This is Literally Not a Metaphor. Seriously.

Before you read this, a note from dictionary.com:

met·a·phor   

[met-uh-fawr, -fer]  Show IPA

–noun

1.

a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our god.” Compare mixed metaphor, simile ( def. 1 ) .

2.

something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

That is all. Thank you.

What if we’re not broke?

By E.J. Dionne Jr.,

Sunday, March 13, 7:49 PM

“We’re broke.”

You can practically break a search engine

Who here actually believes that E.J. knows how the internet works?

if you start looking around the Internet for those words.

673,000 hits showed up for the phrase “we’re broke.” It took me .11 seconds to check this. Just by way of contrast “numa numa” clocked in with 1.36M hits. 

Mercifully, I didn’t break Google.

They’re used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments,

Also personal finances, foreign government finances, corporate finances, general slang, political commentary, financial commentary and virtually anything that has to do with money (1.51 trillion hits).

almost always to make a case for slashing programs — and, lately, to go after public-employee unions.

Unless this column is going to make the case for slashing programs or rail against Richard Trumka, (which we all know it isn’t) you are clearly misunderstanding the usefulness of search engine hits.

The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.

I have a theory. Look at what liberals accuse Republicans of doing, and 9 out of 10 times, they’re actively doing the exact same thing. Everyone knows by now the “never let a crisis go to waste” mantra of the Obama administration. It’s not like I need to dig deep to come up with examples, either. Obama’s entire first year in office was passing unnecessary bills under the guise of an emergency. The stimulus was a prime example. Even Obamacare was billed as an emergency. Faulting Boehner and the Republicans for invoking our dire financial straits when credit ratings agencies are seriously considering downgrading the US debt is the height of hypocritical bickering and mindless partisanship, especially when the alternative is tap-dancing along the edge of a cliff. The federal government’s gold-plated armor is that AAA- debt rating. Any chink in that armor will accelerate all of the government’s financial problems by raising the cost to service debt. It will also throw the financial markets into turmoil—which is why international financiers are pushing a decoupling of the dollar from international markets—and almost certainly lead to another recession.

Just one problem: We’re not broke.

Behold the benefit of being able to print money.

Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn.

Well that’s certainly news.

But there is no crisis.

The deficit is at 10% of GDP. That’s a crisis.

There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets.

1)      Lower interest rates (not possible)

2)      Infulx of overseas capital (not possible at the scale needed)

3)      High GDP growth (helpful, but highly unlikely, given how high this would need to be and that the United States claims a mature economy)

4)      Raising taxes (undercuts #3) or cutting spending (most attractive)

5)      Inflation (Weimar Republic, anyone?)

6)      Defualt (Looking more attractive every day)

In truth, only a mix of 3, 4, and a (hopefully little) bit of 5 is really going to get us out of this.

And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly,

You can look at this as calmly as you want; I listed every option out of a debt crisis. “Remaining calm” has no positive impact on finding a solution. We know all the possible solutions. This is just a buzzword for those advocating procrastinating from the painful realities of our problems.

realizing that we’re still a very rich country and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.

This idiot still thinks that we can tax the rich to prosperity.

Consider two of the most prominent we’re-brokers, House Speaker John Boehner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Consider them considered.

“We’re broke, broke going on bankrupt,” Boehner said in a Feb. 28 Nashville speech. For Boehner, this “fact” justifies the $61 billion in domestic spending cuts House Republicans passed (cuts that would have a negligible impact on the long-term deficit). Boehner’s GOP colleagues want reductions in Head Start, student loans and scores of other programs voters like, and the only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe.

They could also argue the inherent and blatant immorality of siphoning off private money to augment the private wealth of others, but the “we’re broke” line is working, I suppose.

Walker, of course, used the “we’re broke” rationale to justify his attack on public-worker collective bargaining rights.

Mad props, big ups or whatever the kids are saying these days.

Yet the state’s supposedly “broke” status did not stop him from approving tax cuts before he began his war on unions and proposed all manner of budget cuts, including deep reductions in aid to public schools.

I’m sorry; I see neither the contradiction nor the hypocrisy. Passing tax cuts in the wake of a major neighbor (Illinois) passing tax increases is just a good idea. If Wisconsin is able to form a business-friendly atmosphere (admittedly still a work in progress) then why shouldn’t businesses migrate from Chicago to Milwaukee? Aside from getting used to Packers fans and fending off the occasional skirmishes with ax-wielding Canadian-sympathizers from the north woods, it’s pretty much the same thing. Well, it’s vaguely similar. Work with me.

In both cases, the fiscal issues are just an excuse for ideologically driven policies to lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs. Yet only occasionally do journalists step back to ask: Are these guys telling the truth?

Actually it happens all the time. Then they see that our national debt is about to surpass GDP, collectively shit themselves, and realize that we are, in fact, broke.

The admirable Web site PolitiFact.com examined Walker’s claim in detail and concluded flatly it was “false.”

I’ll see you’re PolitiFact and raise you a PolitiFact. Mine has the distinct advantage of Politifact explicitly saying that Rachel Maddow’s argument that Walker was manipulating the crisis for political gain is “wrong”

“Experts agree the state faces financial challenges in the form of deficits,” PolitiFact wrote.

“But they also agree the state isn’t broke. Employees and bills are being paid. Services are continuing to be performed. Revenue continues to roll in.

Jesus, even bankrupt companies are still hiring in A/R and collections.

