Failure Is
Good By PAUL KRUGMAN
November 17,
2011
It’s a bird!
It’s a plane! It’s a complete turkey! It’s the supercommittee!
By next
Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is
supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits. Barring an
evil miracle — I’ll explain the evil part later — the committee will fail to
meet that deadline.
If this news
surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention. If it depresses you, cheer
up: In this case, failure is good.
Why was the
supercommittee doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major
political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different
priorities; they live in different intellectual
and moral universes.
intellectual
universe
– tax break (for corporate jets – moral aspect) +
government spending
In
Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and
cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But
in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on
corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a
job-creation strategy. Try getting a leading Republican to admit that the
Bush tax cuts increased the deficit or that sharp cuts in government
spending (except on the military) would hurt the economic recovery.
moral
universe – social safety net
Moreover, the
parties have sharply different views of what
constitutes economic justice.
Democrats see
social insurance programs, from Social Security to food stamps, as serving
the moral imperative of providing basic security to our fellow citizens and
helping those in need.
Republicans
have a totally different view. They may soft-pedal that view in public — in
last year’s elections, they even managed to pose as defenders of Medicare —
but, in private, they view the welfare state as immoral, a matter of forcing
citizens at gunpoint to hand their money over to other people. By
creating Social Security, declared Rick Perry in his book “Fed Up!”, F.D.R. was
“violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles.” Does anyone
doubt that he was speaking for many in his party?
paraphrase
of
So the
supercommittee brought together legislators who disagree completely both about how the world works (intellectual) and about the proper role of government. (moral)
Why did anyone think this would work?
failure
of the news media to discern truth from fact give rise to externality in terms of political
price
Well, maybe
the idea was that the parties would compromise out of fear that
there would be a political price for seeming intransigent. But this
could only happen (only) if the news media were willing to point
out who is really refusing to compromise. And they aren’t. If and when the
supercommittee fails, virtually all news reports will be he-said, she-said,
quoting Democrats who blame Republicans and vice versa without ever explaining
the truth.
“centrist”
pundits in
addition to the news media
Oh, and let
me give a special shout-out to “centrist” pundits who won’t admit that President
Obama has already given them what they want. The dialogue seems to go like
this. Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and
tax hikes?” Mr. Obama: “I support a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes.”
Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax
hikes?”
“centrist” who are
confused b/w inability to be critical and impartiality
You see,
admitting that one side is willing to make concessions, while the other isn’t,
would tarnish one’s centrist credentials. And the result is that the
G.O.P. pays no price for refusing to give an inch.
So the
supercommittee will fail — and that’s good.
Deficit
resulted from tax cuts and unfunded wars
Any
deal reached now would improve neither deficit nor economic slump (unemployment)
For one
thing, history tells us that the Republican Party would renege on its side of
any deal as soon as it got the chance. Remember, the U.S. fiscal outlook was
pretty good in 2000, but, as soon as Republicans gained control of the White
House, they squandered the surplus on tax cuts and unfunded wars.
So any deal reached now would, in practice, be nothing more than a deal to
slash Social Security and Medicare, with no lasting improvement in
the deficit.
Also, any
deal reached now would almost surely end up worsening the economic slump.
Slashing spending while the economy is depressed destroys jobs, and it’s
probably even counterproductive in terms of deficit reduction, since it leads
to lower revenue both now and in the future. And current projections, like
those of the Federal Reserve, suggest that the economy will remain depressed at
least through 2014. Better to have no deal than a deal
that imposes spending cuts in the next few years.
But don’t we
eventually have to match spending and revenue? Yes, we do. But the decision
about how to do that isn’t about accounting. It’s
about fundamental values — and it’s a decision that should
be made by voters, not by some committee that allegedly transcends the partisan
divide.
Eventually,
one side or the other of that divide will get the kind of popular mandate it
needs to resolve our long-run budget issues. Until then, attempts to strike a
Grand Bargain are fundamentally destructive. If the supercommittee fails, as
expected, it will be time to celebrate.
