In the course of a FiveThirtyEight blog post on last night’s ObamaCare speech, Tom Schaller reminds us more broadly that the policies which have left our nation in a deep fiscal hole — exacerbating (and complicating the solutions to) other crises, like health care and infrastructure and the Great Recession of 2008-09, while also growing rapidly into a crisis unto itself — aren’t merely the fault of our leaders (they of the “collective failure” for which Congress bizarrely applauded itself last night). They are also our fault, the voters’ fault:
Obama’s key line—that the health care problem is our deficit problem—is essentially (if incompletely) true. But the nature of health and health care makes it very difficult to get people to begin conceiving of health care as a budgetary problem for the federal government, or least conceiving of it primarily and forebodingly that way.
And frankly, the notion that Americans of the current and previous governing generations care about the government’s fiscal solvency is belied by the fact that most cannot remember the government balancing the budget in their adult lifetimes. They have shown a willingness to let the country spend inefficiently and beyond its means for years, on policies (as Obama pointed out) both domestic and foreign. I’d like to believe that rationality and long-term planning governed the thinking of politicians and voters. But there’s too much evidence to the contrary. I know this sounds cynical, and I hope I’m wrong.
That said, Obama is trying to win an argument on its merits, on logic, and statistics and projections. In an ideal world, that sort of pragmatic rationality would be enough. But we don’t live in such a world.
Indeed not. But we’ve always lived in an imperfect and sometimes irrational world, populated as it is by human beings. And yet we have not always chosen to govern ourselves in a manner that is so obviously and transparently insane. Something has happened in the last few decades that has led us to this place as a nation. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, though I strongly suspect it’s quite a bit more complicated than the rote ideological answers that adherents to each “side” would suggest. In fact, as I’ve said before, I imagine it would make for quite a fascinating interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis — I’m thinking political science, business, economics, law, sociology, journalism, communications, science and technology, for starters — if somebody really, really smart could even begin to get at the true answer(s).
In any case, America is well and truly doomed if we don’t figure out what’s gone wrong in our body politic, and fix it. We are a nation of children, being governed by the fellow children whom we choose to “lead” us, and we desperately need to grow up, fast. Regardless of which party has been in power, we have spent the last 3+ decades pretending, in ways both public and private, governmental and otherwise, that we can have our cake and eat it too, that our unsustainable ways are in fact somehow sustainable, and that anyone who says otherwise can just be ignored, as we stick our fingers in our ears and yell “lalalalalalala” — much like my 20-month-old daughter is presently obsessed with doing. Unfortunately, unlike my daughter, we have no adult supervision. But the party’s almost over, and when the cops come to break it up, we’re going to be in some very serious trouble.
I certainly don’t have an interdisciplinary Ph.D., but I do have a theory, and I mean this with all seriousness: it was the damn dirty hippies.
Two of the slogans of the ’60s sum up the spirit of the age: “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” and “If it feels good, do it.” In one fell swoop, this separates the present from both the past and the future in a dangerous way: it nullifies all the wisdom of previous generations and eliminated consequences as a factor in decision-making.
The charts above clearly show the result of the back half: we wouldn’t be in such debt if we didn’t regard today as more important than tomorrow. As for the former, we clearly have forgotten as a society that modern life is not ours simply by birthright. Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” lived through the Depression, Dust Bowl and Second World War. And sometime after then we decided that those lessons were not worth learning anymore because we’d assumed that nothing like that could ever happen again.
Not long ago you asked which event this decade history would regard as more significant: September 11 or the recession. Here’s the thing that truly separates them, though: on September 11 we realized that the way we understood the world was deeply flawed, and tragedy ensued as a result. The endless bailouts that have followed the recession, though, make me fear that we haven’t learned our lesson, and that a day of reckoning may come where all the bailouts in the world won’t help.
Someone once said, wrote, or otherwise opined that:
“A person is smart. People are dumb.”
I don’t want to say you’d be better off closing your eyes and hoping for the best, though it is probably true.
Sadly, I find myself agreeing with dcl.
Mike makes a great point. My belief is similar (except I never thought about blaming those damn hippies 😀 ).
The problem these days is there is no personal resposibility. That problem cuts along political, socio-economic, gender, race and every other line. The last two “Generations” both Y and Z can be characterized with the “Me First” type of personality. I’ve heard the Y generation sometimes called the “Trophy Generation”, which is a term that reflects the trend in competitive sports, as well as many other aspects of life, where “no one loses” and everyone gets a “Thanks for Participating” trophy and symbolizing a perceived sense of entitlement.
Just a thought and no, I have no PhD.
