miller, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Jerrold Nadler, Jesse Jackson Jr., Sam Gibbons, Tom Lantos, Keith Ellison, Baron Hill, Jared Polis, Steve Cohen, Sheila Jackson Lee, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Louise Slaughter. Or Senators Robert Byrd and Blanche Lincoln. Or current Califonia governor Jerry Brown. Or repeat offender Al Gore. People might be forgiven for thinking Democrats, not to mention Ornstein and Mann, take that extreme rhetoric for granted in their rush to condemn the GOP.
There’s a kernel of truth in both of these two apparently conflicting pieces. The leadership of both political parties are too extreme. They’re too radical. They don’t speak for most Americans. Congressional approval stands at 17% and that’s a recovery from the 10% approval rating it held in February. Presently, approval of Congressional Republicans is only 14% but the approval rating of Congressional Democrats is only 19%. Congressional disapproval is currently at a whopping 79%.
Even the long-held argument that people disapprove of Congress, generally, but approve of their own Congressmen no longer holds water: according to an ABC/Washington Post poll taken in November only 41% of American approve (either strongly or somewhat) of their own Congressmen.
Both parties, in search of ideological purity, are driving out the moderates and pragmatists who are the fundamental force behind compromise. This process, which has been ongoing for the last 30 years, is not an attempt at being more representative or more responsive to the needs and wants of Americans but quite the opposite, as the Congress’s declining approval ratings document.
Returning to a theme I’ve sounded before here, moderation is the essential virtue of a republic. Not just nice to have. Not merely beneficial. Moderation is essential. It is what makes compromise possible.
Moderation consistently met by extremism has been the story of the last 3.5 years. The leadership of the Democratic party is in the White House, not in the Ranking Member’s office, and that leadership is quite moderate.
A plague on both houses does not cover it. One side is crazy. Flat-out crazy. Divorced from reality. Indifferent to facts. Another quote from the piece:
Of course this has been obvious since inauguration day 2008, but it’s nice to see some elements of the punditocracy waking up.
Dave, you’ve criticized Obama for, as you say, his unwillingness to compromise out of the gate. But what, then, to make of Robert Draper’s reporting that on the very night of of the inauguration, the leaders of the House and Senate Republicans (sans Boehner), GOP launched a no-compromise, stop-Obama at all costs campaign? How do you compromise with a party that despises compromise? And is dead set , in the words of McConnell, on making its number one priority your destruction as president?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but how do you compromise with a bunch of fucking loons? See, Mike Lofgren, Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult.
There is no shortage of loonies in both parties. There are plenty of people on both sides who like to use the words fascist, Nazi, racist, etc. I think the real difference between the parties lies in governing and legislating. The polarization has been increasing, look at the increasing numbers of filibusters over the last 30 years, and it has peaked now. I suspect that the GOP comes off as more crazy as it is the party that does not the presidency. I think that if there were a Republican in office, the Dems might be just as crazy.
I can only say might, because I cannot think of a corollary to the Norquist pledge. I also dont remember the pledge to never compromise as often as I do now from GOP candidates running for various offices. Remember the primary candidates rejecting a plan with $10 of spending cuts for every dollar of spending? Anyway, the Dems have had their crazy periods, so maybe the GOP needs some also.
Steve
Even the long-held argument that people disapprove of Congress, generally, but approve of their own Congressmen no longer holds water
Probably the healthiest signal in American politics in some time.
The Democrats are still trying to govern. Poorly? Fine, then poorly. But they are still in the game, still trying. The Republicans stopped on inauguration day. Their sole fixation has been destroying what they choose to see as an illegitimate president.
Comparing Boehner to Pelosi, one side’s Congressional delegation to the other still leaves the Dems looking relatively sane, but of course that’s not the comparison Ornstein makes and for good reason. The real point of contrast is with Mr. Obama. Nothing Mr. Obama has done is remotely radical and we all know it. He’s only marginally less establishment than the GOP. It has been moderate vs. extremist from day one.
It has taken people like Ornstein this long to figure it out only because establishment media and self-described moderates think fairness is taking the ‘plague on both houses’ position. But that’s a mere pose, not reality-driven analysis.
There are times when ‘plague on both houses’ is just a smug and self-satisfied avoidance of hard truth. The hard truth — and one I’d argue has been painfully clear for years — is that the GOP has been entirely co-opted by its radical/media elements and that John Boehner is nothing but an impotent front man for a party run by nuts.