====
====
=====
NPR, Talk Of
The Nation, November 1, 2011 Tuesday
Private
Meetings And Back-Room Deals Can Pay Off
ANCHORS: Neal
Conan, GUESTS: Jordan Tama
==
DO – summary
- back room deal (privacy) gives a leeway for those at the end of ideological spectrum
to move away from the orthodox
It does not necessarily
mean a lack of transparency, because whatever they come up with will be judged
on
==
In November -
it is November now, and the clock is ticking toward the deadline for the
congressional supercommittee, the bipartisan group trying to find ways to
reduce the budget deficit over the next 10 years by $1.5 trillion. The
supercommittee holds most of its meetings behind closed doors, prompting some
to denounce secret deliberations as undemocratic. In a recent op-ed in The New
York Times, Jordan Tama defended the back-room deal. Call us with your arguments for transparency
or for secrecy or privacy.
Give us an
example, too, if you would. 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org You can join
the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
You'll find a link to the op-ed there. Jordan Tama is an assistant professor of
international relations at the American University and joins us here in Studio
3A. Nice to have you with us.
And one
example you cite in your piece is the deal that led to the Social Security
compromise back in 1983.
That's right.
That was a compromise. That was engineered by the Greenspan Commission chaired
by Alan Greenspan. Before he was...
Then a mere
consultant...
Right. Not
quite as famous at that time but already famous for his economic expertise. And
this was created in 1981 by the Reagan administration, at a time when Social
Security is making - facing a major financing shortfall. And...
What was the advantage of
privacy, lack of transparency, if you will?
Well, the
advantage was that the key problem was for Republicans and Democrats to
actually agree on a solution, and the challenge was not that dissimilar to the
challenge we're facing now because the problem really came down to the balance
between tax increases and benefit cuts. And Democrats, as now, favored tax
increases more than benefit cuts and Republicans the opposite.
And the commission
was very valuable because it took a subgroup of members of Congress as well as
some prominent private citizens and enabled them to engage in very intensive
private deliberations. And they reached some very important breakthroughs.
First, they agreed on how much the shortfall actually was, which
was something that Republicans and Democrats couldn't even agree on at first. And
then they agreed, ultimately, on how to address the shortfall through a
combination of benefit cuts and tax increases.
It's
interesting. Since you wrote your piece, there has been another public session,
a rare public session of the congressional supercommittee. And Democrats came
out during the public session and said, wait a minute, here's our proposal.
Increase taxes by this amount and we'll cut that amount from Medicare.
Right. And
that's part of the bargaining process, I think. They're laying out a proposal
that would include large tax increases, and it's very unlikely Republicans will
agree to those. But the Democrats also want to show that they are making a
serious offer and taking this process very seriously. And one thing that is at
work here is that neither party wants
to be blamed for a failure to reach agreement. So the
Republicans, so far, have not made any public offers that would include
significant tax increases. But it may not be out of the question that privately
that's being discussed.
So it might
be, as it was during these so-called grand bargain discussions between the
speaker of the House, John Boehner, and President Obama at one point. But those discussions became public and
quickly evaporated.
Right.
Exactly. And that's really why privacy is so important, because the real issue
here is that elected officials face intense
political pressures. And when they speak publicly, whether it's at a public hearing or in any other
public setting, it's very hard
for them to move away from their
party orthodoxy. And so it's impossible for Republicans in public to
say that they're for tax increases and for Democrats to talk about cutting
entitlement programs, generally.
And you say,
in fact, those calling for transparency for public meetings on these issues
are, in fact, afraid of success?
I think
that's right. The people who are criticizing this congressional supercommittee
are generally people who are on the liberal or conservative end of the
spectrum who don't want to see a kind of centrist grand bargain. And if
this committee is to succeed, it would only succeed by coming out with
something that's somewhere in the middle.