 A variety of tools — taxes,

Why would you increase taxes when the money will simply feed public union largesse? (Keep in mind, the revenue-generating capacity of the individual states taxes are vastly different from the revenue-generating capacity of federal taxes.)

layoffs,

The whole point of this was to prevent layoffs of public workers. Walker even billed it as such. Repeatedly. It was an admirable—though soft—goal.

spending cuts,

Word.

debt shifting

Oh that sounds productive.

—    is available to make ends meet.

And isn’t that the situation that we all want to be in? Debt shifting to make ends meet?

Walker has promised not to increase taxes. That takes one tool off the table.”

We’ve been using that tool for decades. Force-feeding a gluttonous leviathan doesn’t bring prosperity, stability or any of the other hallmarks of good governance.

And that’s the whole point.

What, that Republicans reject the one-size-fits-all happy-go-lucky tax-til-they-drop free-for-all of the Democratic-led Keynes-a-palooza? (Once I saw the single-sentence record for hyphen usage, I just went for it.)

Bloomberg News looked at Boehner’s statement and declared simply: “It’s wrong.”

Bloomberg, as in Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D-New York City)

As Bloomberg’s David J. Lynch wrote:

Great, now I’m arguing with the outside help. Fine. This Lynch guy is equally foolish and/or unscrupulous.

 “The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007.

This financial wizard does understand that the interest rate on a T-note is controlled by the Fed, right? Monetary policy is far more political than market-based, especially in the era of Bernanke.

Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren’t attracting unusual investor demand.

Well that’s vague. Yes, if the United States’ ability to raise capital through debt had been impaired, you’d know about it. Everyone would know about it. Deaf-mutes living in caves in southern Mauritania (4^th grade geography win!) would know about it. The market for treasury securities is among the most sophisticated and heavily traded in the world, but the majority of those trades are institutional, as T-bills, T-bonds, and T-notes back virtually every security in the market. These rates determine the yield curve against which all state government, local government, and corporate debt issues are priced. The 30-day T-bill rate is the most frequently used substitute for the risk-free rate. This underpins the CAPM, which is used for everything from the discount rate on capital financing projects to stock pricing. The risk-free rate is used in derivatives pricing models, and the t-bills themselves are often used as checks against arbitrage opportunities. If the derivatives market were undermined by a major blow to treasuries, the resultant correction and capital freeze would make a stock market crash feel like the kiddie-coaster. It would also realign the entire world financial system away from the dollar. The point is not that the rate has already fallen. The point is that the unresponsiveness of the ratings agencies has led to a market inefficiency with the US government bond ratings that, when corrected, could have crippling results.

And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low,

Very true, and yet we haven’t raised taxes at all, which should be tell you that, if only from conjecture, that income tax rates and tax revenue as a percentage of GDP have no discernable correlation.

meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so.”

Exactly the opposite. Far from showing that government has control over its revenue, this year’s low revenue show that the government is at the mercy of the economy, as revenues very rarely show great variance from their mean around 18% of GDP.

Precisely.

I’m glad you agree with your own hand-picked quote.

A phony metaphor

Being broke isn’t a metaphor. It’s not a simile. It’s not an analogy or an epithet or an allusion. It’s on an oxymoron or alliteration. The word you’re looking for is hyperbole. And you’re still wrong.

is being used to hijack

Pay attention to verbiage. What was the last context in which the word “hijack” was used. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that this is more coincidental than nefarious.

the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.

How does a massive collapse of the American financial system comparatively benefit the poor?

We have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, yet further measures to spur job creation are off the table.

By which, you mean a third stimulus. Why third? Because the first two were miserable failures.

We’re broke, you see. We have a $15 trillion economy,

Actually $14.6 trillion.

Keep in mind that we also have $14.234 trillion national debt that’s growing by 10% this year. 

yet we pretend to be an impoverished nation with no room for public investments in our future

When you say “investment in our future,” I envision labor officials diving into a swimming pool filled with gold coins like Scrooge McDuck and playing fish out of water with the leaders of the DNC.

or efforts to ease the pain of a deep recession on those Americans who didn’t profit from it

There are about 1,000 people nationwide who profited from the recession, and that’s only because they had the foresight to know that there was a bubble. If they had waited until credit ratings agencies told them that Lehman Brothers was a financial basket case, then they would be as bad off as the rest of us. You see where I’m going with the credit ratings agencies thing, right? I’ll start talking about treasury rates again. I’ll do it! Don’t make me!

or cause it in the first place.

I’m not going to have this argument again. You know in the Star Wars trilogy where Senator Palpatine starts wearing a really creepy robe and creeping around? And in the movie theater, people are screaming “Palpatine’s responsible! It’s all Palpatine’s fault! He’s the emperor!” Yeah, the people still blaming the trade federation were Democrats.

As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed out

I literally can not imagine anyone less credible. That’s not true. Joe Morgan. (Posthumous FJM Shout out, y’all. Goodnight, sweet prince.)

in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy

I’ve read this article three times and I still can not read this part without audibly scoffing.

in December, “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can’t even think about raising their taxes.

Since when is it alright in this country to target citizens for taxation based on their successes. This is downright deplorable. That wealth was not stolen. They did not manipulate the poor to make what’s theirs. They took risks. They provided market-based solutions that people want. The competed, and won. These are not the types of people who are to be feared or lamented. They are the sparks that drive the pistons of our economic engine.

By contrast, Franken noted that “when you adjust for inflation, the median household income actually declined over the last decade.”

Considering that you’re probably (I’m definitely not going to take the time to look this up) taking a peak at the top of the tech bubble and comparing it to an economic trough, that statistic is a complete throw-away.