@Steve
“I suspect that the GOP comes off as more crazy as it is the party that does not the presidency. I think that if there were a Republican in office, the Dems might be just as crazy.”
Really? Well, look at the state legislatures and show me, if you can, anything passed in Democratic-controlled state legislatures that approaches the punitive lunacy of legislation passed in Republican-controlled state legislatures.
The leadership of both parties is owned by Wall Street.
“Too radical?”
I guess it depends on your defintion of radical.
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012041726/burden-proof-geithner-obama-and-wall-street-s-unpunished-crimes
Is Eskow too radical for wanting the criminals who collapsed the economy in prison?
On November 6, 2008 President-Elect Obama appointed Rahm Emanuel, possibly the most partisan guy in the House, his Chief-of-Staff. I think there are only a handful of explanations for that:
1. It was a mistake.
2. It was a signal, a shot across the bow, to the Congressional Republicans that the next four years would be conducted on a strictly party line basis.
3. President-Elect Obama had already concluded that compromise with the House Republicans was impossible and all that postpartisan stuff during the campaign was just boilerplate for the rubes.
I think it was the second. From the point of view of the country I think it was a mistake as well.
Michael, you and I agree on many things. That’s understandable considering we’re both reasonably smart, have strong independent streaks, have broad experience in life, and have concluded that fortune has played a big role in our lives. We disagree on the president. I don’t want to misrepresent your views but as best as I can tell you think (or, at least, thought) that Barack Obama was some kind of Napoleonic mastermind. I just don’t see that. I think he’s a decent enough guy, smart enough (pretty typical for somebody of the professional class), and pretty much believes everything his professors in college told him and that he and his peers decided in their college bull sessions.
I think he’s temperate in general demeanor and center left in politics. Center left is about as far as it goes in the Senate. That puts him in roughly the same camp as, say, John Kerry or Dick Durbin. That’s not moderate, at least not by my reckoning.
I don’t think the president is a detail man. In that sense he’s a bit like Reagan without Reagan’s decades of bridge-building within his own party. I think delegating the details of the ACA and ARRA to the Congress, as very clearly was done, is prima facie evidence that, other than in areas of foreign policy, the Democratic Congressional leaders hold the whip hand in the party. President Obama has practically no coat tails. His victories are his own and nearly only his own. That’s not the stuff of party leadership.
That echoes McArdle’s Law: the party in power is smug and arrogant, the party out of power is crazy.
I’m quite sure I never said Mr. Obama was a Napoleonic mastermind. I gave him credit for very clever “see ma, no hands” diplomacy on Libya, maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.
I also think he got as much as could be gotten on ACA and laid the groundwork for acceptance of health care as a right.
I think he’s very bright, charismatic, and enjoyably dangerous to our enemies. When I’ve graded Obama I’ve given him a ‘B.”
What non-moderate policy has Obama pushed? As I understand it, you’re more of a statist on health reform than he was. His financial reform barely caused a hiccup on Wall Street. He continued the Bush tax cuts. He has not yet supported gay marriage and repealed DADT only when the entire country was already bored by the issue. Am I missing some radicalism, somewhere?
I think it’s silly to say that choosing Rahm was a shot across anyone’s bow, given that most of what followed policy-wise was a continuation of the Bush policies on Iraq and TARP and taxes. On Afghanistan he was (arguably, depending on definitions) to the right of Mr. Bush. The only bit of “center leftism” I can think of is the auto bail-out, and I’d love someone to draw the line between radical ideology and simple electoral politics on that.
I also think Obama has luck, which is useful. His greatest bit of luck is that he is opposed by people who have never formed a clear picture of him. He’s never been a radical. He’s done nothing radical. He’s proposed nothing radical. He is the very definition of a moderate and thus unsatisfying to people on the left.
In fact, show me an Obama policy that is seriously to the left of the American people. Even on ACA a significant percentage of the opposition is from people who find it too conservative, and many in opposition on the right still like the major details.
By the way, as many, many have pointed out, ACA was first designed by a ‘severely conservative’ governor from Massachusetts. The individual mandate was supported by Mr. Gingrich among others. It was a Republican idea. That it is now seen as leftism or radicalism stands as stark evidence that the right has moved further right while the left has moderated. The fact that not a single Republican could be convinced to support a reform plan that was in its essence Republican tells you most of what you need to know about the GOP’s interest in governance.
