The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Watt Childress's picture

    Birth pains for plowshare conservatives

    By Watt Childress on Wed, 07/20/2011 - 3:20pm |

    I'm an Independent. I believe America needs a balanced budget based on the priority needs of people, not the demands of crony capitalists. I see our dependence on ever-increasing debt as a form of slavery.

    Democrats boast that America’s budget was headed toward balance under President Clinton. While his role in that achievement is debatable, it’s true that our country’s finances were in much better shape when Clinton handed Bush the reigns than when Bush handed them to Obama.

    The last time Republicans ruled America, they left us with a huge budget deficit. Dems emphasize this in concert with two talking points: 1) Bush busted the budget with tax cuts; and 2) he glossed over the resulting fiscal imbalance by repeatedly raising the debt limit.

    Republicans went along with that strategy when they were in power. Why don't they just keep doing that now when Democrats have adopted the same basic approach? The Bush tax cuts were extended last year, when Democrats controlled Washington. Why won’t Republicans just go along with raising the debt limit, now that we need to borrow more money to pay our bills?

    The answer, say devoted Dems, is that Republicans won’t raise the debt limit now because a black man who wears a blue jersey occupies the Oval Office. Republicans are partisan hypocrites who care more about being in power than taking care of our country. So say some Democrats.

    Here are a few points I don’t hear much from blue jersey fans.

    1)   When Republicans controlled Washington, and Bush needed to raise the debt limit, Democrats voted as a block in opposition. They did this in 2003, 2004, and 2006, just like Republicans did when Democrats had complete control in 2009 and 2010. Here's an interesting post from last January with some very good graphs on this topic. Voting records show that raising the debt limit has been the purview of whichever party holds power. When Republicans control Washington, Democrats pretend to object to deeper indebtedness. These staged positions switch as actors wearing red or blue take turns in the majority.

    2)   Up until now, the rank and file has followed along with this script. Many observers predicted the debt limit would be raised last Spring, with bi-partisan support, as has been the norm when Congress is divided (like 2002 and 2007). But that didn’t happen. Leaders missed a publicized deadline, and the Obama administration was forced to find another short-term means of paying the bills. Now here we are again, being lectured by bankers and political leaders who say not meeting the new deadline will result in economic Armageddon. They may be right, just as they may have been right to use similar apocalyptic language to describe what would have happened if Congress had not passed the Bush bank bailout.

    3)   It wasn’t really the “Bush bailout,” because it was approved by a majority of Democrats in a House they controlled. And a majority of Republicans were willing to oppose their titular leader by voting against it.

    The bailout is our best political indicator of what we face now with the debt limit. Republicans are in the same basic position that Democrats were with the bailout. Will representatives change a pattern that has enabled America to pretend we care about indebtedness, even though we are utterly dependent upon it?

    Budget priorities are the bottom line for me. I abhor our indebted servitude to crony capitalists, chiefly those who profit from war. It vexes me that leaders of both parties are willing to sacrifice our limited resources in service to military contractors. Even more so when they use the least privileged among us as human shields, threatening draconian measures if we refuse to go deeper into debt to pay off the warmongers.

    Leaders will be quick to cast blame if their 11th-hour deal goes bust. They will label those who don’t follow along – right and left -- as extremists willing to risk economic collapse in order to advance ideologies. The corporate media will broadcast that blame at full volume.

    Many will get caught up in that blood bath of blame, should America hold to its debt limit. Yet those who love our country more than political jerseys will plow common ground. We’ll team up to pass a real balanced budget that turns swords into plowshares.

    Cross-posted at firedoglake.com.

    Comments

    Watt, I'm afraid that you're misrepresenting the vote history.

    Democrats may control the White House and the Senate, but they do not control the House, and it is Republican intransigence in the House that has caused the current crisis.

    The linked article points out that when one party controls both the presidency and the legislative chamber in question, that chamber always votes along party lines to raise the debt limit. That's just political common sense. Raising the debt limit is not particularly popular, so the minority party votes against it when they can do so as a purely symbolical protest.