Many of those folks are going broke, yet because “we’re broke,” we’re told we can’t possibly help them.

Here’s the more important question: why should we help them? Economic stress encourages a reassessment of risk-tolerance and a rapid realignment of economic resources. By dragging out the misery, we are convincing 55 year old men who used to make $85k as middle-managers that they can find another job like that. They can’t because the economy can’t support it. Reinvent yourself. Start a business. Get another certification. Move to Wichita or Boise or Mobile. Start over. It’s difficult and painful, but these difficult decisions are, more often than not, why the rich are rich and the middle is middling.

Give Boehner, Walker and their allies full credit for diverting our attention with an arresting metaphor.

IT’S NOT A METAPHOR!!!

The rest of us are dupes if we fall for it.

No. The rest of us are dupes if we continue to read a newspaper who’s most prolific editorials writer and the editorial page editor are to fucking dumb to know what a metaphor is! I can’t believe I still read this shit. I'm going to yell at some school children until they develop body image issues. 

The Era of Big Government is Over. Stage One: Denial.

Deficit hawks and the games they play

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

For 30 years,

In other words: since Reagan. Since the demise of Keynesianism as a serious economic philosophy. Since conservatives found their identity.

conservative ideologues

Keep in mind for future reference that he is implying that being an ideologue is somehow a negative.

have played moderate deficit hawks

[null set]

for suckers.

You'd think this might endow

I’m going to snicker quietly to myself, but I’m not going to make a penis joke. That’s the high road, people.

those middle-of-the-road deficit-busters

Again, [null set].

with a touch of humility.

I’m not entirely sure what point he’s trying to make here. Is it that the right has been tricking centrists into supporting deficit reduction that they already support? And that because of this Blofeldian deceit, that the centrists should then project modesty and meekness?

Fat chance.

Don’t act like your logical contortions make sense.

They stick with their self-righteous moralism, pretending to be bipartisan and beyond ideology.

Remember when he thought that being ideological was bad? Now, apparently not being ideological is bad. Quite a swing for two sentences.

In fact, they make the problem they want to solve worse by continuing to empower the tax-cuts-in-every-season conservatives.

Finally! A fair point! Not a good point, mind you, but a fair one. Dionne believes that lowering taxes significantly decreases revenues and accordingly increases the deficit. It’s woefully simplistic, economically myopic, and completely misdiagnoses the cause of the deficit, but let’s roll with it.

It's thus satisfying to see President Obama ignore the willfully naive who are wailing over deficits.

Is the assertion here that deficits aren’t a problem, that deficits aren’t an immediate problem, or that it’s satisfying to see the country’s leader pretend a problem isn’t there?

He knows that new revenue will have to play a big role in deficit reduction.

Read: we need tax increases.

He also knows that House Republicans are pretending we can cut our way out of this mess and would demagogue any general tax increases.

Of course, you can cut your way out of any deficit. Just stop spending. This is all theoretical, of course. The point is, the theoretical construct for cutting spending to eliminate a deficit is far more sound than the theoretical construct for growing revenues to implausible percentages of GDP while maintaining strong economic growth.

So he has proposed some serious spending cuts

[null set]

and some modest revenue increases

Read: new taxes.

to keep things stable as he embarks on a long struggle to move our dysfunctional budget politics to a better place.

He’s not even sort of doing that. He’s ducking for cover and hoping the issue goes away on its own.

This annoys his deficit-obsessed critics,

Again, is the assertion that the deficit isn’t a big deal, because you just praised the President for spending cuts and revenue increases.

by which I mean just about everyone who says he should simply embrace the proposals of the Bowles-Simpson commission.

It’s a good starting point.

Obama should smile, let them rage and go about his business.

What business? This is the job. This is, quite frankly, the most important part of the job. Without financial stability, we can’t fund essential functions of the government, like national defense and basic infrastructure maintenance. (Funding for a painting of Henry Ford in cow’s blood does not qualify as essential functions of the government.) He can’t go about his business because this is his business. This is what conservatives mean when we say that he’s not up for the job. Apparently, as Dionne displays, it’s not unique to President Obama. The progressive ideology is simply not suited to address the challenges that we are currently facing.

Let's look at history.

Excellent idea.

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he won big tax cuts coupled with big increases in military spending.

::Swoon::

The tax cuts and a severe recession tanked government revenue.

Mostly the recession.

Unlike today's conservatives, Reagan at least acknowledged mathematical reality and signed some tax increases.

These were largely simplifications of existing tax code.

But these were insufficient, and it fell first to George H.W. Bush - the last truly fiscally responsible Republican - and then to Bill Clinton to restore budgetary sanity.

It didn’t hurt that we had won the Cold War by that point, and that the economy went gangbusters—based on nothing related to federal policy—for about twenty years starting after the recession of the early eighties. This was accelerated by outsourcing (opposed by Democrats), and budgetary policies and welfare reform put in place by Republican congresses and erroneously credited to Clinton.

But the conservatives who dug the hole

Why is it that the deficit wasn’t a big issue when GW Bush left office?

did nothing to get us out of it. On the contrary, they denounced the first President Bush for raising taxes,

First, I was six, so don’t put that on me. Second, the objection was less about the taxes and more about the blatant disregard for his word. Republicans don’t believe blindly that there should be no taxes to finance the government. Nor do we believe that reductions in taxes will always increase federal revenues (we actually understand the Laffer Curve.) Quite simply, we are a reactionary counterbalance to the certainty that liberals will promote policies that advocate tax increases on an already woefully overtaxed society.

and every Republican voted against Clinton's economic plan.