One other point, then I’ll stop filibustering: if you assume (as I think we now know) that the GOP had no intention of co-operating on health care reform, that they would oppose any effort — even ideas they’d previously supported — then what would have been a better way to go at it? If you know the GOP will be merely obstructionist then the game is to get Democratic unity, right? So how would Mr. Obama big-footing with some packaged, top-down, Hillary Care plan have better accomplished that?
“On November 6, 2008 President-Elect Obama appointed Rahm Emanuel, possibly the most partisan guy in the House, his Chief-of-Staff.”
What is the evidence for this? How we would he be more partisan than someone like Cantor? His voting record is to the left, but not as far as your Rush or Rangel. He, reportedly, recruited a number of conservative Democrats to run for office. Was he really the most partisan or was that just good work by the media painting him that way?
Steve
Good example. Do you know what the job of the House Majority Whip is? Extreme partisanship is, essentially, a requirement for the job.
A good example. It could be both, couldn’t it?
I think the key there is in how it was done. That was definitely radical. Even Steve Ratner acknowledges how unbalanced it was.
The taxpayers rescued a mismanaged business and saved a great many jobs. Despite all the doomsaying we get our money back and both companies are hip-deep in profit. All in all, a relatively minor matter, no more earth-shattering or freedom-destroying than the first Chrysler bail-out. If this is the proof that Mr. Obama is radical it’s pretty thin gruel.
1) Pointing to something that’s also radical (the Chrysler bailout) doesn’t make the GM/Chrysler bailouts less radical.
2) Pointing out the good that was done doesn’t make it less radical.
3) As I said in the comment, it’s less that it was done than how it was done: removing the existing management, putting in a political overseer, diverting TARP money to do it with, and putting unsecured creditors before secured creditors are pretty radical.
However, since I’m not interested in pointing out that Obama is too radical (since I don’t think he is) but that the Congressional leaders are too radical (which I think they are), I don’t much care to ferret out the president’s issues.
I think the President appears to be on the left because he deferred so much of the messy sausage-making to a very liberal Congressional leadership (and it’s quite amazing that Pelosi kept her position after the 2010 election). Whatever his reasons for refusing to get his hands dirty, I think that created a perception – a perception which was helped by a Congress which tries to divert any criticism to whoever is sitting in the oval office. Pres. Obama had very little to do with writing the PPACA – he simple gave some very broad outlines for a bill and then used the bully pulpit to promote the bill in its various forms. I don’t know the man’s intentions, but he was either unwilling or unable to take control of the process from the liberal Congressional leadership which drove the process. And that leadership had no real interest in compromising with Republicans. With majorities in both houses the most they tried to do was snag a moderate Republican or two so they could declare the bill “bipartisan.” But the problem, as we’ve discussed before, is that the debate was really about compromise within the Democratic party. There is still this persistent myth that somehow the GoP was responsible for shit-canning the public option and for not supporting a “reasonable” bill. But none of that was substantively about Republicans, it was about centrist Democrats. So, the President engaged rhetorically with the Republicans over compromise but he wasn’t driving the bus. They could see that the President wasn’t going tangle with the House leadership on their behalf and alienated the liberal base to try to get a bill Republicans might actually support. It may be true that the Republicans were not willing to compromise under any circumstances, but that was never really tested – at least as far as the PPACA goes.
IMO this speaks to extent of Congressional dysfunction. On one hand, I think the President did the right thing since I think Congress should usually (but not always) take the lead on domestic matters. Such deference to Congress on domestic matters is how our system operated for a long time. Nowadays it doesn’t really work anymore and on something like the PPACA I think it was a mistake for the President not to be more involved.
BTW, does anyone know who decided that the focus of HCR should be the uninsured? Was that the President’s decision or did that come from Congress?
Secondly, I think there are a few more reasons why the President picked Rahm besides those Dave listed. First, it’s sadly common to pick a political hatchet-man for the job – someone who isn’t afraid to get dirty on the President’s behalf. Rahm certainly fits that description (and I’m remember now the reports of him berating Congressional liberals using foul language – I think I remember he had to apologize for some of it). Secondly, I can’t help but think there is some Chicago quid-pro-quo going on behind the scenes.
Finally, I’d like to address this whole “Republicans used to like the mandate” meme. I think it’s more accurate to say that some Republicans liked it. Regardless, where one stands often depends on where one sits and I think it’s a bit naive to suggest that Republicans (or anyone else) were obligated to support a bill because one feature of the bill is similar to one discussed among some Republicans 15 years before.
I mean, you can look at a corollary on the Democratic side, namely the medicare part D benefit. Most Democrats voted against it, yet most Democrats thought there should be drug coverage as part of Medicare. Should we say their opposition to Bush’s bill was unreasonable because, after all, they not only wanted prescription drug coverage, but wanted it provided through Medicare?