    But the article adds that when the White House and Senate were divided in 2002 and 2007, the debt limit vote was bipartisan. In both cases, Democrats stepped up to raise the debt ceiling even though Bush was president. (The Republicans controlled the House in 2002, and the House did not vote on the debt ceiling in 2007 because of the Gephardt rule, so there are no recent comparable examples in the House.)

    So following the pattern, you should have a bipartisan vote in the House this year, with Republicans stepping up to do what has to be done. But they haven't. In fact, they could have even gotten away with not voting at all, as happened in 2007, but they abolished the Gephardt rule.

    They have done so largely because they are trying to exploit the debt ceiling vote to coerce Obama into supporting changes that they lack the votes to enact, a tactic which Republicans also tried against Clinton in 1995. By contrast, Democratic legislative majorities have never attempted to hold the debt ceiling hostage for their agenda.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 07/20/2011 - 8:31pm

    I understand the vote history and how it relates to control of Congress and the White House. Can't see how I've misrepresented that history, though it looks like we derive different lessons from it.

    Thanks for flagging the Democratic Party's use of the Gephardt Rule in 2007. I'm not a fan of the rule, which to me seems like a procedural dodge of something that is obviously important to citizens. The decision to raise the debt limit should be voted on by both chambers of Congress, in my opinion. I give credit to the Republicans for nixing the rule this go round.

    I suppose there are plenty of occasions when the only form of protest that is available to citizens is purely symbolic. That should not mean it doesn't matter, not if we're genuine in our civic activism.


    by Watt Childress on Wed, 07/20/2011 - 9:08pm

    OK, I'll explain. Your post challenges various Democratic talking points including the following: Republicans are partisan hypocrites who care more about being in power than taking care of our country.

    (For the record, that's not exactly the Democratic talking point. The actual Dem position is that Republicans care more about cutting taxes for the rich than taking care of our country, but whatever.)

    In the subsequent paragraphs, you undermine the talking point by arguing that Democrats are also partisan hypocrites. That's not very controversial, and it's a fair generalization of both Democratic and Republican politicians.

    But the second bit "who care more about being in power than taking care of our country," is a more serious charge, and it does not apply equally to contemporary Democratic and Republican legislators.

    The voting records that you cite may reveal the Dems to be partisan hypocrites, but it does not demonstrate that they care more about power or ideology than taking care of the country. Democrats voted against raising the debt ceiling only when their votes would not hurt the country; they knew that the Republican majority would take care of raising the limit and exercised a symbolic protest vote. You can call the votes cowardly, disingenuous, or hypocritical, but they were not dangerous.

    What the House Republicans have been threatening, by contrast, is very dangerous because they have the majority. Their votes are not symbolic. If all Republican congresspeople vote against raising the debt ceiling, the bill will fail and the country will be severely damaged.

    In other words, there will always be partisan hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle, but our Republicans friends have been willing to press the partisan games to a far more damaging degree than either party was was willing to do during most of the 20th century.


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 11:53am

    Thank you, Ghengis:  for taking the time to respond at length to my post, for providing this online forum for discussion, and for your civic activism.

    Methinks the debt limit debate is spotlighting differences and similarities between conservatives and liberals. Based on voting history, conservatives appear to care more about debt than liberals. Not because either cares less about our country, in my opinion, but because many liberals view federal debt in a more positive light than conservatives. Especially when Democrats are in power.

    I'm very interested in how this tendency shapes the cultural context of public policy. On the downside for liberals, I think it may fuel the popular idea that liberals are inherently more lax with respect to budgetary discipline. On the downside for conservatives, I think it may intensify the inner angst that arises from the blatant lack of budgetary discipline demonstrated when Republicans last controlled Washington.

     


    by Watt Childress on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 4:20pm

    Based on voting history, conservatives appear to care more about debt than liberals.