He had one?

For their bravery in supporting tax increases in 1993, Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994.

Which is when the policies that propelled to the boom of the late-90s were crafted. Kind of like how the Republican legislators of today are cleaning up the mess from the “brave” members who voted in favor of Obamacare.

By the end of the Clinton years, we had a handsome surplus.

Let’s not get carried away; it was a surplus, but not a particularly large or sustainable one.

In came the second President Bush who, with Republicans in Congress, declared the surplus too big.

No, they declared that taxes were too high. They were, and still are. There is a good argument to be made that the structural problems that we currently have in our economy were there in the 2000 crash, but that President Bush’s tax cuts and a policy that allowed the free market to course-correct shortened a very bad recession. Regardless, deficits always increase in recessions because revenues always dip. Spending is never as reactionary.

It was one problem they worked very hard to solve. Two tax cuts and two wars later,

We were attacked. One of these wars is universally agreed to be absolutely essential. The second was essential based on faulty intelligence. Even with that faulty intelligence, it still proved to be a good idea.

we were plunged into deficits - again. And the economic downturn that started on Bush 43's watch made everything worse, cutting revenue

Revenue is taxes, FYI.

and requiring more deficit spending to get the economy moving.

Spending DOES NOT get the economy moving!

Where were the moderate deficit hawks in all this?

I keep telling you, moderation is incompatible with being a deficit hawk.

They have a very bad habit. When conservatives blow up our fiscal position with their tax cuts, the deficit hawks are silent - or, at best, mumble a few words of mild reproach to have something on the record - and let the budget wreckage happen. Quite a few in their ranks (yes, including some Democrats) actually supported the Bush tax cuts.

And bless their little hearts for cowing to political pressure to do the right thing.

But when it's the progressives' turn in power,

We vote our leaders into power. It’s not a second-grade class election where everyone gets a turn by virtue of simply being there.

the deficit hawks become ferocious.

That’s more a cumulative effect. Having a national debt that is the size of our GDP is a terrible thing. We are on the precipice of having our debt rating downgraded, which will immediately increase the cost of servicing our debt by increasing the required rate for US bondholders. Our deficit has risen to roughly 10% of GDP (up from a Bush-era average just shy of 2%). The reason that there is alarm is because this is pretty goddamn scary.

They denounce liberals if they do not move immediately to address the shortfall left by conservatives.

Well to be fair, we denounce liberals for sport. It doesn’t mean we’re not right to gasp in horror at the easily predictable (and, frankly, widely expected) results of Obama’s spend-happy policies.

Thus, conservatives get to govern as they wish. Liberals are labeled as irresponsible

Can I make an editing suggestion? Let’s just keep it as “Liberals are irresponsible” and leave it at that.

unless they abandon their own agenda and devote their every moment in power to cutting the deficit.

Except that President Obama has spent precisely none of his moments in power to cutting the deficit. NONE MOMENTS!

It's a game for chumps. The conservatives play it brilliantly.

It’s not really a game. The country is broke.

By winning their tax cuts and slashing government revenue, they constrain what liberals can do whenever they get back into power.

That’s limited government, and it’s why conservatism is a movement that has always been predicated on strong presidential leadership. Liberals have unwittingly given astonishing power to the executive branch to regulate, to interpret broadly written laws, and to spend vast reams of freshly minted greenbacks We simply need a leader to wield it with the strength to dismantle the bureaucratic machine.

How do we know our difficulties stem primarily from a shortage of revenue?

We don’t. In fact, we know precisely the opposite.

Consider what would happen if we allowed all the tax cuts scheduled to expire in 2012, including the ones enacted under Bush, to go away.

Dr. Peter Venkman: This [government] is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.

Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?

Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!

Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...

Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!

Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

Okay, that’s from Ghostbusters in case you suck as a person and couldn’t already tell.

That would produce nearly as much deficit reduction over the next decade - roughly $4 trillion - as all the maneuvers of the Bowles-Simpson commission put together.

Of course, that assumes completely unrealistic revenue projections and economic circumstances, but by all means, let’s leave the serious matter of the federal budget to nincompoops living in a fantasy world.

If you want to be serious about closing the deficit, ending the Bush tax cuts is a good place to start.

Why? If you give the government more money, they’re just going to spend it on useless programs. This happened here in Illinois. Right after a massive “one-time” increase in the income tax to pay off the state’s debts, the governor proposed a budget that increased spending.

The commission's work showed just how effective conservatives have been. By saying they will never, ever, ever raise taxes,

To be fair, the commission had numerous tax increases, most of which I object to.

conservatives intimidate moderates into making concession after concession.

Is the argument here that raising taxes in a recession is a moderate position? I’m pretty sure that’s not why we had a 60+ seat swing in November.

In the end, the Senate conservatives on the commission - but not the House conservatives - supported some mild tax increases. But Bowles-Simpson proposed about twice as much in spending cuts as in revenue increases. You would think that moderates could at least hold out for a 50-50 split. But no, they'll do anything to win over a few conservatives.

Is it just me, or is it starting to get uncomfortable how stridently he’s arguing that we should give more money and power to the federal government?

As a result, any conservative who supports even the smallest tax increase is hailed as courageous.

This is completely counterintuitive to what you’ve been trying to say for about 3 pages of drivel. Conservatives that support tax increases should be roundly condemned.

Any liberal who proposes moderate spending cuts is condemned as a gutless coward unless he or she also supports slashing Social Security and Medicare. What's "moderate" or "balanced" about this?