It seems to me the case in politics today is that a lot of effort is put into making sure the other guy doesn’t get a “win.” A substantial number of votes seem to swing not on the merits of a proposal, but on the politics, especially partisan considerations.
Oh my, not enough coffee before writing that – sorry for the atrocious grammar.
That is precisely my view, Andy. Succinctly stated.
Since you folks don’t want to apply reality to what passes for contemporary journalistic labelling of ideology, try this:
The only statesmen with national recognition anywhere near the cogs of power of whom I’m aware, who could have done anything substantive to turn America away from ineluctable decline,
in the past few years included Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul
at the forefront.
Michael Reynolds says
“He is the very definition of a moderate and thus unsatisfying to people on the left.”
Yes, but they did not primary him for fear of alienating the black vote.
The individual mandate was supported by Mr. Gingrich among others. It was a Republican idea. That it is now seen as leftism or radicalism stands as stark evidence that the right has moved further right while the left has moderated. The fact that not a single Republican could be convinced to support a reform plan that was in its essence Republican tells you most of what you need to know about the GOP’s interest in governance.
The GOP’s interest in this respect is appealing to rank and file which have far less socialsitic instincts in a coerced multicultural society than it would in an ethnically more homogenous society.
Unfortunately, the GOP power class is owned by people who will use any chicanery necessary to indoctrinate that rank and file
that the world-policing Empire must be maintained and that Israel’s enemies fought at every turn or “we’ll be fighting ’em on the streets here” as LBJ once said about the Viet Cong and Los Angeles.
Unless again you knew the GOP were going to refuse all compromise, regardless. This had long since become apparent. I’m actually surprised that Dave and you argue this point. The GOP had made clear in party meetings and in public statements that there would be no compromise. Fox and Limbaugh were stating very openly their intention to oppose ANY health care reform, and yes, they speak for the party.
There was zero chance of compromise with Republicans. Zero. None. There has been zero chance for 3.5 years now. At the point where they were offered ten-to-one cuts to tax increases and refused a fair-minded person has to accept that the GOP is simply incapable of compromise.
So blaming Dems for failing to compromise is simply nonsense. It’s the worst kind of reflexive ‘both sides do it’ and it’s false.
In fact, really, if we could barely get conservative Dems on-board, in what alternate universe would it have been possible to get Republicans?
Just because you are rational men, it does not make others rational men. Just because you are concerned with the good of the country it does not mean that everyone is.
I don’t think it’s possible to determine whether that’s knowledge or self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we’ll need to leave this as a difference of opinion.
I’m not blaming Democrats. I’m simply pointing out that Congressional Democrats weren’t all that interested in compromise either and GoP intransigence provided a convenient excuse for them not to try. I think it’s a myth that Democrats or the President tried to compromise and were only stymied by the mean, uncompromising Republicans. That’s basically your argument, is it not? That the GoP is so terrible that it’s useless to try to deal with them at all? If you start with the position that your opponent is beyond the pale and can’t be negotiated with, well, isn’t that attitude kind of self-fulfilling? Isn’t this same kind of argument used by some to say that compromise with the irrational mad mullahs in Tehran is not possible?
Well, that’s my point. The liberal Democratic wing (which controlled the process since they held the leadership positions) wasn’t willing to compromise with members of its own party. Please explain why I should blame the Republicans for that?
Now, if you ask me who is worse, I would say the Republicans. By “worse” I mean there is a greater percentage of Republicans who take these uncompromising attitudes. But “worse” is relative – the “better” party isn’t all that good.
How can I tell these two groups apart? By what metric should I judge rational from irrational and determine who is concerned with the good of the country and who isn’t? It seems to me there are many different opinions about that and those opinions align rather well with ideology. Coincidence? I understand there is this tribal tendency to impugn the motives of the “other” but I think in most cases the differences are actually the result of genuine, substantive differences regarding what is or isn’t good for the country.
That’s the way I see it, too.
Well, it’s self-fulfilling unless it’s true and is known to be true. We now know that the GOP leadership — apparently minus Boehner — met to preemptively veto any compromise. Do you think that was unknown to Pelosi and the White House? How about McConnell’s statements, Limbaugh’s statements, etc? I was certainly sure that the GOP meant to refuse all compromise. In fact I thought it self-evident based on statements by the GOP. I’m frankly surprised to see it still being debated.
