Owning the Fiscal Responsibility Fiction
Mar. 16th, 2021 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutWe have had, for some decades, a set of tropes around political parties and their relative propensities with respect to tax, spend, and balance the budget. The tropes were: Democrats like to spend money, and will tax to pay for it when they are trying to balance the budget; Republicans like tax cuts and will cut government spending to pay for it when they are trying to balance the budget. As a practical matter, we’d gotten into a dynamic of Democrats could only spend money that they got from cutting other programs, and Republicans cut taxes and got into wars (that was a new development with jr) and spent any money that was saved by Democrats.
The tropes were never true. They’ve gotten less true over time. We’ve reached a point where the NYT was advocating for a Mitt Romney proposal to create a payment to families through the social security administration, paid for with cuts to other programs (which inevitably also benefitted families with children, thus making the whole thing a sisyphean exercise in More Paperwork for Everyone) (also, this was where I unsubscribed from NYT), which was equally loathed by Democrats and Republicans.
However, _also_ at this point, Garbarino, a Republican representative from New York (southern Long Island), was on Bloomberg being asked questions about, now that the stimulus is done, what might Republicans work with Democrats on to do infrastructure. He was trying to simultaneously communicate messages that Hey We Tried to Work With Them But They Voted Down All Our Amendments and No Way Are We Gonna Do Anything With Them, while preserving a Republicans Like Infrastructure appendix. What he did NOT say stood out in sharp contrast: he at no point suggested that Democrats should raise taxes to pay for infrastructure not did he suggest that Democrats should cut other programs to pay for it. When probed on specific tax proposals (the one on the table — unspecified but targeted at individuals and corporations making more than $400K/year — and also a rise in the gas tax), he had arguments of no interest against both.
A Republican confronted with a Democratic proposal to spend money did NOT advocate that the Democratic proposal be modified to be paid for by taxes or budget cuts elsewhere.
I think this basically means that Republicans, having gone through the last several years, are unable to marshal the traditional Fiscal Responsibility Fiction (viz. the other party should be responsible). I don’t know why. I don’t care why. I’m sort of happy to see the end of it (possibly murdered along with Romney’s idiotic proposal). I mentioned all this to a friend, and asked what he thought should be done with the now-unclaimed Fiscal Responsibility Fiction. He said Democrats should grab it. He was clear — he is not proposing that Democrats should go back to actually being fiscally responsible (that was the Romney proposal). But he does think that Democrats should assume the mantle of the Fiscal Responsibility Fiction. He thought I should email the idea to someone.
I was like, I don’t need to! It’s already happening. Democrats are talking up tax hikes on the rich and/or corporate. I’ve got my doubts about any of that actually happening (it _could_ through reconciliation — if they could get every single Democratic Senator to vote in favor of it, which seems unlikely, altho I will not list any names-as-reasons, I think a motivated reader could work that out for themselves and in this particular case, the name isn’t Manchin), and was really wondering why they were even bothering. But if a concerted effort in that direction that fails and which they can firmly pin on the Republicans helps attract voters who are into Fiscal Responsibility, well.
I’m all for that.
(Not that you care, I’d kind of love it if it succeeded, altho I have some interest in the details as I would prefer a tax increase that could be implemented over one that could not.)
The tropes were never true. They’ve gotten less true over time. We’ve reached a point where the NYT was advocating for a Mitt Romney proposal to create a payment to families through the social security administration, paid for with cuts to other programs (which inevitably also benefitted families with children, thus making the whole thing a sisyphean exercise in More Paperwork for Everyone) (also, this was where I unsubscribed from NYT), which was equally loathed by Democrats and Republicans.
However, _also_ at this point, Garbarino, a Republican representative from New York (southern Long Island), was on Bloomberg being asked questions about, now that the stimulus is done, what might Republicans work with Democrats on to do infrastructure. He was trying to simultaneously communicate messages that Hey We Tried to Work With Them But They Voted Down All Our Amendments and No Way Are We Gonna Do Anything With Them, while preserving a Republicans Like Infrastructure appendix. What he did NOT say stood out in sharp contrast: he at no point suggested that Democrats should raise taxes to pay for infrastructure not did he suggest that Democrats should cut other programs to pay for it. When probed on specific tax proposals (the one on the table — unspecified but targeted at individuals and corporations making more than $400K/year — and also a rise in the gas tax), he had arguments of no interest against both.
A Republican confronted with a Democratic proposal to spend money did NOT advocate that the Democratic proposal be modified to be paid for by taxes or budget cuts elsewhere.
I think this basically means that Republicans, having gone through the last several years, are unable to marshal the traditional Fiscal Responsibility Fiction (viz. the other party should be responsible). I don’t know why. I don’t care why. I’m sort of happy to see the end of it (possibly murdered along with Romney’s idiotic proposal). I mentioned all this to a friend, and asked what he thought should be done with the now-unclaimed Fiscal Responsibility Fiction. He said Democrats should grab it. He was clear — he is not proposing that Democrats should go back to actually being fiscally responsible (that was the Romney proposal). But he does think that Democrats should assume the mantle of the Fiscal Responsibility Fiction. He thought I should email the idea to someone.
I was like, I don’t need to! It’s already happening. Democrats are talking up tax hikes on the rich and/or corporate. I’ve got my doubts about any of that actually happening (it _could_ through reconciliation — if they could get every single Democratic Senator to vote in favor of it, which seems unlikely, altho I will not list any names-as-reasons, I think a motivated reader could work that out for themselves and in this particular case, the name isn’t Manchin), and was really wondering why they were even bothering. But if a concerted effort in that direction that fails and which they can firmly pin on the Republicans helps attract voters who are into Fiscal Responsibility, well.
I’m all for that.
(Not that you care, I’d kind of love it if it succeeded, altho I have some interest in the details as I would prefer a tax increase that could be implemented over one that could not.)
Fiscal responsibility is too limiting
Date: 2021-03-17 11:32 pm (UTC)