Not sure. It’s completely un-tethered to reality, if that’s what you’re asking.

I hope Obama has the spine to keep calling the bluff of the deficit hawks until they get serious about changing the politics of deficit reduction. We can't afford another 30 years of fiscal evasion.

Are you out of your mind? We can’t afford another 2 years of fiscal evasion. We’re poised to need to raise the debt ceiling in about a month, and I have serious doubts that Republicans are going to go along without a budget that actually addresses cuts to the bloated federal bureaucracy and ever-increasing siphon of the private sector. Moody’s has been warning us about dropping our credit rating for two years, but the warnings have been fast and furious recently. Having the national debt surpass GDP is a colossal milestone—one that Greece and Ireland reached not so long ago.

If the asinine idea that we can tax our way out of debt persists, we’re going to have to move from the politics of a deficit to the politics of default.

Logic: If Abstract is Bad, and Concrete is the Antonym of Abstract, We Need More Roads

New GOP House can't govern with rhetoric alone

They just can’t stand it that the GOP message is resonating. Where was this disgust with the abstract in 2008, when an entire presidential campaign was run with two words? What about when Pelosi’s House decided they “ha[d] to pass the bill to find out what’s in the bill?”

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011; 8:00 PM

Edmund Burke, one of history's greatest conservatives,

It also bears mentioning that Burke was an 18^th Century Brit/Irishman. He was therefore not bound by the constraints on governmental powers enshrined in our Constitution.

warned that abstractions are the enemy of responsible government.

There should be a rule against liberals citing conservatives. They virtually always misinterpret the quote. Then again, they would have to. If they fully understood the meaning of conservatism, well, they wouldn’t be liberal.

"I never govern myself, no rational man ever did govern himself,

Note: Burke is talking about governing himself. In case EJ missed elementary civics, the House of Representatives doesn’t govern anything (except, somewhat ironically, itself). It legislates.

by abstractions and universals," Burke wrote. "A statesman differs from a professor in a university; the latter has only the general view of society; the former, the statesman, has a number of circumstances to combine with those general ideas."

Note: the ideas, often packaged together into a single “ideology,” inform the response to circumstances. While there is a feedback loop, sound judgment does not allow a circumstance in a vacuum to alter ideology. This is why flip-flopping is a pejorative in American politics.

Alas for all of us

Count me out of the “us.” I don’t want to be involved in any “us” with you, EJ Dionne, Jr.

and for American conservatism in particular,

Remember the last time we took liberals advice on what was best for American conservatism? We got the debacle of McCain for President 2008.

the new Republican majority that took control of the House on Wednesday is embarked on an experiment in government by abstractions.

By this point, a lack of specificity in Congress is a precedent bordering on tradition, not an experiment.

Many in its ranks pride themselves on being practical business people, but they behave as professors in thrall to a few thrilling ideas.

Business is not about subordinating ideas to circumstance. Look at one of the most effective businessmen of the past ten years: Steve Jobs. Jobs is a rigid ideologue who believes that Apple’s role is to change the world by doing things his way. So too does Mark Zuckerburg, who has consistently turned down lucrative buy-out offers. It was the opportunist, Rupert Murdoch, who bought MySpace and saw its’ value plummet. Meanwhile, Facebook is going public at an obscene revenue multiple that has made Mr. Zuckerburg the world’s youngest billionaire (even if he did foolishly give buckets of his money to Bill Gates’ absurd wealth-is-guilt billionaire money drive.) The point is, great success is based in the risk of adhering to your principles, not the safety of acceding to expediency.

Their rhetoric is nearly devoid of talk about solving practical problems - how to improve our health care,

Repealing Obamacare does improve healthcare.

education

Not an important issue right now. Plus, that should be a state/local issue anyways.

and transportation systems,

Very much not an important issue right now, but this still should be a state issue too.

or how to create more middle-class jobs.

By cutting taxes. Truly, we don’t need 1800 page bills for these things. What’s more, we certainly don’t have to adjudicate the merits of 1800 page bills in the public sphere because the left just throws out misinformation anyways. See: Obamacare debate. We’re still arguing about whether death panels exist. They will, because sooner or later, bureaucrats will have to ration care.

We know that cutting taxes increases job growth. We know this not only because empirical evidence bears it out, but also because lowering the tax rate lowers the cost of capital (Yes, necessarily. It’s part of the formula.) and increases both the number and the profitability of acceptable projects in which a company can reinvest profits. These expansions are literally the definition of growth, and growth is the single greatest factor in job creation.

Instead, we hear about things we can't touch or see or feel,

Like global warming? Count it!

and about highly general principles divorced from their impact on everyday life.

Lower taxes and cut spending is abstract? I feel taxes every time I see my paycheck. Then I write an angry letter to Joe Biden expressing my strong displeasure. I figure he has the most free time to respond.

Their passion is not for what government should or shouldn't do but for "smaller government" as a moral imperative.

I don’t see the point here. There is only one valid debate for politicians to be having right now: “is that the role of the federal government?” The idea that using government as a blunt instrument to enact social change of indeterminate merit is, of course, a moral issue. This is because every program the government engages in requires the government to either confiscate the cost from taxpayers or delay confiscating the cost from taxpayers through the federal debt. Of course, liberals like Dionne don’t see federal revenues as confiscated from the taxpayer; they see it as the government’s money. Therein lies the moral imperative.

During the campaign, they put out a nice round $100 billion in spending cuts from which they're now backing away.