In the end we got a very small ‘c’ conservative health care reform. No single payer, for example, which outraged the left. The bill kept the private health care insurance system intact — certainly not what the left wanted. And still there was no GOP support. What compromise might even conceivably have brought the GOP on-board? They were offered Romney-care and unanimously rejected it. So, seriously: what was the compromise Obama failed to pursue?
This is fantasy. There was never going to be compromise because one side simply refused. They weren’t playing the ‘policy’ game, they were playing the ‘power politics’ game. Conclusions flowing from the faulty assumption that compromise was possible should be re-examined.
1. The country has been on a spending binge since the 60s. If memory serves, the last time we had a real balanced budget was 1961.
2. When the political and economic reality of taxing set in, financing that spending converted to borrowing.
3. The spending trajectory has never attenuated. In fact, it is accelerating.
4. Taxing has no hope of attenuating the deficit effect of current and proposed spending. Any tax proposal that is anything more than pissing in the ocean, like taxing the rich, must go deep, perhaps into 70% – 80% of the population. This could be a calamity. Further, an empirical fact of history is that said taxes will simply convert to new spending.
5. Current Democratic orthodoxy has no appetite for spending control. You will be variously accused of poisoning the water and food, exposing people to natural disasters, refusing children an education or starving the elderly if you dare bring up the subject of spending control. See: recent speeches by Obama, Reid and Pelosi. See. proactively, the Obama campaign. This is pure and crass politics, not any hint of compromise.
6. “Compromise” means capitulation and a furthering of this ruinous financial trajectory. Its just simple math. The Democrats had both houses and the Presidency for two years. They did classic cram downs of new spending proposals, not spending restraint. Compromise my ass.
7. Any friend of spending obstructionism is currently a friend of mine. I prefer not to be a participant in financial ruin.
8. If I ran my businesses like the government – and in the “spirit of compromise” – I’d be thrown out, sued for breach of fiduciary duty, and rightfully so.
9. Did an outbreak of psylocibin run off into the water supply the last week?
PS
The borrowing crutch has about run its course.
Michael,
Known to be true or believed to be true? The Democrats have two narratives now. One is that they tried to compromise and the GoP wasn’t interested. The other is what you’ve said in this thread – that there was no point in trying to compromise and so the Democrats were justified in not even attempting it. Which is actually the case? They can’t both be true.
As pointed out many times now, the compromises made were to get enough centrist Democratic votes for passage, not Republicans. Further compromise would have been necessary to get the rest of the centrist Democrats and the handful of swing Republicans. Even further compromise than that would have been required to get substantial numbers of Republicans. Of course, the problem is that to get either of those points would mean the liberal support would be gone. That’s kind of hard to do when the people in charge of the process are the core of that liberal base.
Therefore, one should hardly be surprised that a bill positioned to be as liberal as possible would not get conservative votes. That was a choice the liberal house leadership made. To me it’s not particularly shocking that Republicans didn’t vote for it, nor is it particularly shocking that no Democrats voted for the Ryan budget.
So Michael, I think the better explanation is that the ideological wings are very far apart in this country and there is little room for centrists in either party. The wings can barely tolerate compromise with their own moderates and both actively try to purge the heretics. As long as the wings control the party agenda there won’t be any compromise.
To me it’s not particularly shocking that Republicans didn’t vote for it, nor is it particularly shocking that no Democrats voted for the Ryan budget.
How shocking is it that the President can’t hardly get any Democrats to vote for HIS budget? Is that all due to Republican intransigence? What about when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress?
I’m sure Michael will explain that is all the fault of George W. Bush, too. And he’ll also call me a drunk, a crazy man and a racist who deserves to die (don’t worry Michael, you’ll probably get your wish when Zimmerman is found not guilty; my wife and I and our daughter are all likely to get killed in the riots the President, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are pushing for – a present just for you) for daring to mention the massive incompetence of a President and a party that flatly REFUSES to do their jobs. That’s all been about Republican intransigence too, dontchaknow?
Oh, good, I’m glade Ice and Drew are here. I only wish Vernon was as well, since all three of you at different times have called me crazy for suggesting that higher taxes actually make me work harder (and thus create more jobs.)
From a new study by Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. http://www.cbpp.org/files/4-24-12tax.pdf
Why look at that. Exactly what the innumerate kid book writer said, but all dressed up with numbers an’ such-like.
Inflation-adjusted GDP in 1961 was around 4 trillion. Now around 15 trillion. Roughly quadrupled while the population didn’t quite double.