We are in serious trouble as a nation. We have over spent and the bill is going to come due. We are devolving into a nanny state, where in order to get elected a politician has to campaign on what they will give to the electorate. Can you imagine a candidate for public office running on a platform that clearly stated he/she was going to cut federal aid of all kinds, cut social security, cut welfare benefits, cut medicare benefits, and generally promise to do all in his/her power to create a surplus in our government. That person wouldn’t even make it to a primary ballot, no party would put them on a ticket.
Until we as a nation decide that the government is not here to hand out aid on every corner, we will continue down the path to financial ruin. We really should require a balanced budget amendment of our federal government. Further, we should require a plan to pay off our debt. This is how we all have to run our households, why do we accept so much less from our government. It is really sad, and I am quite sure my 16 and 13 year old sons may not have a chance at a better life than I have had. Our children will be paying for our inability to be self reliant.
Can you imagine a candidate for public office running on a platform that clearly stated he/she was going to cut federal aid of all kinds, cut social security, cut welfare benefits, cut medicare benefits, and generally promise to do all in his/her power to create a surplus in our government. That person wouldn’t even make it to a primary ballot, no party would put them on a ticket.
Indeed. I would only add that, back in 1984, Walter Mondale tried the flip side of that equation — promising to raise taxes — and it didn’t go over too well with the supposedly personal-responsibility-obsessed Reagan types. I know, I know, government is too big, we should cut spending rather than raise taxes, etc. etc. Fair enough, but at least raising taxes to pay for our profligate spending would be more responsible than cutting taxes WITHOUT cutting spending, paying lip service to “small government” while actually allowing it to grow and grow and grow, without being paid for…
(Not that I’m saying Republicans are solely or primarily to blame — not at all — the blame is bipartisan and cuts across all groups. But let’s not just blame the “hippies” while ignoring the fact that conservatives, not hippies, have generally dominated the levers of power for much of the time period in question.)
P.S. I’m also not suggesting that Walter Mondale would have made a good president. 😛
P.P.S. Also, I recognize that Mike’s point is a broad generational one, not a narrow political one, and I’m not suggesting it has no validity… I actually think it’s probably a significant part of the Ph.D. dissertation I’m imagining. Still just one part, though. In particular, the role of media and technology has to be grappled with, I think. Also the article that ran in the WSJ some years ago, about the parties becoming “the Coke and Pepsi of politics,” has a great deal of relevance, I think. When the Dick Morrises and Karl Roves and Mark Penns of the world can tell our “leaders” exactly how to get 50.1% of us on board, primarily by giving us what we want (or what we think we want) in certain specific combinations, there is no longer any incentive for our leaders to lead. And we, as voters, aren’t demanding anything different from them. We are allowing ourselves to be pawns in a game that ends with the decline and perhaps demise of America as we have known it.
But let’s not just blame the “hippies” while ignoring the fact that conservatives, not hippies, have generally dominated the levers of power for much of the time period in question.
The problem is that those conservatives have to, as Jeff Freeze noted, mollify that portion of the electorate that assumes the federal coffers are a bottomless bag of candy. George W. Bush realized he couldn’t be elected simply as a conservative and so had to be a “compassionate conservative” — tax cuts and free prescription drugs.
And here’s where I think you do a disservice to Dick Morris, Karl Rove et al.: they’re doing the jobs. They’re not disgusting people. What’s disgusting is that those jobs are necessary.
By the way, dcl, I believe the sage wisdom of your comment is due to the well-known philosopher Mr. Tommy Lee Jones, from Men In Black.
I’m not saying Morris, Rove, etc. as “disgusting people.” Not at all. Absolutely they’re doing their jobs. So are lots of people who serve primarily destructive roles in society. Often, society sets up perverse incentives, and people rationally respond to these incentives. My point is not to cast blame against individuals’ moral character. In fact, what makes this whole situation so difficult and complex is that I’d wager MOST of the people who are “to blame” aren’t necessarily morally culpable in the traditional sense. And yet, collectively, their actions are incredibly destructive.
Anyway, in keeping with my comment about “rote ideological answers,” I don’t buy the notion that conservatives can get off the hook by saying they were just trying to feed the liberal entitlement-mentality beast. As I said, I agree that mentality is part of the problem, but only part. Moreover, it is our leaders’ job to lead, not merely to follow. If they don’t, it’s both their fault for not attempting to lead, and our fault for electing meek followers as our leaders. In any case, if there were a bunch a national conservatives who went down in flames in recent decades, fighting hard against the entitlement mentality, after which they finally realized it was a lost cause, and gave up of necessity, I might buy your argument a bit more. But I don’t see any evidence of that.