I believe
every Republican member of the supercommittee is a signatory to the no tax pledge. And that's why I'm not optimistic
about this committee succeeding. Even if
it is in private.
Even if -
right. Basically, my view on this is that the
privacy of these negotiations are
the committee's only hope of
succeeding. But even so, it's a long shot that it will succeed because
the partisan pressures, the polarization of Congress is so intense now.
It's just
much harder now than it was in 1983 when the Greenspan Commission was operating
for Republicans and Democrats to reach agreement on these big issues of the
budget, taxes, spending.
Do you ever
watch C-SPAN?
Yeah, and
kind of a joke actually. I don't think most of what these politicians say for
the camera really means anything as far as them talking to each other. They
talked passed each other. They
posture for the camera. But, you know, what other choice do we have?
You know, deliberations can be as simple as two people drinking coffee
together. You know, you don't have to
have a TV camera there for it to be a transparent government. What they
come up with, what they decide, they can
be judged on. And come election time, hopefully, they will be. But as
far as making all this stuff public, I mean, you don't see like war treaty
resolution deliberations in public either because people have to make tough
decisions. They're not going to make those tough decisions with a TV camera
over their shoulder.
Well, it's
interesting you mentioned that. There was a famous debate before the first
Persian Gulf War in the House of Representatives, and, indeed, the United
States Senate, where people did vote on a war resolution. And the debate was
held entirely in public, and people then did cast their vote. It did pass but
not by a lot. And I wonder, Jordan Tama, those kinds of decisions are very,
very difficult, as you say. And do you think that the posturing that the
people, well, undoubtedly commit to - given the seriousness of a situation like
that, war and peace, sometimes they rise above that.
People do
rise above it. I think, in this case, it's important to keep in mind that,
ultimately, there would be still a very public debate if this committee's - if
this committee does reach agreement on proposals (unintelligible)...
Right. They
would get voted on in Congress publicly and that would be an extremely
public debate that would, you know, be the thing that everybody in the country
is talking about at that time. So that's important to keep in mind. Really, all
that's happening here is deliberations preceding a vote
are happening in private, and that's something that happens on all issues, all
the time. As the caller just mentioned, the government does deliberate over
everything privately regularly.
It's never
easy to defend secrecy in any context because transparency is
something that just seems to be inherently good, and people assume that
transparency is always to the good. And so I'm making, I think, a bit of a
counterintuitive argument there.
But the
reason why I made that argument is because I've done a lot of research on blue
ribbon commissions, special commissions that are set up to look at all kinds of
issues and...
Normally
described as a place where controversies go to die.
Exactly.
Right. The conventional wisdom is that these commissions are a waste
of time, that no one pays attention to them. And what I found in looking at
a lot of commissions, especially ones that have dealt with national security
and foreign policy issues like the 9/11 Commission, is that far more than
people realize, they often are the key institution that forges
bipartisan consensus because of the fact that on these commissions,
there's always a mix of Republicans and Democrats, and they spend a lot of time
together, talking privately, deliberating privately. They actually get to know
each other, sometimes become friends.
You said
you're not terribly optimistic, though, even given privacy.
Right. I'm
not terribly optimistic because of a couple of factors. One, the fact that, as
I mentioned, all the people on this committee are current members of
Congress. And what I found in my research, which I've written up in a book
called "Terrorism and National Security Reform," is that independent
commissions tend to be more capable of actually forging bipartisan consensus
because of the fact that once people are out of government,
people are much more likely to be able to compromise.
(Do- Obama to
Bill Clinton “I envy you, once you out of Washington, you deal with reasonable
person)
I interviewed
one person, James Baker, who had been the chair of a number of commissions,
former secretary of state, and he said it helps to have has-beens on
commissions because they have no political axe to grind, which I think captures
that well.
And no
political future, but for commissions, that can be good. But the other factor
is just the intense polarization of our political environment today. It makes
it very hard for the committee to succeed.
You could
find a link to Jordan Tama's New York Times piece, "In Defense of the
Back-Room Deal,"