    Based on voting history or on rhetoric? Republicans like to talk about the evils of debt, but when it's their pet projects, the walk is totally different. Republicans will raise spending (on "important" things of course, like wars) while cutting taxes on their wealthy supporters, whereas Democrats usually just raise spending (and a few brave ones will actually try to raise taxes to offset the spending).

    Unless, by "conservatives" you mean those whose votes would make them appear to care more about debt, in which case that argument is circular.


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 4:33pm

    Historically speaking, Watt is correct. Republicans were once dominated by true fiscal conservatives who pushed for balanced budgets, a division between Democrats and Republicans that dates back to the 19th century.

    But the modern conservative movement initiated by Goldwater and others exchanged balanced budgets for small government and low taxes. Debt concerns eventually became a shallow cover or rationalization for lower spending.

    Democrats, meanwhile, became more fiscally conservative. As a result, we now have a dynamic that would surprised the politicians of yore--with Clinton proving a far better budget balancer than Reagan or the Bushes and today's Republican Housing rejecting Obama's efforts to reduce the deficit by cutting spending and increasing revenue.

    But obviously, the myth of Republican debt-busting remains potent.


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 5:39pm

    Based on voting history or on rhetoric?

    Good question. My answer is "mostly rhetoric, since Goldwater at least.

    People who identify as conservatives have valued their votes on the debt limit in a way that is not purely symbolic, or empty of real conviction. Republicans assigned moral importance to the limit in the 90s as part of their efforts to advocate for balanced budgets under President Clinton.

    Yet it is mostly the realm of rhetoric in which modern conservatives can stake claim to greater concern about debt than liberals, many of whom speak of the limit is either a theater prop or a grand illusion. This difference in rhetoric, combined with occasional use of the debt limit as political tool, shows that conservatives care more about the limit than liberals.


    by Watt Childress on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 7:55pm

    Here's another question to ponder.

    Does the liberal "show" of less concern for debt, as demonstrated by rhetoric and legislative maneuvering, support progressive values?


    by Watt Childress on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 9:59pm

    I would say absolutely not. We need to have our economic house in order, at least on average, to make it that much easier to weather the difficult times (such as now). Of course, I tend to consider myself a "natural conservative" in that I'm risk averse and don't care much for change unless it's absolutely needed. (Of course, there are many cases where I feel it is absolutely needed, so…)


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 6:23am

    At one time we had control of both houses and could have prevented much of this mess, I suppose.

    I just do not see how anything can be 'balanced' while we are at war in two countries--or is it four countries?


    by Richard Day on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 9:09am

    Well said, DD. America faces fundamental problems with our budget priorities. Democrats and Republicans were unwilling to fix those problems when they controlled Washington.

    While sitting at my bookstore rocker, working on a response to Ghengis, a browsing customer overhead me say the words "plowshare conservative" to a neighboring merchant who popped in for a visit.

    "What's a plowshare conservative," he asked. I explained that I put those words together to describe someone who believes in balanced budgets and sees the only moral path to that balance is through dramatic cuts in war spending.

    The customer turned out to be a retired federal employee who worked for the defense department. We had a wonderful conversation, which began with his saying "that dog won't hunt." Meaning, the political momentum for military spending is so great that any coordinated effort to truly reform that spending is unlikely to succeed.

    Many vocal conservatives made the assessment, long ago, that the same dog would not hunt with respect to spending on our social safety net. They realized that the momentum for funding public services was so great that any efforts to cut such services were doomed to fail.

    Did they give up? No. That clan of vocal conservatives determined the only way to force their regressive spending reforms on Americans was by first forcing the federal government to operate under a balanced budget, without the ability to grab more revenues through taxation or raising the debt limit. They also took the leap of faith that the GOP would fulfill their dreams when Republicans took control of Washington.

    It didn't happen. Instead, GOP leadership proved themselves hypocrites with respect to budgetary balance. Those who bought that brand got royally pissed, in the wake of the bailout. I believe we are witnessing the fruits of their angst now with the debate over raising the debt limit.

     


    by Watt Childress on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 6:15pm