Nor do I see much evidence of conservatives acknowledging their own deep culpability in getting us to this place. Most seem content to ignore, or at least seriously downplay, the relevant failings of the Right (cough cough, Bush’s medicare prescription drug benefit, cough cough, the expansion of government and soaring debt under Reagan, cough cough), and blame the Democrats/liberals/hippies/welfare recipients for everything, pretending that the soaring deficits in the coming years are all Obama’s fault, no matter how transparently absurd that is.
Bottom line, it seems to me conservatives (like liberals) have made no real effort to fix this problem, but have at best paid lip service to fixing it… and even now, they’re still playing political games with it, instead of standing up for a cross-ideological “reset” in our way of thinking about this, which would be an incredibly valuable thing for someone prominent to do — basically saying, Carter fucked this up, Reagan fucked this up, Bush I fucked it up, Clinton fucked it up, Bush II fucked it up, and Obama’s fucking it up. Oh yeah, and voters? They fucked it up, too. Everyone is to blame. Honestly. Seriously. No caveats. No weaseling. We all suck. We’ve all failed. Now let’s stop failing and fix it. That would be bipartisanship I could believe in! (And if the voters reject this harsh message en masse? Well that’d at least be a noble defeat. And who knows? Like the lotto people say, you can’t win if you don’t play.)
The trouble with politics is most of the time both sides are wrong. It is quite rare that one side is most certainly correct and the other most certainly wrong. Mostly because if this were the case there wouldn’t be anyone arguing for the “wrong” side because it is most certainly and demonstrably wrong. If you are deeply pragmatic and honest with yourself you recognize that this is true. Or that things are as Brendan outlined–we all fucked up.
Government, in the republican democracy sense, is a very fine game of balance between various ideas. There is a very fine and delicate balance that needs to exists between the two competing wrong solutions. Generally in this balance there is something that may not be “right” but it does work.
The issue we face as a nation right now is that for a very long time things have been very out of balance. Worse, nobody wants to bring them back into balance. It is very hard to get elected saying you wish to restore balance to the force. We have two competing sides that are dead set on a my way or the highway conception of things. The result of this approach is that there is no compromise in the system anymore. Our country would not exist today were it not for a lot of very delicate and very tenuous compromises; however, at this point there is no balance to the system and our government is wobbling dangerously and careening form extreme to extreme. It won’t work and it is not sustainable–eventually we are going to crash into something.
In any case, if there were a bunch a national conservatives who went down in flames in recent decades, fighting hard against the entitlement mentality, after which they finally realized it was a lost cause, and gave up of necessity, I might buy your argument a bit more. But I don’t see any evidence of that.
Of course not, because those people long ago gave up that fight. Like I argued (not particularly clearly, and once again thanks to Jazz for refining my words) in a previous thread, to fight hard against that mentality is political suicide. Barry Goldwater was the last one who really tried on a national stage. And he was crushed by LBJ. Forty-five years ago.
We’ve simply decided that such people are beyond the pale of mainstream political thought. And thus we get to the cognitive dissonance you described, where one of the more powerful arguments against Obama’s health care plan is that it guts Medicare. Since it’s impossible to dam the river, the best that can be hoped for is to somehow hold back the deluge for as long as possible.
Bottom line, it seems to me conservatives (like liberals) have made no real effort to fix this problem, but have at best paid lip service to fixing it… and even now, they’re still playing political games with it, instead of standing up for a cross-ideological “reset” in our way of thinking about this, which would be an incredibly valuable thing for someone prominent to do — basically saying, Carter fucked this up, Reagan fucked this up, Bush I fucked it up, Clinton fucked it up, Bush II fucked it up, and Obama’s fucking it up. Oh yeah, and voters? They fucked it up, too. Everyone is to blame. Honestly. Seriously. No caveats. No weaseling. We all suck. We’ve all failed. Now let’s stop failing and fix it.
I’m pretty sure there is such a group right now. The shame of it is, you’ve dismissed them as a bunch of reactionaries, anti-elitists or worse — Sarah Palin supporters. I don’t know offhand if there’s a 9/12 event in Denver tomorrow, but if there is, go. Ask the people who are there about who’s to blame for what’s happened. They may hammer on Obama for kicking on the nitrous-oxide turbo-boost on federal spending, but I guarantee you every last one of them will freely admit that what Dubya spent versus what Obama is spending is a difference merely of degree, not kind. In fact, there’s a growing dissatisfaction on the right with George W. Bush’s legacy because of his spending, if for no other reason than it greased the wheels for Obama’s spending. Now, you may not get them to admit that Reagan fucked it up, but hey: it’s a start.
I realize that the Tea Parties have a lot of Birthers, anti-immigration nuts and other assorted dimwits and nimrods trying to ride along in the parade, but if you’re looking for a movement that wants to stop this madness, there it is. There certainly is no analogue on the left.