They shouldn’t. $100B is a good start.

It is far easier to float a big number than to describe reductions for student loans,

Here’s a question: are student loans the role of the federal government? Are these among the powers of Congress enumerated by the Constitution? Could the private sector provide student loans more efficiently? I think the suggestive manner in which I ordered the questions conveys a self-apparent answer.

bridges,

Bridges? Really? You want to talk about bridge policy? Very well, I’m strongly opposed to bidding high on a leading ace. (I don’t play bridge, so I may have sacrificed coherence for that pun.)

national parks

I still don’t really get why we have to spend any money on national parks. They’re basically wildlife refuges. Just let them be.

or medical research.

Again, is medical research the role of the federal government? Are these among the powers of Congress enumerated by the Constitution? Could the private sector engage in medical research more efficiently?

Republicans promised they would "repeal and replace" President Obama's health-care law, but the only thing on the schedule is repeal. They provide no alternative.

There’s no point right now. Health care was never the crisis the Obama Administration made it out to be. Some 60% want the law repealed. By offering a replacement, you are effectively engaging in two arguments at the same time.

Then again, is health care regulation the role of the federal government? Are these among the powers of Congress enumerated by the Constitution? Could the private sector engage in the health care industry more efficiently?

A leadership that promised a more open process highhandedly slammed the door on any amendments to its repeal bill.

There’s a difference between enacting new legislation and getting rid of the bad old legislation. Obamacare was the single biggest issue in this last election.  Every legislator and candidate had the opportunity to hold debate directly with the American people. The American people said no.

Most Americans rather like the new law's ban on insurance discrimination against those with preexisting conditions and the provision allowing parents to keep children on their health insurance plans until age 26.

No, most Americans think infantilizing twenty-somethings is condescending. Not to mention that the polling data for these proposals looks at the offers in a vacuum without cost estimates. It’s like asking a kid if they want candy without telling them that it costs their entire allowance. Actually, it’s less innocent than that. It’s more like a hooker picking up a guy without revealing that he’s going to have to pay afterwards.

But there will be no votes on those parts of the law because attention to those inconvenient "circumstances" Burke discusses would divert attention from the great, abstract scarecrow of "Obamacare."

How is a piece of legislation an abstract? Obamacare is a series of laws and regulations that work in consort to produce a massive industry-killing powergrab for the federal government. Keeping provisions of the bill is both unpopular and needlessly complex.

There is nothing wrong with reading our Constitution as part of the new Congress's debut. It's a good Constitution.

James Madison thanks you for your approval.

But note that conservatives would much prefer to pronounce various liberal initiatives "unconstitutional" - again, in the abstract –

How is deciding that the individual mandate in Obamacare violates the Constitution abstract? The Constitution is concrete. Obamacare is concrete. Their conflicts must necessarily also be concrete.

than to say whether they are for or against minimum-wage

Which minimum wage laws? Not only is this painfully vague, but this hasn’t been relevant in almost a decade. For the record, minimum wage laws are feel-good nonsense offered up by condescending suits. Minimum wage jobs are for high school kids. No one earns the minimum wage for more than six months. Even in recession, the bargaining power of workers allows job-seekers to demand in excess of the minimum wage for virtually any job. By raising the minimum wage, however, you would put downward pressure on hiring and lead more people from minimum wage to welfare.

and environmental laws,

Which environmental laws, Mr “I hate how Republicans talk in abstractions?”

Medicaid

What Republican over the last 20 years has opposed the existence of Medicaid? The issue is always the expansions to Medicaid and cutting waste, fraud, and abuse—which are rampant—from a massive bureaucracy. Oh, and which changes to Medicaid is the object of your abstractions?

and a slew of other initiatives that never crossed the minds of those who wrote our foundational document.

The Founders were concerned with creating enduring principles. While they understood that they would be ill-equiped to govern 250 years in the future, they also understood that certain principles are timeless. If their verbiage or perspective became outdated, they also gave the legislature the mechanism to recreate the Constitution in ways as large or small as they wanted.

The Founders couldn't conceive of Facebook, either.

This is a completely worthless sentence, unless you’re abstractly arguing that we should regulate the internet.

And that other perennial abstraction, "excessive regulation," is easier to assail than specific rules that make our air and water cleaner or financial transactions more transparent.

Of course. FinReg was 2300 pages of regulations. To go through all of them would require a week of nonstop TV coverage or a paper much, much better than the Washington Post.

Here are a few:

--a council of unelected financiers, the “Financial Stability Oversight Council” was given the authority to take over financial institutions that they deem a risk. They have no oversight and an unlimited budget. Do you really want to dig into this one?  I can scream “nationalization” really really loud. Try me.

--Derivatives now must be traded on exchanges, instead of OTC. Anyone who understands derivatives thinks this is crazy. Exchanges work well for derivatives like options and futures, but forwards and swaps—the vast majority of the derivatives market—are entered into between two consenting parties that need no exchange. The swaps market is so large-scale that it’s virtually impossible for a private investor to engage in the market, and even less likely that a private investor would be injured by deceptively risky contracts. They have lawyers and financiers for that. You want to try informing the public why a swap is different than a future, go right ahead, but most people understand that the government injecting itself into a private transaction between businesses is a bad idea. It need not be more complicated than that.

--The credit rating agencies, such as Standard and Poors, Moodys, and Fitch, must report to the SEC Office of Credit Ratings. I wonder whether they’ll be honest with us about Fannie and Freddie’s ratings.

