The New Last Refuge for Scoundrels
On the heels of the dopey Hensarling-Pence spending limitation constitutional amendment, which I tear apart here, the so-called Blue Dog Democrats are now supporting a balanced budget amendment (see here and here). When Republican presidential wannabe Tim Pawlenty put forward the same idea a few weeks ago I explained why it was a bad idea here. (Many of my criticisms of the Hensarling-Pence proposal are also valid against a BBA as well).
I’m starting to think that Samuel Johnson was wrong; patriotism isn’t the last refuge of the scoundrel, it’s a constitutional amendment. The only purpose of such amendments is to allow members of Congress to shirk their responsibility to propose and support meaningful deficit reduction measures now. Unless they are cosponsors of Paul Ryan’s detailed deficit reduction proposal, or have put forward one equally as stringent and detailed, they can’t be considered serious about the budget and should simply be ignored when saying anything about the need for constitutional changes to make them do what they should already be doing.
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Slouching toward Verseilles
I'm interested in the cultural climate that allows people like the Blue Dogs and Pensarling, who voted for every budget-busting item for the past decade and now trumpet impractical solutions, to be treated as if they were serious.
Why aren't they ridiculed the way that, say, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul are openly treated as punch lines? Why do the people who are actually responsible for the calamity that is our fiscal and national security situation get such a pass?
Re
If you figure it out let me know.
alas
Ha-- well, thanks for your response. I was hoping your experience in and around the media would led you to puzzle it all out. It's pretty mysterious from out here.
I'll hazard a theory-- the folks who run the media tend to live, in Peggy Noonan's phrase about the 2008, "in Perpetual 1980": the GOP is the popular cool kids' party. Pensarling, and the Blue Dogs who shade Republican, are regarded as presumptively serious. Newt Gingrich can resign in disgrace, John McCain can lose even in Indiana, and there will always be a seat at every Sunday morning talk show for them.
Add this to a few decades of attacks on "the liberal media," and you have a media conditioned to defer to the GOP. Not so great when the GOP has abandoned policy for talking points.
It's a hypothesis. I'm sure there are other theories that make more sense.
Fox
I think the extreme right wing bias of Fox News and its enormous success has had a lot to do with it.
I like your theory
...because that's actually what I've come to think too. Now, part of this is because of my own personal experience. I came of age in the 1980's: I was one of those young people who cast their first vote for Ronald Reagan. I could go into the reasons why, but the easiest way to say it is that the Democrats seemed to be permanently stuck in the 1960's--and uninterested in, or perhaps even incapable of, coming to grips with the facts on the ground in the 1980's. (I may be being unfair to them, but there you go.)
The Republicans were the ones who had fresh ideas to try out, a rationale for them that made sense, and just generally seemed to be the grown-ups in the room.
The thing is, first impressions stick. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I still think of the Republicans as the "grown-up party", even though, honestly, it's been obvious for years that this is no longer the case.
To the extent that the Republicans are coasting on those feelings from the past--and I think they are--it's going to come back and bite them. Those young people who cast their first vote for Barack Obama have the opposite impression of them than I did, and I expect that's going to stick, too.
Basically, I think in many ways the parties have switched places. It just takes a long time for people to notice.
You are 100% Correct
Impressions are everything. They say that the party you vote for in the first presidential election you are eligible to vote in is more often than not the party you will vote for going forward for the rest of your life.
Those folks who voted for the first time in 1980 and 1984 when the GOP was the "cool" party are late 40's/early 50's now. They likely have been voting GOP most of their adult lives thanks to Reagan.
But, ultimately, youth wins. Those who first voted in 2008 will remember the Bush era because they came of age during it and, as you know, overwhelming voted for Obama in 2008. More likely than not, they will tilt Democratic for the rest of their lives. But, they will be on this earth when those who came of age during Reagan's era have passed.
The concern the GOP has to have is this. They have permanently turned off African-Americans and other minorities in the '60's, '70's and '80's and repelled those opposed to social conservatism and Evangelicism in the '90's and '00's. Now, they are offending the younger generations (of which I am a part of) by morphing into the Party of Medicare and refusing to cut entitlements or raise taxes and risking our economic futures. They are creating a base of elderly, Southern, religious (mostly) males.
Ultimately, it will lead to a loss of national relevance for the party as their Reagan base passes from this earth.
thanks for replying, Passerby and Mike S
... and this (admittedly aging) data backs up your impressions about the tendency of younger voters to identify as Democrats: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/813/gen-dems
Regardless of whether or not you were being unfair to the Democrats in 1980, Passerby-- and I honestly have no idea-- I think it is fair to say that your impression was widespread.
