The Conservative Reformation: ‘Stops’
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”
– Bertrand Russell
After an extended delay followed by a brief detour, here are my promised albeit untested (and largely uncredentialed) suggestions for the conservative reformation.
I’ll group these suggestions in two painfully simple categories — what conservatives should stop and start doing on their road to reform — discussing the “stops” today and the “starts” later.
Conservatives should stop their narrow focus on — and rote pledges of allegiance to — tax cuts and the free market. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want high taxes, nor have I lost my faith in capitalism. My gripe is not with the merits of either of those cornerstones of the conservative mind, but with the failure of today’s American conservatives to acknowledge the clear limits of both.
Cutting taxes before restoring a balanced budget is maniacal. Turning once again to the example set by Britain’s revitalized Tories, consider this May 19 David Cameron speech, wherein he talks about a government that places “economic stability before tax cuts” and lives “within its means.” Andrew Sullivan is right: Cameron sounds, here, a lot like John McCain “before he committed to the permanence of the Bush tax cuts.”
Even the iconic Barry Goldwater recognized this fundamental truth, writing in Conscience of a Conservative that “as a practical matter spending cuts must come before tax cuts. If we reduce taxes before firm, principled decisions are made about expenditures, we will court deficit spending and the inflationary effects that invariably follow.”
As an aside, Goldwater’s next sentence — published in 1960, five years before I was born — is terribly familiar: “It is in the area of spending that the Republican Party’s performance, in its seven years of power, has been most disappointing.” I guess some things never change.
In short, for conservatives, fiscal responsibility must precede all other economic proposals. First, embrace spending discipline and create stability. Then, when economic growth rebounds, consider tax cuts. A monumental lapse in today’s American-conservative canon is the assumption that we can tax-cut our way to economic growth/revenues, forgetting that the current economic malaise seems to have much more to do with irresponsible fiscal policy (and irresponsible fiscal agents) than with the level of our taxes. I’d even go a step further. Just as I often remind my progressive friends that strangle-taxing the highest wage earners will not solve our collective problems, so I remind my conservative friends that we cannot tax-cut everyone to prosperity. Trickle-down or supply-side economics have merit, but they’re not a panacea. There are no guarantees the mega-wealthy will invest their extra post-tax income (at levels proportionate with their tax cuts) into the economic stream that creates the rising sea that lifts all boats.
Turning to the free market: I love it. I’ve benefited from it. And on many fronts, I trust it more than I could ever trust government. But much like tax-cutting, the free market left to its own devices won’t address all that ails us. Case in point: Health care. To assume the free market can eventually accomplish universal coverage is to pretend the free market is something it is not.
The free market attempts to increase revenues, cut costs, and maximize profits. That’s its mission. And generally, the less government messes with it, the better the market performs its mission.
“Fair dealing” is crucial to a well-functioning market, but giving away the shop is not. There is no free-market rationale for insurance companies to decrease revenues, increase costs, and shrink profits — which is precisely what would happen if they provided universal coverage, adding to their rosters millions of people who require expensive treatments but can’t (try as they might) pay fair-market rates for their premiums. Or, as Jonathan Cohn put it: “ … private insurance operating in a regulatory vacuum is incapable of taking care of the people who need medical attention the most.”
For those conservatives who label my free-market argument as heretical … get a grip. We and our progressive counterparts already know there are certain things the free market should not be trusted to wholly accomplish; police and fire protection jump to mind.
I shudder to imagine a world where private enterprise competed to sell police and fire protection to individual households. The result would undoubtedly be the non-protection of unprofitable households and neighborhoods. To be clear: I am not suggesting our government assume complete control of health care like it commonly does for police and fire protection. What I am suggesting is that conservatives stop making, in reverse, the same fundamental mistake progressives too often make. Progressives skew toward more government/less market; conservatives skew the other way. The tension is healthy, but eventually, we have to consider third-rail options. And tired, irrelevant dogma about the free market (from either side of the political spectrum) won’t help us get there.