--and of course, the SEC’s virtually universal right to offer exemptions to anything and everything. Is there a better way to promote cronyism between K Street and Wall Street?

Intelligent legislators

Subtle. Of course, you’re not implying that Republicans are unintelligent, are you?

know that human beings sometimes cut corners. They recall what James Madison, another conservative hero, said in Federalist 51: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

“Cutting corners” is not what Madison was talking about. He was talking about malevolence, not laziness. Murder is different from incompetence; theft is different from negligence.

As Madison knew, men aren't angels, but the professors in Congress seem to believe that another great abstraction, "the free market," can obviate the need for messy and complicated statutes.

Yes, Dionne is really advocating for messy and complicated laws?

We hear much debate over how Obama and the Democrats should deal with the Republican House and beefed-up Republican ranks in the Senate. The primary task should be a relentless campaign to move the public discussion from the abstract to the concrete:

I’m counting this as a tacit admission that liberal ideology is unpopular.

from doctrine to problem-solving; from "smaller government" to the specifics of what government does;

A piece of advice: leave the catered brunches out of it when you describe what government does.

from "budget cuts" to the impact of reductions on actual programs.

If there are fewer USDA employees, we won’t be able to effectively and ethically mete out lawsuit settlements…oh wait.

And paradoxically, because Obama is a former professor himself, he may be especially well-suited to call the bluff of the new professoriate in Congress. He knows better than most the dangers posed by an excessive devotion to abstractions.

Really? He owes his election to it. That and White Guilt. You would think he’d be more attuned to the benefits, not the dangers.

But the media also have a responsibility.

The marching orders have been laid out. Look out!

If journalism in a democracy is about anything, it is about bringing the expansive rhetoric of politicians down to earth and holding them accountable for how their ideas translate into policies that affect actual human beings.

Now that Republicans are in office, the media has a responsibility to hold politicians accountable? Where was this lust for specifics in the health care debate, when Obama derided the notion of more debate as laughable obstructionism? Where was the thirst for the concrete during the campaign of 2008 when the only things we remember now are the words “hope” and “change?” Where was the zeal for ethical reportage when avowed socialists were appointed to prominent positions in the White House?

It may be easier to report windy speeches about "liberty" and "entrepreneurship" than to do the grubby work of examining budgets, regulations, programs and economic consequences.

Seriously, change “liberty” to “hope” and “entrepreneurship” to “change” and you have a conservative snippet from 2008 that would have Dionne scoffing for days.

But journalists surely want to be more than stenographers.

The question is whether or not journalists’ role is to be more than stenographers. It seems they only seem to think so when the liberal flag is in retreat.

Michael Oakeshott, another great conservative philosopher, declared: "It is the mark of all intelligent discourse that it is about something in particular."

Well, that knocks this article off the pedestal of intelligent discourse, as it has been entirely about randomness and clearly hollow cries for specifics. Dionne even went so far as to ask for specifics on how Republicans feel about “environmental regulations.” Care to narrow it down, EJ? Can you give me a hint?

Let's encourage the new professors who would govern us to deal with particulars and not just their ideological dreams.

In other words: abandon your ideology, stray off your message, give up your campaign promises, and get bogged down in the minutia at a time when America needs bold leadership.

Sorry, EJ. We don’t pay our politicians to be subject-matter experts on everything that crosses their desk. Their job is to be informed, but apply a consistent and predictable ideology to the tasks of the day and promote their decisions to their constituents. If they want to negotiate in the margins, that’s great, but it all comes from an over-riding set of deeply held beliefs. These beliefs aren’t trivial. To the contrary, these beliefs are proof that our politicians are engaged in trying to explain the complexities to themselves and to us, and trying to define rules from which we can reasonably extrapolate. These beliefs are proof that our politicians still give a damn.

The Fightin' Dems: "Before going into battle, one must always first prepare a well manicured white flag"

Obama's dangerous debt compromises

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

As I was passing through security at Boston's Logan International Airport

A hellhole, truly. Why is it that Boston is such a terrible place? Right; one-party Democrat rule in both the city and the state.

on Tuesday night, a TSA worker discovered a penny in one of the bins that had just been screened.

He picked up the coin, turned to a colleague and said with a grim smile: "This is your Obama bonus."

First it was the traveler’s Obama stimulus. That’s trickle-down sarcasm, right there.

Which made me wonder: Is President Obama's strategy of offering preemptive concessions destined to make enemies of his potential friends in the electorate without winning over any of his adversaries?

Why should he treat the Republicans any differently than he treats Iran or North Korea?

The idea of freezing the pay of federal workers could be a sensible part of a larger, long-term deal

Which is to say, Obama needs to keep the most obvious deficit-reducing ideas in his back-pocket to push through the crazy ideologically-driven ones. I get the logic of that argument, but to—in the same breath—accuse Republicans of being mindlessly partisan (wait for it) reeks of hypocrisy.

that would combine spending reductions with tax increases.

Great, so we agree. Republicans want spending reductions. Democrats want tax increases in a recession.

It's an obvious element in any negotiation. But Obama simply threw in the federal workers in exchange for - well, as best I can tell, nothing.

Here’s what he got in exchange [speculation]: Republicans agreed not to demand a 10% reduction in federal workers compensation like they should.

And in the short term, shouldn't jobs and rising incomes be a higher priority than austerity?

Jesus, this isn’t even economics, it’s basic arithmetic. By freezing federal workers pay, budgetary constraints no longer demand lay-offs (or, alternately, allow for increased hiring). The problem that Dionne is, in his wonderous stupidity, skating around is that wage reductions (or, in some cases a decrease in the rate of growth of wages) tends to negatively impact morale, which is why the labor supply tends to be price inelastic. Yes, I do feel bad enough for Dionne to make his own argument for him.