Yep, it’s been a disastrous 50 years.
By the way, the setting sun is lighting up the skyscrapers across the bay over there in San Francisco, that benighted liberal, pinko, commie city. Beautiful, but of course in reality a howling wasteland of the type liberals inevitably create.
Reynolds, mostly I have called you a lying son-of-a-bitch, a Democratic Party shill (who once fomented for the assasination of a President), and an evil little shit of a human being.
But you make a great argument for lowering the tax rates to zero for everyone. If we’ve quadrupled the GDP since we last had a balanced budget, then why worry about balancing the budget at all? Why tax the rich, or anyone else, at all? After all, deficit spending has doubled the GDP on a per cap basis (according to the figures you cite) in the last 50 years. Imagine if we just ran bigger deficits, we’d all be rich!
I’d also note this article:
Obama’s done more TO the middle class in two years and nine months of ‘recovery’ than Bush did in seven. Outstanding record you got there.
Median income isn’t falling for the middle class because assholes like you don’t pay enough taxes. And raising taxes on the rich isn’t about raising sufficient revenue to fund the government, as it just won’t be enough money. Making those points at all is simply a distraction for political purposes, trying to hide a record of dismal failure. But then, you don’t give a shit about anything like that, so long as you have poor people to lick your boots, as you once demanded of me.
Hope and fucking change, bitchez, plus a President who now has the legal authority to assasinate anyone without any restraint. (Thank you Congress!) F0RWARD, C0MRADS!
Really? Reductio ad absurdum? That’s what you’ve got?
Michael,
With over 300 million people in this country it doesn’t surprise me there is a wide variety of behavior in response to changes in tax policy. For most of us, though, the system is too obscure and individual tax situations vary so widely and dramatically that I bet most people aren’t really aware of how their tax rate changed, much less make a conscious effort to adjust the amount of work they do in response. I personally spent a non-trivial amount of time trying to understand my own tax situation, which is relatively simple but still wasn’t straightforward.
Finally, I don’t know about you, but most of us don’t have a choice to work more or less to make up for taxes. Many people get their money from a fixed salary and even hourly workers will have hard limits on how much overtime they would be allowed (my FIL is a steelworker – despite his seniority overtime is carefully managed by the firm). I look at my brother and his business and he is working at least 12 hours a day, six days a week as a small businessman. Has been for decades. In good years he’ll give himself a vacation and take more weekends off. He’s dealt with increasing business costs (not just taxes) but by dropping health care coverage and employing fewer workers. He can’t really work more even if he wanted to.
So I find the whole work-more/work-less debate simply doesn’t apply to most people.
Icepick,
What, exactly, has the President done or not done? The President has very little control over the economy – all he can do is operated at the margins.
Andy:
You’re coming a bit late to an ongoing discussion. Some time ago I went many rounds with various folks here who laughed at the notion now demonstrated in this study.
Yes, I am able to raise or lower the amount of work I do.
Reductio ad absurdum?
Your point is that since some will work harder if their tax rates go up, then tax rates should go up. That’s at least as stupid as my point, except that you’re serious.
What, exactly, has the President done or not done? The President has very little control over the economy – all he can do is operated at the margins.
The current President claimed that everything that happened to the economy was the previous President’s fault. He said he would fix it all. He in fact is running on his record of accomplishment. He claims to believe that people mean what they way, so I will take him to mean what he says. If Bush was repsonsilbe before BY OBAMA’S STANDARD, then Obama should be responisble now.
Of course the reality is that Obama doesn’t give a shit about any of it, so long as his power and position is secured.
Yes, I am able to raise or lower the amount of work I do.
Yes, and almost no one else is in this economy can do that.
Plus, you are an idiot if you will work harder for less when tax rates go up but won’t work harder for more before they go up. You are a walking talking counter-example to the rational actor theory.
Yes, because it is contrary to empirical evidence and while it might be true for those people who make so much money they are on the backward bending portion of their labor supply curve it is not something true for most people.
Think about it for a minute, you make so much money that you actually will increase your amount of work if your taxes go up. You then turn around and conclude that what is true of you must be true of everyone. Why if you double my taxes I will have to double my work load to keep my current standard of living. Instead of working an 8 hour day (with 2 hours of traffic) I have to work a 16 hour day (with 2 hours of traffic). Sure. I find that totally believable. Oh and never mind that I work for a salary not an hourly wage–i.e. if I work a 16 hour day my employer will say, “Thanks, here is your normal pay check.” I suppose I could go get a second job, but then I’d be working 16 hours with around 3 hours of traffic. Just to maintain my standard of living. Does the concept of diminishing returns not even occur to you?*
Nice quote there by the way, but I think we need a full quote:
Notice what it says…high income earners. This isn’t a discussion about most people it is about a very select group of people. The 1% or the 1/10th of 1%.
