Planet Utah

Playing devil's advocate on Republican economics

If you ask the GOP presidential candidates why the economy is still stuck in a rut, I think they'd all say something along these lines: "Taxes are too high, we're overregulated, government has been on a borrowing binge," and so on.

I have my doubts about all of these arguments,* but I'm not an economist, so I'm not in a position to make definitive pronouncements on any of them.

I am, however, in a position to play devil's advocate. Here's another argument as to why the economy is still lagging--one you hear primarily from Keynesians: "There's a consumer spending bust going on. People lost so much money in the housing market, so much money in the stock market crash, and so much money from being out of work for so long, they're being extremely cautious about spending whatever money they have left. What businesses are seeing, therefore, is dramatically reduced demand for their products and services. Under those circumstances, business owners are reluctant to invest, hire, expand, and so on. Until that dynamic changes, the economy is going to struggle."

Let's assume that this second argument is true. Under that assumption, I'm not sure Republicans are offering anything that will get us out of the mess we're in.

*I'll give you one example. The argument about budget deficits used to be this: "Budget deficits slow economic growth because when the government borrows a lot, interest rates go up, and when interest rates go up, it becomes more expensive for businesses to borrow money, for consumers to finance big-ticket items, and so on."

Clearly, though, with interest rates at historic lows, this argument doesn't hold up in the current economic environment.

Footnote: Some of you will undoubtedly say, "Republicans are offering tax cuts. Tax cuts will stimulate consumer demand and business investment, and that will help the economy grow."

Here's what the Keynesians would say to that: "We tried that in 2008, and then again in 2009. What we found is that consumers and businesses were not spending most of the temporary windfall. Instead, they were saving it, or using it to pay down debt."

Pat Buchanan's "your boy" comment

Everyone's making a big deal about Pat Buchanan referring to Barack Obama as "your boy" when speaking with Al Sharpton. Why? Racist undertones, overtones, dialtones, I dunno...anyway, people think it's racist. So, let me provide a little bit of context.

I've heard the phrase "your boy," "my boy," "his boy," etc., used dozens, maybe hundreds, of times in my adult life, and never in a racial context. During my summer internship in Washington, for example, my very liberal boss used the phrase to taunt me, in exactly the way Buchanan used it. This was the summer of 1987; the Iran-contra hearings were going on, and Robert Bork was getting the snot knocked out of him. Referring to Ronald Reagan, my then-boss said to me with a smile, "So, your boy's having a rough summer."

Another example: One time, a friend was describing a trip to his hometown, during which one of his close friends got knocked out cold in a bar fight. The high point of the story went more or less like this, "One thing leads to another, and they're yelling, and then they're shoving each other...and the next thing I know, my boy is lying in a heap on the floor."

So, you get the idea: "Your boy," "my boy," and so on is a slang expression for someone you know, someone you like, someone you support, or someone you're rooting for.

That, I believe, is the context in which Pat Buchanan used the phrase. 

Having said all of that, it was explained to me many years ago (by an African-American woman) that any reference to "boy" around African-American men was to be avoided. "Boy," she said, was a term that had been used to demean black men historically, and that still carried a lot of emotional power.

I haven't forgotten that. Last year, for example, I was having a Buchananesque conversation with a black acquaintance in Dallas who's a big supporter of President Obama. The president was enjoying a little boomlet around the time of our conversation (during the lame duck session of Congress), and I said, "So, your guy has had a good few weeks here."

Had I been talking to a white friend, I might very well have said, "So, your boy..." But I was talking to a black friend, so I changed "boy" to "guy."

Having said "boy" wouldn't have made me racist...but "guy" was definitely the better choice. It would have been the better choice for Pat Buchanan, too.

Perhaps the only reason to celebrate the S&P downgrade

Back in the old days, when I used to talk with people about the Monica Lewinsky affair, they would often say two things: "So, I guess we're criminalizing extra-marital sex now? If that's the case, you better arrest everyone who's ever been president..."