Worse, every signal out of the White House is that it is prepared to cave to Republican demands for a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts,

Can I take a few moments to praise the faux-Republicans going along with this laudable measure? Thank you, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. You’ve given me a reason to believe that you’re not completely hopeless.

including those for millionaires who are in rather less need of additional income than security workers at Logan or nurses at government hospitals.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, eh Karl Marx?

The dance toward a capitulation

Also called “The Macarena.”

on the tax cuts was perfectly timed for the release of the fiscal plan put forward by the chairs of the deficit commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Bowles and Simpson are having trouble winning broad commission support for their plan. And in truth, how can anyone take a deficit-reduction proposal seriously when the main order of business in Congress is to make sure we widen the deficit by keeping all of the Bush tax cuts?

People who understand that

1)    Regardless of the highest marginal income tax rate, federal tax revenues have been remarkably consistent at approximately 18.5% of GDP and

2)    Lower taxes markedly reduce the capital financing hurdles to new businesses and business expansions that drive growth and

3)    Economic growth is essential for getting out of this debt.

What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party's single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts

Well, that and winning massive electoral gains less than a month ago. What was that old Obama mantra? Oh yes. “Elections have consequences.”

and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided - and not getting much help from its president.

Most people are a little dazed just after

Obama seems to have decided that showing how conciliatory he can be is more important than making clear where he stands.

To be fair, this is par for the course for the President. He has made a very successful career out of obfuscating his positions on seemingly simple items. This is largely because whenever he does take a principled stand—Cambridge police, Shirley Sherrod—he ends up with egg on his face. This is largely because his instincts on just about everything are dead wrong.

The administration's strategy is rooted in a fear of what Republicans are willing to do, which only strengthens the GOP's bargaining position.

Is Dionne advocating brinksmanship for the Democrats here, because that’s what it sounds like.

The president figures that congressional Republicans would be quite happy to let taxes on the middle class rise on Jan. 1 if that's the price of continuing to fight for the tax cuts for the rich.

Where is that “rich” line again?

In a game of chicken, Republicans are willing to gamble - even if the economy would take a hit.

So you acknowledge that increased taxes lead to economic stagnation—an surprising revelation from a man advocating increased taxes.

Lacking confidence that Senate Democrats would hold together and force the Republicans to vote to kill the middle-class tax cuts,

Which they wouldn’t, both because they’re too shell-shocked from last month and because they’ve lost the messaging to the Republicans. The American people rightly perceive this skirmish as between those who want to maintain the tax cuts (Republicans) and those who want to increase taxes (Democrats).

Obama is trying to get what he can in exchange for the extension.

He's right to fight for a restoration of unemployment compensation for about 2 million Americans whose benefits have expired,

Malarkey! (Jesus, I’m old.) The reason that we’re hopelessly indebted is because the federal government decided that it was their right and duty—surely as the founders intended—to subsidize moral hazard regardless of the cost. We simply can not continue to pay people to contribute nothing to the economy.

and for other stimulative measures.

Which have proven conclusively to be anything but stimulative.

And, yes, the Senate should ratify the New START treaty with Russia before the end of the year –

Why? Putin can wait for the people who were actually elected to take up this issue.

though what does it say about us as a country when the president has to offer a tax-cut payoff to get a key foreign policy initiative through?

Well, it says to me that E.J. Dionne doesn’t really understand what qualifies as a “key foreign policy initiative.” Is anyone really worried about Russia having a very lot of nuclear weapons versus a lot of nuclear weapons? Plus, Obama has framed this as part of a goal for a nuclear free world, which is just asinine.

As for Bowles and Simpson, they put some good ideas on the table (taxing capital gains at the same rate as other income,

I agree.

for example, and taking a run at cutting military expenditures)

I agree again, but it is telling that the first two things a liberal could come up with that are good ideas to cut the deficit are raising taxes and cutting the military.

and some not-so-good ones (raising the Social Security retirement age,

Sacred Cow #1

capping government expenditures at 21 percent of GDP

Yes, cutting or capping spending by government would be an absolutely batty way to reduce the government’s problem with overspending.

at a time when the population is aging and government will inevitably have to pick up more of our health-care costs).

…To each according to their need.

But the commission now seems a sideshow in a Washington circus where Republicans set the agenda in the main ring.

This is generally to be expected after MASSIVE ELECTORAL LANDSLIDES.

Obama's party is in this end-of-session fix because neither he nor congressional Democrats could agree on what to do about the Bush tax cuts when they held the initiative - and now Democrats have no idea where Obama will go next.

Agreed. The Democrats feared that voting to raise taxes in a massive recession would send voters to the Republican Party in flocks. So they conspired to come up with other ways to send voters to the Republican Party in flocks.

The best gloss on all this is that the president is engaged in a holding action aimed at getting out of this lame-duck period with something to show for his efforts

A “Runner-Up” ribbon?

and a chance to regroup. But he will soon have to decide whether he wants to be a negotiator or a leader.

As though the two are mutually exclusive.

You have to hope

I must do no such thing!

at least that he doesn't want to spend the rest of his term issuing apologies to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

As a staunch supporter of drastically limited executive rights, I steadfastly disagree. Anything that diminishes the power of the presidency is okay with me, even if that means bowing to Republican leaders like he does to Saudi Kings or Japanese emperors.