In other words, your argument is not true in general. It is true for those people who make a shit ton of money.
No, that is not what you said. You said you didn’t believe people would work less if taxes go up, but more. I replied in the negative. You said, “No, I know I would because I have bills to pay and such.” I pointed out that for some people who make lots of money already they might increase their labor supply because they make so much their labor supply curve is backwards bending–i.e. they make so much they can afford to consume more leisure than the normal person.
It is, in essence, the exception not the rule. Could marginal tax rates go up for those earning high incomes with little impact on labor supply? Sure. However, I’d also suggest looking at effective tax rates vs. just the base tax rate since various loop holes might mitigate the adverse impact of a marginal tax increase on the high earners.
Absolute values aren’t the entire story…not even half really. The big question is on rates…rates of growth. Is spending growing at a rate equal to or below the rate of growth of “our income”–i.e. GDP? If the answer is yes, then no worries. If the answer is no, then we have problems.
We could have problems and still have the absolute values you note.
*Technically it is diminishing marginal utility. This is why people don’t always want ever increasing amounts of any given item. If you were to look at indifference curves of the underlying utility function (i.e. a representation of consumer preferences that holds consumer welfare/utility constant) diminishing marginal utility is why those curves bow in towards the origin and why people like to consume a variety of goods. The idea here, is that if I am going to give you just apples to make you just as well off with a mix of apples and oranges I’ll have to give you more apples than your current number of apples + oranges. That is if you have 5 apples and 5 oranges you will prefer that to just 10 apples. However you might consider 15 apples equivalent to the 5 apples and 5 oranges.
What the Hell does this mean for labor and leisure? Suppose I am working 8 hours and enjoying 16 hours of leisure–i.e. time not working and I also get income from the 8 hours of work. Now because of taxes going up I effectively get only 4 hours of work and 16 hours of leisure. Just like the apples I wouldn’t consider 8 hours of income and 8 hours of leisure the same as 4 hours of income and 16 hours of leisure. So I’m not going to double my work. In fact, I might just not work any more at all and be pissed off about the loss of living standard. And depending on various government programs I might even reduce my hours of work.
This is the world most people live in Michael. Not the rarefied life you get to live now. Extrapolating from your existence to others is presumptuous.
Additionally, the analogy to apples and oranges with work and leisure also isn’t completely appropriate.
Note that in the apples and oranges we said:
5 oranges + 5 apples = 15 apples.
But with work and leisure a more appropriate comparison might be:
8 hours work + 16 hours of leisure = 10 hours work (plus a higher wage) + 14 hours of leisure.
But with taxes going up it is really:
4 hours of work + 16 hours of leisure = 20 hours….
The government is effectively taking 4 hours of my life every day.
So there is no way in Hell most people are going to increase the amount of work they do. No matter what I do, I’m still stuck with an effective day that is 20 hours long so long as I work at something that results in taxable income.
I think Mr Verdon destroyed very well the absurd argument Mr Reynolds was attempting to make. What next, Michael? Total serfdom?
Good day.
Oh, look, and now we have the perfect rebuttal to the suggestion that Mr. Obama’s auto bailout was radical. Turns out, it was Mitt Romney’s idea all along:
http://www.businessinsider.com/auto-bailout-was-mitt-romneys-idea-apparently-2012-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider%2Fpolitics+%28Business+Insider+-+Politix%29
And yet it appears that’s just what some people do. Apparently enough to offset the pouty ones. And of course it’s just what I do. In fact, just what I am doing at this very moment.
Okay, not at this very moment, but ten seconds after I hit “submit.”
So what if it was Romney’s idea? It was still radical in its execution. And there’s an increasing number of us that don’t see a goddamned meaningful distinction between the parties. They’re just arguing over how the spoils will be divided, not that the looting won’t continue.
Michael,
I’m aware of the debate. I’m just pointing out that it’s largely academic in that it doesn’t make a lick of difference to most people. Even if one study by one think tank is enough evidence to make definitive conclusions (it isn’t, IMO), I don’t particularly care one way or another. Even if all the people who, like you, have the luxury of being able to work more to make more opt to work more in response to a few percent increase in marginal tax rates, what difference would that make? Probably not even a rounding error. Most of us don’t have that option without, like Steve suggested, taking a second job.