These arguments are pretty easily defeated with plain old facts. Let's take the second one first. Working backwards from Bill Clinton, I'll give you a sampling of presidents who are NOT credibly accused of having had extra-marital sex: George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. (I'm not even sure Nixon had intra-marital sex.)

So, that's five guys in succession who did not have extra-marital sex. Say goodbye to the "everybody does it" argument.

As for the argument about criminalizing extra-marital sex, I used to respond to that by saying something along these lines: "So, why was President Clinton found in contempt of court and fined $90,000? Why was his law license suspended in Arkansas for five years? Why was he suspended from the Supreme Court bar? You think he got all that because he cheated on his wife? No, he got all that because he lied under oath in the Paula Jones lawsuit."

What does all of this have to do with the S&P downgrade? Well, just as in the Lewinsky case, there's a nagging argument that we can finally defeat with the plain old fact of the downgrade.

Here's the argument (such as it is): "You know, it's odd, conservatives didn't seem to make much noise about spending and deficits when George W. Bush was in office, and I don't remember there being a Tea Party movement either. But then, a BLACK president shows up, and suddenly, conservatives find religion on fiscal policy, and the Tea Party springs up out of nowhere. Kind of funny, don't you think?"

This brings us back to the S&P downgrade. It's not a conservative thing or a liberal thing. It's an extra-political, extra-governmental entity saying EXACTLY what conservatives and Tea Partiers have been saying: "What we're doing is not sustainable. What's more, it's at a crisis point now, today...a crisis point we hadn't hit as recently as three years ago; a crisis point that coincides with the term of this particular administration."

So, unless you think S&P is racist, that they really should have given the U.S. a downgrade in 2008, but that they didn't want to do that to a white president, and that they didn't feel okay about the downgrade until they could hang it around the neck of a black president, you probably need to retire your racism argument, permanently. (An apology would be nice, too, but I won't wait for it.)

Footnote: Even before the S&P downgrade, these responses to claims of racism were available: (1) "Screw yourself, race baiter";                     (2) "Conservatives DID make a lot of noise about this...it's just that you don't actually know any conservatives, read any conservatives, watch any conservatives on TV, or listen to any conservatives on radio, so you missed those conversations"; (3) "You know what else changed, aside from the presidency switching hands from a white man to a black man? In one year, spending jumped from 20.7% of GDP to 25% of GDP. The last time we hit 25% was during World War II. We're operating on a different plane than we were during the Bush administration."; and     (4) "You know what else happened? The deficit jumped from 4.5% of GDP to 11% of GDP. The last time we hit 11% was during--you guessed it--World War II. Again, we're in uncharted territory here for peacetime, so a lot of people are worried."

Anklenote: Want an even simpler rebuttal? Here you go: "Yeah, it's a double standard. It happens all the time in politics. When people in our party commit a particular sin, we're much more forgiving than we are when people in your party commit the same sin. You guys do the same thing. It's human nature, and it's pretty standard politics. You know what it's NOT? Racism."

Extremism in defense of solvency

I wasn't thrilled with the performance of House Republicans in the debt ceiling negotiations. Their position seemed to be, "All cuts, no revenues, or we default."

It's one thing to set that as your starting point and move off of it to get an agreement. It's another thing to say, "That's not a negotiating tactic. Do it our way, or we default. Seriously."

I'm just glad President Obama didn't say, "Okay, then I guess we default."

Even so, in the wake of the agreement I've begun to rethink my position. This is not a result of the House GOP having succeeded; I don't think the ends justify the means in this case. Instead, I'm responding to the left's descriptions of the cuts as "brutal," "drastic," "draconian," and so on.

Keep in mind, we're talking about cutting less than 5% of the federal budget over 10 years. This is barely the beginning of the beginning in terms of what will be required if we are ever to achieve actual budgetary balance.

If the Democrats' view is that a 5% cut is "brutal," etc., then I wouldn't expect them to go along willingly with the much bigger cuts that need to happen in future years. And if that's the case, then it's likely that extremism, terrorism, hostage-taking, a game of chicken--whatever you want to call it--will be required to put our books in order.