Presidents, Congress, and the Budget
Addressing my recent post on America’s dire fiscal situation, Jamelle writes that “the reflexive, evidence-free dismissal of the CBO scores at the beginning of Conor’s post is enough to convince me that he isn’t actually interested in hearing liberal ideas for bringing the United States back on a firm fiscal footing.” Actually, my belief that the CBO scores are misleading isn’t a reflexive one. It is based on reading numerous pieces on health care legislation that note how the Democrats who wrote it intentionally did so in a way to get a favorable score. I’ve been particularly attuned to this because I follow the work of my friend Peter Suderman, even when he writes about stuff that wouldn’t otherwise interest me.
He writes:
When the Congressional Budget Office scores a bill, its looks at the budgetary effects over the immediate ten year window. So on the health care bill, the headline cost of $849 billion covers the period between 2010 and 2019. Problem is, it’s a misleading figure since most of the new programs don’t actually kick in until 2014, and, as a result, most of the spending—99 percent, according to the CBO—doesn’t occur until the final six years. That means it’s not actually a very good reflection of how much it’s going to cost to run the bill’s new programs over a decade-long period.
Think of it this way: If you decided to add the cost of a gym membership to your budget next year, at $100 a month, it would cost you $1200. But if you decided to wait until July to join, the cost would only be $600 in next year’s budget. Cheap, right? Well, not really, because the following year, and every year after, the membership would cost you the full $1200. That’s basically what Democrats are doing here: Holding off on implementing the bulk of the reform’s new programs and new spending in order to make the initial total seem less expensive.
Online and in conversation I’ve sought out counterarguments. As best as I can tell, Peter’s analysis is correct. I’m unsure why Jamelle would assume that I took my stance reflexively, let alone assume that my thoughts on one particular instance of CBO scoring implies that I haven’t any interest in Democratic efforts to fix the budget deficit.
Jamelle goes on to say this:
it’s worth reminding Conor that in the three decades since the Republican Party became the dominant political coalition in American politics, the deficit has been reduced exactly once, and that was during Bill Clinton’s presidency. All three Republican presidents of the “conservative era” – Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush – were responsible for significant increases in the deficit, and in the case of the latter, a tremendous increase in the overall national debt.
This is a paragraph out of a Gene Healy nightmare. Implicit in it is the notion that the President of the United States determines the federal deficit. My own political analysis figures Congress as a relevant factor in weighing which party is most fiscally responsible. It is a rather uncontroversial reading of history to say that Ronald Reagan, given his druthers, would’ve cut domestic spending more than he did, while Congressional Democrats were the staunches opponents of his government shrinking agenda. I haven’t reviewed George H.W. Bush’s tenure for quite some time, but President Clinton, given his druthers, would’ve passed a costly universal health care bill at the very least, and it is rather strange to give Democrats all the credit for the deficit reduction that happened during his watch given the explicit fiscal conservatism of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 House takeover, the peace dividend the United States enjoyed at the end of the Cold War, and an economic boom unprecedented in history.
I certainly credit President Clinton for being a better domestic policy president than his successor, and it is fair to say that Republican presidents fail the test of fiscal responsibility when it comes to defense spending. When it comes to electing Senators and Congressional Representatives, however, a perfectly rational case can be made that voters in many districts are better off pulling the lever for Republicans. In fact, my intuition, which I haven’t studied enough to confirm, is that the country is best served by a centrist Democratic president and a Republican led Congress hell bent on improving the efficiency of government. It is fashionable now for Democrats to cite the fiscal discipline of President Clinton, and the profligate spending of George W. Bush, but they never include the fact that Bush’s massively expensive prescription drug benefit was very popular among Democrats in Congress, and that insofar as there were voices calling him out for his spending, they were more often than not coming from the right.
In fact, my intuition, which I haven’t studied enough to confirm, is that the country is best served by a centrist Democratic president and a Republican led Congress hell bent on improving the efficiency of government and a pony.
— talboito · Nov 25, 07:04 AM · #
Talbaito wins the thread. Anyway, as I mentioned in comments to Conor’s previous post, his concerns about the deficit neutrality of the bill over a longer time horizon are valid with regard to the house bill, but not with regard to the Senate bill. The excise tax on expensive health insurance plans increases over time in a similar way to the costs of the bill, as both rise as a result of overall health care inflation. The neat thing is that the excise tax both raises revenue sustainably and slows health care cost inflation, which is the real budget-buster coming down the pipe. That’s why the senate bill reduces the deficit over a 10 year window and a 20 year window. If reducing the deficit along a 20-year time-line doesn’t fit Conor’s definition of a fiscally responsible way to deal with a societal problem, then we all need to stock up on metaphorical ponies.
— Zeke · Nov 25, 07:19 AM · #
But Newt Gingrinch’s congress was not hell bent on improving the efficiency of the government but rather was hell bent on grinding ideological axes that sometimes happened to elide with fiscal conservatism and many times did not. I think you have created a pleasant but false narrative about both the aims and the outcomes of Clinton and Gingrich, and you’re allowing it to push you to see way too much good in a moderate Democrat president/conservative Republican congress combination. Frankly, I think it’s a fantasy.
— Freddie · Nov 25, 03:45 PM · #
“In fact, my intuition, which I haven’t studied enough to confirm, is that the country is best served by a centrist Democratic president and a Republican led Congress hell bent on improving the efficiency of government.”