No, they don’t. You are generalizing from a very limited segment of the population.
And even for that segment, some do, some don’t.
This bears repeating. I’m not saying the usual, “a pox upon both their houses!” That is just trendy nonsense. I see both parties, fundamentally, as enablers for the looters. I also see it as a battle against collectivism and individualism. It is my view, that over time, we are losing out on our rights. I know people like Michael might scoff at me, but I really would like him to go into a major city and start taking pictures of federal buildings, cops, and even better, airplanes at the airport.*
*If you do, don’t call me to bail you out. I’ll be too busy looking for a second job. :p
Icepick,
Ok, so you’re playing politics then – nothing wrong with that. I will, nonetheless, continue on my Quixotic crusade of pointing out the limits of Presidential power over the economy.
Andy, I’m tired of having these jackals and their sniveling sycophants piss on me and then tell me it’s raining. So fuck ’em. Obama wants to say he’s a god-like figure, then I’m going to hold him to it. When that sniveling little shit Romney is in office, I expect to hold him to the standards he’s proposing that Obama be judged by now. I fully expect him to fail to measure up, too.
In any event, what did Obama ever do, or propose to do, that would have changed the trajectory of middle class median income? Nothing. He made a big issue out of it, but hasn’t actually followed through with anything productive. He actually hasn’t followed through with anything at all. He completely ignored the issue.
I think he is being very sarcastic and pointing out that all of these guys are, when you get right down it, pieces of shit.
Steve V, I think I’m stating that outright.
Icepick is Rorschach.
Hurm . . . don’t tell anyone.
No, worng as usual. Rorschach is my cat.
Need some explanation. It’s gloom and doom in Drew world, and as we know, he speaks all businessmen everywhere. And yet:
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/01/11489902-its-official-auto-industry-firing-on-all-cylinders?lite
Wow. The stock market back to its 4 year high led by Socialist Motors.
Now, I was under the impression that the stock market represented the collective wisdom of all the investors and business types in the country. They seem to think there are profits ahead where Drew sees only gloom and destruction.
So clearly I need to be set straight, because as with the empirical data in the study cited earlier on taxes, there is evidently a gap between mere ‘reality’ and the Truth. (Capital ‘T.’)
They were pumping up how great the economy was in the fall of 2007, too. How’d that work out? And remember how awful the economy was in 2004 when unemployment was around 5%? Terrible, at least according to you Democrats. Now with UE-3 at 8.2% (and the only reason for that is that you’ve disappeared millions of us) it’s supposed to be the best fucking news EVAH in the history of best fucking news EVAH. And oh yeah, housing still sucks, median incomes continue to look for the bottom of the crater, and benefits continue to get worse.
But just so long as Warren Buffett keeps getting richer everything is fine with you guys. Party of the disenfranchised indeed….
Ice:
Here’s the problem then: investors (and their kept economists) evidently don’t know anything, and the stock market is nothing but herd instinct and greed. Which fits neatly with my suspicion that economics is about as advanced as 16th century medicine trying to cure plague.
I have a feeling that economists are guys with basic math skills but no geometry trying to build the Parthenon. They can measure, they can add and subtract, but they don’t know what the measurements mean, or how they relate to each other, and such useful things as the golden ratio are still far off in the distant future.
When I see ten smart, educated, qualified (even Nobel-winning) guys, each armed with a big basket of numbers, reaching ten different conclusions about what the numbers mean and how they might be applied to solving problems, I smell bullshit. Sociologists have more consistency in interpretation and everyone knows they’re full of it.
If GM is doing so well, why are they slashing their R&D budget to increase short-term profits?
Hey Drew, how do you feel about manufacturing concerns that cut back on R&D to show a short-term profit? Is that a sign of a company on the rise?
LOL, #narrativeFAIL
Because they are as they’ve been for many years, incompetent, shortsighted businessmen? They didn’t need a bail-out because they were geniuses. They were bailed out because their failure as businessmen risked tens of thousand, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs just as the economy was going off a cliff.
That’s part of what government does: save us from the worst failures of all the arrogant, entitled 1% who pass the consequences of their stupidity onto defenseless workers. Dirty little secret that will shock Drew: businessmen aren’t rocket scientists as a rule.
So, we prop up bad decision making and incompetence. Gotcha.
Yeah, and keeps them around. Brilliant.
So, government’s job. Promote incompetence and stupidity and failure. A sure plan for success.