Dear Log,
«A rough rule of narrative politics is that the candidate whose life story makes the best Hollywood movie will win the race. Which is why Schwarzenegger represents the greatest triumph of the theory to date. In the past, narrative politics has had to be combined with retail politics: Clinton, like Reagan before him, had spent years shaking hands and practising legislation.[...] The advantage of narrative politics is that weaknesses are reclassified as strengths. A politician who knows nothing about politics? What a premise. A leader who can barely speak an American sentence aloud? Such a gripping yarn. A candidate whose answer to the bankruptcy of California is to propose tax cuts? We sure want to stay and see how this turns out.
[...] The paradox of narrative politics is that it is the very improbability of the campaign that gives it plausibility. In voting booths now - as always in cinemas - audiences will sacrifice coherence for surprise. This is democracy played by the rules of a Hollywood script conference and so, in this context, the coming of the machine governor ceases to be a surprise.»
--"Some mistake?": He has no political experience, no policies and a cupboard full of skeletons. So what does the rise of the Terminator tell us about the state of American politics? And should we be worried?
Re:no
ziggy on 2003-10-09T15:13:41
Funny, I was about to say the same thing. Politics from the last quarter of the 19th Century and first quarter of the 20th century are particularly unmemorable. Except for prohibition and trustbreakers, that is.Although I don't have examples ready, eighteenth century American politics are full of dubious candidates.These days, the figurehead who takes the oath of office isn't really that important. For all of the hew and cry about "leadership" the real issue is about making the agenda. Arnold's political ability is moot; what matters are the advisers he brings with him and the advisers who insinuate themselves into his administration. His lack of policies don't really matter for him, or for Our Glorious Leader either, for that matter.
Re:no
pudge on 2003-10-09T16:56:00
The concept is simple: cutting taxes puts more money in the hands of people which helps businesses grow which creates more tax revenue. You can end up with the same amount of increased revenue and help taxpayers at the same time.
It has worked in the past. It worked under JFK, and it worked under Reagan. Will it work again? Time will tell, but to imply it doesn't make sense is to ignore cases where it's actually worked as planned.Re:no
brev on 2003-10-09T17:33:52
I'm not an economist, but some economists claim that supply-side has never been a real economic theory with any evidence for it, just a political platform. This article describes how supply-side economists have no support from academia. And currently Princeton economist Paul Krugman has devoted many of his NYTimes columns to debunking the idea.
Also -- I've never heard that JFK was a supply-sider before.
But you're one of the smarter conservatives I know, and I'd like to hear the other side. The rebuttals to Krugman that I can find are rather dubious and come only from media that I would consider overly politicially slanted (National Review, Wall Street Journal, Canadian National Post). And a surprising number of rebuttals are by this one guy Bruce Bartlett. In this one Bartlett admits that supply-side economics is outside the mainstream of economics, but that is only because all economics professors are Stalinist Keynesians, or something.
This probably isn't the place for such a debate. You can respond by email if you like (neil underscore j underscore k at yahoo dot com).
Re:no
pudge on 2003-10-09T18:05:26
I can't talk much about it now, I am on vacation, but realize two things: 1. academia is not interesting to me, as it often ignores practical application and evidence, and 2. Krugman is at least as "politically slanted" as the National Review is.
As to Kennedy being a "supply sider," I wouldn't say that in today's terms, but look into the things he said about cutting the top tax rate (then up around 80 or 90 percent... yes, really) and look at the result of slashing it. And "Reaganomics" DID help bring the economy back, though I wish it had not been accompanied by huge amounts of deficit spending (same problem I have with President Bush, now). Re:no
jjohn on 2003-10-10T00:49:52
I know that I shouldn't reply to this, but I have to -- ears burning.[cutting taxes to spur the economy] has worked in the past. It worked under JFK, and it worked under Reagan.
There were two recession under Reagans 8 years in office. Crime increased in 7 of his eight years in office (I'm excluding crimes that happen inside the White House, like Iran-Contra) and the crime continued to increase under Bush Sr. The crime dropped dramatically during the Clinton years (again, I'm excluding activities in the White House). The deregulation of the banking industry lead to the multi-billion dollar Savings & Loan crisis of the late eighties/nineties. By 1989, the Reagan/Bush tax cuts indeed gave 15% break -- to the richest 1% of US tax payers. During the same time (1980-1989), payroll taxes increased, disproprotionately affected the poorest 20% of the US and increasing their burden. (The payroll situation was somewhat addressed by Bush Sr's Earned Tax Credit, IIRC). Although the Reagan administration oversaw some job creation (certainly, there were a lot of new air traffic controllers thanks to Ronnie), there was none under Bush, Sr.
Reagan's economic policies were a disaster. Full stop. Bush's are also: no job creation (just like Dad) and tax breaks for the wealthy. Trickle down hasn't worked. Giving huge government orders to the industrial-military complex does seem to spur a certain amount of economic activity though. You know, if you destroy material goods, you have to spend money to replace them.