Yeah, your intutition needs to come up with examples of republican-led congresses improving governmental efficiency. My intuition says that you are going to have a hard time doing this. And remember, just cutting taxes does not count. You have to cut taxes AND spending, plus your cuts have to—interpreting your post in strict terms—actually make the government run better—or in loose terms—actually make society run better.
And if we are talking about redirecting from say, the EPA to…. where would republicans likely send that money? Hmmmm…. how about some sort of corporate welafare, or defense department boondoggle? Or maybe grants to the NRA for gun-safety programs for elementary school students.
Anyway, until you supply some evidence for this “perfectly rational case” your post is just the most annoying kind of usless blather. You might as well be a commenter.
— cw · Nov 25, 04:18 PM · #
Look Conor, you’re taking something that’s really, really simple, and trying to make it complex: The reason Democrats are more fiscally responsible than Republicans is that when Democrats grew the government, they paid for it, while when Republicans grew government, they didn’t. Obviously, if one of the parties did actually shrink government, we could discuss whether that’s more fiscally responsible than, say, healthcare reform. For example, the CBO scored the 2001 Bush tax cuts as adding $1.6 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, Medicare Part D as adding $557 billion to the deficit over 10 years, the Iraq War as adding $7 to $9 billion dollars per month to the deficit for as long as it lasted, and the Senate health care reform plan as subtracting $130 billion from the deficit over ten years. One of these things is not like the other.
— Bo · Nov 25, 05:27 PM · #
“Yeah, your intutition needs to come up with examples of republican-led congresses improving governmental efficiency.”
CW, if I am right that the best combination we’ve got is a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, that doesn’t mean that combination is actually fiscally responsible, just that it’s better than any other combination we’ve got. There are structural reasons that divided governments are appealing to deficit hawks, and Republican Presidents are, IMHO, more inclined these days to start costly foreign wars.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Nov 25, 07:10 PM · #
Stop your complaining – we had an election. Show some respect for your country and its sovereign people’s will.
Bush wasn’t pleasing anyone with his spending – the people wanted change. We all wanted change.
If anyone had wanted your preferred arrangement of gridlock and inaction, they had their chance to endorse and vote for the other guy. Now you want us to vacillate again, so soon? Can’t we just stick with our choice of spending more on ourselves rather than foreigners? For just two years even?
I’m sorry if you thought that meant less spending. It never really does. Real change always means spending more. You can’t fix the country without paying those who do the hard work the money they deserve. We all wanted smarter government and new solutions to the major crises plaguing our country, like rampant illness and denying people their due rights just because they were taught to fight evil.
Sure, you may want to be a reflective contrarian and always bash the American people as unsophisticated and incoherent, all the time – that’s easy.
But as stupid as they are, the majority of Americans knew exactly what they were getting. No one except the “thoughtful” and self-appointed “experts” actually thought the democrats did not want to spend as much, as quickly as they could, and that this is what Obama is all about. Only they couldn’t separate the substance from the rhetoric.
You’d have to be willfully blind or arrogant to think he didn’t mean what he said, and didn’t believe as he lived and acted.
But at least we’re fixing everything Bush screwed up by trying to both defy the American people while at the same time giving them what they want, but at a painfully slow and inefficient pace.
Life’s too short – let’s cut to the case and give away our money to get something more important – fairness. As long as we stop being so belligerent, idealistic, aggressive, and arrogant overseas, and free those at gitmo, maybe we will win back all our allies and be respected as smart.
Sorry you can’t get on board with actually doing something and correcting the course of unfairness and deregulation we are on, but at least your freedom is now secure and bush can no longer ruin us by invading poor countries to avenge his own incompetence for Jesus and spending a pittance of what we really need of our money to adapt to the emerging era of Obama. But at least you can rise above us all and keep acting shocked and appalled at how much we’re spending to fix everything Democrats have been harping on and writing about for 50 years.
— Stall-Wart Dealer · Nov 25, 10:26 PM · #
“if I am right that the best combination we’ve got is a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, that doesn’t mean that combination is actually fiscally responsible, just that it’s better than any other combination we’ve got.”
Well, again, I can spout theories. I am a dillitant. More than that, an uber-dillitant. This is just procrastination for me. THis is career for you, right? You are held to a higher standard. It seems fairly easy to come up with some figures for the past 40 years (which I think is the relevant time frame here).
Beyond that, as a uber-dillitant, I theorize that if governmental mixed-marriages are “better” it is becasue of grid-lock. And inaction is not actually fiscally responsible, either. Sometimes, to be fiscally responsible you have to SPEND money. “Responsible” in this case means, meet the obligation of your post as far as spending or not spending money goes. It would have been fiscally irresponsible for the Bush II and Obama administrations to not spend government money in the face of the worst finacial crisis since the depression.
So basically, my general response to your entire psot is that it is way facile. People have been spouting out that mixed government thing along with the “republicans are prudent and the democrats are spendthrifts” thing for years now. It’s just hackery at this point, unless you add facts, define “efficient” etc…
— cw · Nov 26, 03:42 AM · #
Upvote Zeke, serious attempts to contribute to the conversation ought to be responses to him.
— Justin · Nov 26, 06:47 AM · #