I hadn't thought of it before, but as you point out, the GOP's current, temporary partisan gain from economic and political stagnation could be to its long-term detriment.
There aren't any new GOP ideas-- there's the Ryan budget, which no one in the party will stand by. Other than that, there's just, well, fear, orneriness, and a reactionary disposition, according to the RNC.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33866.html
Obstruction and stagnation play ok when things are going poorly, but when the business cycle bounces back, what are they left with? Mike S is right that becoming a party of Walter Mittys and Yosemite Sams isn't a shrewd long-term strategy.
Of course, in the meantime, when people who aren't obsessive blog-readers and commenters turn on the news, they get an awful lot of Pences and Gingriches telling media-enabled lies without consequence.
Media Enabled Lies May Not But Elections Do Have Consequences
I believe the GOP will make significant gains in both the House and Sentate (if not retake the House) in the midterms this year. Although I am an Obama supporter I also believe that the economy likely will not have turned around sufficiently (i.e. unemployment will still be high) by 2012 and have a gut feeling that Obama will lose re-election in 2012 for this reason.
If the GOP wins the WH in 2012, because they will have already won significant seats in 2010, the GOP nominee will have enough coattails to ensure the GOP wins enough seats to take control of the House (if they did not do so in 2010) and Senate in 2012.
I believe in just deserts. The deficit is out of control due to the Republican led Congress of the Bush era and we are on course for an economic catastrophe that will make this recent recession look like a walk in the park. Unless something is done quickly to raise taxes and cut entitlements, I believe the catastrophe will occur between 2013-2016.
While I would never wish such an event on our country, if it did happen, it would be appropriate that, after promising Americans that he/she would never raise taxes and never cut entitlements on the campaign trail, a Republican President is forced to enter a joint session of Congress controlled by members of his/her own party and ask for the largest tax increase and largest entitlement cut in the history of this nation to avoid fiscal disaster.
With the decision to (i) raise taxes and cut entitlements (and therefore enrage the seniors and anti-tax zealots who are base GOP voters now) on one hand or (ii) refuse to increase taxes and cut entitlements on the other hand leading to an economic meltdown, what would the GOP do?
Not sure, but the consequences of the media enabled lies of today about the deficit, health care, tax cuts, etc. would flow for generations at the ballot box as a result either way.
What's your plan then
Personally, I think a BBA of some form is the only way we will ever achieve and sustain anything resembling fiscal balance.
If you have a different proposal, let's hear it.
I've put one forward on this blog before but I haven't seen one from Bruce.
The one he pointed me to on economistmom was so silly as to be almost unworthy of comment.
As to the hypocrisy charge, it's absolutely true of every politician there is so why bother with it?
The debate on reconciliation should be instructive on that point. Majority party likes it, minority hates it, period. They don't care that they were on the other side 5 years ago. It doesn't even occur to them that consistency of perspective should be something to strive for.
Say this for Kucinich and Paul, they are consistent (for the most part)
Alternative to BBA
The alternative to a BBA is a Debt Limit Referendum (see www.thepeoplesdebt.com for proposed text). The Debt Limit Referendum is a constitutional amendment that transfers authority for increasing the limit on debt held by the public (not Social Security and Medicare Trsut Fund obligations) from Congress to the voters.
If voters do not automatically increase the debt limit to accomodate the denial-of-reality-factions among Republicans and Democrats, then Paul Ryan would become the norm and not the exception on Capitol Hill. Assuming that the public really does care about the debt and deficits, then the DLR would reverse a political culture that rewards politicians who favor cutting taxes without cutting spending, and vice-versa.
Facing a hard debt limit, both parties would have no choice but to offer cogent budget plans that converge to a balanced budget in the foreseeable future. They will have to make the case to the voters that it makes sense to run a deficit in the short-run. Intellectually forthright politicians like Paul Ryan and Steny Hoyer would rise to the top.
Unlike a BBA, a DLR has flexibility and it has teeth. Also, it assigns responsibility for the problem where it truly belongs -- with the voters. So it has a populist appeal and cachet that a BBA does not.
We could and should debate...
We could and should debate the right form of Constitutional adjustment. I'm not sure I agree a plebiscite is the right approach in a representative democracy but that's a discussion for another day.
You admit a Constitutional change is required at address the problem and on that we agree.