This economic downturn doesn't appear to be caused by a lack of investory money, but a lack of investor interest. During the 80's, there was substantially less VC money around (401K and mutual funds were just beginning to get popular). What is it going to take to get investors to back new ventures again (to start the wheel of capitalism)? I dunno. I don't think lowering taxes is quite the way to do it. Sure a lower capital gains tax is nice. I have to admit my ignorance of finanace here. This sluggish economy will certainly be studied by future economists, I'd wager.
The trickle-down theory does seem to seem to apply well to small babies and earnest beer-drinkers though.
However, your call for a smaller government does ring true with me. Let's take a budgetary ax to the military/spook projects, foreign aid and corporate welfare. Then we call all pay a lot less in taxes.
:-) Re:no
jordan on 2003-10-10T10:13:17
- There were two recession under Reagans 8 years in office.
One of those recessions (January 1980 to July 1980) was inhereted from Carter and responded almost immediately to Reagan's tax breaks. It was the briefest recession in the history of this country. If it wasn't tax policy that cured this recession what was it?
- Crime increased in 7 of his eight years in office...
Continuing a trend that had been going on since the 50's. This was due to Reagan's economic policies?
- Reagan's economic policies were a disaster. Full stop.
Huh? The economy grew very quickly under Reagan. We saw a real GDP growth of nearly 4 % annually between 1981 and 1989. Higher than the 3.6% average we saw under Clinton. Hard to see where you can claim the Reagain economic policies were a "disaster".
The Clinton year expansions increased dramatically after 1994. It could be argued that that has more to do with Congress becoming Republican and enforcing fiscal discipline as any policy of Clinton's.
I'm surprised you didn't pull out the old saw about the increases in Deficit spending under Reagan. Well, that wasn't tax policy. Tax Revenues nearly doubled under Reagan due to the robust economy. That was lack of fiscal discipline on the part of Congress that increased total expenditures by nearly 3 fold over the same period. This even after promising to tie tax raises that they forced Reagan to take to spending cuts, which somehow failed to materialize.
Re:no
pudge on 2003-10-10T17:06:27
You're missing the point. Even if I conceded most of what you claim, you did not and cannot claim that the economy did not grow significantly under Reagan, and it is perfectly reasonable to give much of the credit to "trickle down."
As to the specifics, some of what you say is true but uninteresting. Yes, the "top 1%" got a big tax cut, because their taxes were disproportionately high. You disagree? Wow, surprise, coming from a Masshole!:-) But JFK cut the tax rate of the top 1% more than any President, ever. The top tax rate now is less than half of what it was before JFK, not because the "rich are benefitting off the backs of the poor and middle class," but because the tax system was grossly unfair.
I do agree somewhat that payroll taxes are too high, but this is a tension between what seems fair versus what is fair. Payroll taxes go to Medicare and Social Security which were always designed -- and still are, to a significant degree -- to be something you pay into for yourself. When you draw the money out, it is your money. To lower payroll taxes for the poor is to either change that system, or lower benefits. Either path is quite difficult.
The Earned Income Credit is one interesting way to address the problem, though it has created new ones (including teaching our society that if you don't get a tax cut because you don't have tax liability, then you are being treated unfairly, such as we saw with the child tax credit last spring).
As to some of the other things -- increased crime and S&L scandals -- those have nothing directly to do with what I am talking about, and could have happened, or been prevented, irrespective of the policies being discussed here.
I am not a full-throated defender of Reagan's policies. Social spending was increased too much in many areas, and cut too much in others. The poor really did take in the nuts over the payroll tax and overall increased spending in Congress.
And yes, Reagan had recession in his second and third year in office, largely as part of a carryover from Carter, combined with some transition in the implementation of his policies. But in 1984, the economy made a dramatic comeback, one that got him 49 of 50 states in that year's election, and it carried over through his remaining four years in office.
This is not dissimilar to Bush, who was in a recession in March 2001, which could not possibly have been due to his economic policies, none of which had yet been implemented. Bush inherited a sluggish economy that started about a year earlier, in Clinton's last year. Do I blame Clinton? Not at all. But if any administration is to be blamed for it, it would have to be his. Again, I am not assigning blame, but warning against people who would attempt to assign it to Bush.
And also -- for whatever reason -- the economy is making a dramatic turnaround. GDP is up above all expectations, and most of the leading economic indicators are positive. The main remaining question is whether jobs will follow. We know the increase in the jobless rate has stalled, and most believe the increase will soon become a decrease. It remains to be seen.
I would just warn you to not conflate these various issues. We know that the economy was great for the last 5 years under Reagan, so to say his economic policies failed is nonsense. To point fingers at some issues (like crime and S&Ls) is fine, but don't use these issues to say the economy sucked. You were talking about "the country as a whole," and the country as a whole did very well under Reagan. It could have been better, no doubt.
And Bush's economy could be better too, with more fair tax cuts (I would make only minor changes to this year's cut, dropping the 10 and 15 percent brackets to, say, 8 and 13) and doing more to protect our nation's businesses from *unfair* international business practices, while not imposing tariffs just to protect one industry from fair trade. He should be cutting spending in many more areas: temporary deficit spending is fine, but not when we are seeing the same amount -- some estimates even say an *increase* -- in pork.
So I won't defend all of what Bush says or does. But every time we've had major recessions and cut taxes -- JFK, Reagan -- the economy has grown, and so far it looks like the same is happening with Bush.