The tea parities just don’t want to pay taxes. I’ve not really seen a cogent argument about how we would deal with spending once we’ve cut taxes.
Democrats, on the other hand want to add programs and leave taxes alone. So it all amounts to basically the same thing in the end. And yes, it is rather a serious issue.
dcl, I don’t know how to politely say this, but: you’re wrong. Tea Partiers don’t have a vendetta against paying taxes, only against paying for things that shouldn’t be taxpayers’ responsibility.
And if there’s anything this post is about, it’s that the idea that we can “add programs and leave taxes alone” is unsustainable. At this point, we may be beyond the ability to even maintain programs and leave taxes alone.
Really, so what programs do they suggest cutting along with their taxes?
They haven’t figured that part out yet. It seems kinda silly to diagnose the patient before you’ve stopped the bleeding, n’est-çe pas?
Good point. So what programs to they plan to cut?
The bleeding is federal spending. The problem is ballooning deficits. The tea parties petulantly want to stop paying taxes without explaining either a) what they will do about the bleeding or b) do about the underlying disease. Both of those issues need to be dealt with before we can responsibly cut taxes. Or am I missing the part in the federal budget where magic happens?
I can put this a little more simply. Do you like having your trash picked up and having a nice paved road to your house? Then I’m afraid you are going to have to pay property tax.
The government, on any level, cannot magically provide services without paying for it.
Now we can talk about what services should or should not be provided or if it is more economical to provide certain service is in one way or another, e.g. through public or private means etc. That is a rather reasonable debate to have.
But whatever services we, as a nation through our elected leaders, decide on, well we are going to have to pay for them. And there are some services our government provides that I don’t agree with and some services our government provides that you don’t agree with but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles in a democratic republic. So I vote for people that will pursue policies I like and you vote for people that will pursue policies you like. The problem is both sides seem to think magic happens when it comes time to pay the bill. And it doesn’t. So we are going to have to suck it up, be grownups and pay our damn bills. And perhaps if we were a bit better about paying the damn bills people would think more clearly about what it is they want to be doing with the government. But honestly I don’t know how anyone could responsibly think a country could decide to fight to fucking wars while giving the people tax cuts. It is completely daft. So now the chickens have come home to roost.
Now you can go about this two ways. Either you can decide on the programs you want and set the tax rates accordingly to pay for them. Or you can set your tax rates and then decide what you can afford to pay for. What you can’t do is pick what you want to pay and pick what programs you want irrespective of each other. But either way you decide to do it, it is a complete package. You yank on one end of a rope and the other end is going to have to move.
I also wish I had proof read that a little better. Oh well, that too is life.
I’m pretty sure there’s not a Tea Partier that doesn’t want his or her trash picked up. What they don’t want is trillions of dollars more spent on top of the trillions of dollars that, as you have so aptly noted, we’ve yet to figure out a way to pay for. But for them, that’s priority #2.
Just seems to me like they are putting the cart before the horse to me is all.
Just had an interesting insight: the collective failure can be described as too much spending with too little revenues, or some combination of the two. It seems to me that each party is generally responsible for one while blaming the guys across the aisle for the other.
Its generally non-controversial to suggest that, except for the Prescription Drug Plan, the Democrats are mostly responsible for the Age of Entitlements. You often hear them say, as Obama has regarding health care, that each new entitlement will be deficit neutral because of efficiencies, savings, or other magic about which the polity is increasingly suspicious.
However, while the Democrats may be responsible for the spending side of the equation, the Republicans are almost entirely on the hook for the revenues. Specifically, the Republicans (see, for example, Reagan and Bush 43) pushed the Great Big Shining Lie of the Laffer Curve implying that lower taxes = greater revenues at conventional tax rates.
As has been pointed out a million times before, the principle of the Laffer Curve certainly does increase revenues when the absolute tax goes from something like 90% to 80% (as it did early in Reagan’s years for the top marginal payers). But if you visit that Wikipedia link, you will see that at something like current rates, there is no additional revenue benefit by lowering taxes. Which is what we learned the hard way from Bush 43 and the end of Reagan’s years.
So we have this two-headed monster, one of which is caused by one party and the other by the other party, and each party blames the other for their malfeasance in causing the other half of the problem. What the heck do we do about this?
What the heck do we do about this?
Cry?
Cry?
Probably not a bad place to start. Then what?
(Epic Jazz comedy FAIL in comment #23 just above. Totally should have gone with):
And then?
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Hmm, Jazz seems to have struck upon something. Though our military spending is also a bit crazy. That is, of course, a slightly different issue.