More later.
Note: For the purposes of this and other installments in the series, I consider neither of the following groups “conservative”:
(1) “Neocons,” who would make military intervention and unilateral action priorities in our approach to foreign policy rather than two options that should be used only in the most-dire of circumstances/as last resorts
(2) “Sociocons,” who would force their views of behavior/morality on everyone else.
Those two groups are clearly part of today’s Republican party, but they are not conservatives under any definition I’ve ever accepted. To the degree they continue to claim they are conservatives, then yes, that would add another “stop” to my list, i.e., stop allowing these voices to distract and denigrate the movement.
14 Responses to “The Conservative Reformation: ‘Stops’”
What has killed the expansion of our economy and thus tremendously hurt the deficit is that the GOP relied heavily upon an expanding economy to fuel an ever expanding budget.
When the immigration bill was shot down their went lots of money, lots of tax dollars and lots of room to expand. Thus the GOP is going to need to rethink their entire approach to the Reagan trickle down theory that more money to spend equals more revenue for the government. That only works in an expanding economy and I do not see the economy expanding at the 4 to 5 percent needed to justify the tax cuts they have put in place.
Pete,
In your tax section, you wonder if the wealthy would invest their ill-gotten money.
Aside from literally putting cash in a mattress, how does one avoid injecting capital into the economy?
“Cutting taxes before restoring a balanced budget is maniacal.”
The real problem (key to balancing the budget) is the reduction in spending that is essential. Don't expect conservatives to get liberal cooperation in that area.
“There are no guarantees the mega-wealthy will invest their extra post-tax income (at levels proportionate with their tax cuts) into the economic stream that creates the rising sea that lifts all boats.”
Exactly what is meant by this, a claim the wealthy won't invest, or that they won't spend their money? I doubt all that money will go into tax-free bonds to finance current debt accompanied by no reduction in spending, but with tax reductions.
“Progressives skew toward more government/less market; conservatives skew the other way.”
Not as much. And nothing was said (because it's been given up upon as the GOP becomes happy with being in power in Washington) about returning to federalist principles and attempting the minimum in Washington while relying on most to be done by state and local governments. It is a myth that it has been tried and failed; it hasn't been tried in modern times, since the 1930s, in fact.
I will give progressives credit lately for not repeating the same “nationalize the oil companies” (i.e., federalize them) nonsense we heard in the early 1980s (and we likely were treated to in the early-mid 1970s).
Jwest — If the mega-wealthy take their returned income after tax-cuts and stick said income into any variety of savings vehicles, such a move would not have the same type of direct or immediate “trickle down” impact that other investments or expenditures might have.
I'm not suggeting this would have no impact, only that — if our goal is to spur economic growth — then cutting taxes further for the mega-wealthy is perhaps not the most reliable or equitable way to do so.
Reagan slashed their taxes already. I'm fine with that move; those taxes were too high at the time, and the size of the cuts was sizable enough that it did lift the economy. What's more, there's nothing to say further cuts wouldn't be productive or helpful at some point, but they might not be as productive at lifting all boats on the sea (in the near-term) as other options, and they could be destructive if critical revenues are lost for infrastructure and the like because we haven't first instituted more stringent cost-controls/discipline.
It's a matter of priorities and results. That's all.
I believe its time to catch up to our growth. This is something people just cant comprehend but we have to pay down this debt. We have to catch up to ourselves. We CANNOT continue on this path. That means that increasing taxes, balancing the budget and working extremely diligently towards paying down our debt.
that means an economy that is only growing 1 to 2 percent. It means 5.5 percent unemployment but it means health in the long term. This nation needs a dose of Chemotherapy and it needs it now if it hopes to live.
Sad but true.
Ronald Reagan as president actively encouraged Americans to invest and save. Its the key to economic health. Money in the bank is a sign of a healthy economy to the rest of the world. Money in other nations banks is not.
[...] The Conservative Reformation: ?Stops? The Moderate Voice – USA The free market attempts to increase revenues, cut costs, and maximize profits. That?s its mission. And generally, the less government messes with it, … See all stories on this topic [...]
“Aside from literally putting cash in a mattress, how does one avoid injecting capital into the economy?”
It's easy. Very easy. Invest in the Chinese stock market. The European stock market. Stuff it away in hidden accounts in the Caymans, Lichtenstein or any other number of havens to hide money and profits from any other taxation. Invest in American corporations that are shrinking their American work forces as they grow their number of employees in Asia. None of these really help the American economy in spite of arguments to the contrary. Not nearly as much as the loss of the tax revenue costs.
Invest in American corporations that are shrinking their American work forces as they grow their number of employees in Asia.
this people should get over. its the 21st century. Why do you think GWB has allowed the dollar to slide? Yes its so our corporations which are run by highly overpaid workers(in relation to the rest of the world) can afford to sell our products overseas.
I really wished people understood economics instead of spouting talking points.
Let's see. A corporation establishes a mailing address on a Caribbean island so it can claim that it is headquartered there and should pay little to no U.S. taxes. It then proceeds to shut down its manufacturing operations in the U.S. After that it offshores its backoffice operations to Singapore, its customer support to India and then only has a skeleton staff of a few hundred Americans. This is an extreme hypothetical but there are businesses that are doing all of these things. Once they've done that exactly why should any American want this company or its investors to get tax breaks? In case you didn't notice they're not our products anymore.
Very sound ideas, Pete,
I especially like your position about not relying on dogma, of any stripe, to insulate policy from its measurable, in-plain-sight, effects. We would be much better off, IMO, to go about it the other way around. First, asses the effects of current policies, and only then decide what changes, if any are needed.
That it took so long for anyone at the top to realize that economic theories have real consequences, is just pain amazing Where have they been?
As an object lesson, it's interesting to watch China. Their superlative economic success has a dark underbelly, as dispossed farmers, now turned into exploited migrant workers are a seething, angry mass. China keeps the lid on the anger by brutal means, because it can. The brutality can't be duplicated in democracies, so it's even a bigger worrry. for the West when people start feeling like expendable cogs in a machine over which they have no control and from which they derive no benefit.
Pete,
You had a good post on conservatives, but I think you were wrong to exclude neocons from the picture since they do make up a large part of the GOP and will have to be part of any reformation of the GOP. I think the problem you is only looking at the foriegn policy aspect of some neocons and not looking at the whole history of that movement. This Wiki entry has some good points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatives
I guess what I am getting at is that they did have some good points when it comes to social policy, seeing a place for government, which set them apart from Goldwater conservatives and liberals who wanted to spend money but failed to connect it with values. In many ways, Grand New Party, by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam (which I suggest you read) is based on some of those early neoconservative beliefs on social policy.
While I do blame the neocons for an overly agressive foreign policy that got us into the mess that is Iraq (I tend to be more of a Scrowcroftian realist), that doesn't mean that necons have no value whatsoever.
I guess I would add that the social cosnservatives might also have a place in the GOP. And know that I am choking on those words. But the social cons are not a monolith, especially younger conservatives that are might be anti-gay marriage, or pro-life, but more concerned on issues of the environment or the poor. I disagree with Sam Brownback, but he has been good on issues like Darfur.
I guess what I am trying to say is that we should not start doing what the far right has done for so long in the GOP, decide who is in and who is out. Go ahead and propose a new plan, but let's let people decide if this is a vision for them or not, let's not become as hard-hearted as they are.
Dennis
Dennis,
Your argument, considering the power of the GOP over conservative , or any, principles defeats the whole idea behind reform.
A parallel problem exists for the Democrats. Their big umbrella paradigm includes the most extreme progressives. If they want to survive, they can include progressive thinkers, but they can't cater to them by making thieir agenda a verbatim mainstay of the party's platform.
The idea behind reform is to decide on a platform and then let the factions decide for themselves whether they're in or out.