Reason:Faking the Pledge

[Winehole23]

Faking the Pledge (http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/29/faking-the-pledge)

Republican promises of fiscal sobriety ring hollow.

Jacob Sullum (http://reason.com/people/jacob-sullum) | September 29, 2010


In the "Pledge to America (http://pledge.gop.gov/)" they unveiled last week, House Republicans promise they will "launch a sustained effort to stem the relentless growth in government that has occurred over the past decade." Who better for the job than the folks who ran the government for most of that time?



If the GOP's record of fiscal fecklessness were not enough reason to doubt its newfound commitment to curbing "Washington’s irresponsible spending habits," the pledge's failure to address entitlement and defense programs would be. The Republicans say they want to "have a responsible, fact-based conversation with the American people about the scale of the fiscal challenges we face and the urgent action that is required to deal with them." That's hard to do when only a small share (http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/gops-pledge-america) of the $3.8 trillion budget is open for discussion, and then only in the vaguest terms.


The Pledge to America, which seems to be based on the assumption that America has a short memory, castigates Democrats for "their out-of-control spending spree." Republicans, you may recall, had a spending spree of their own during George W. Bush's recently concluded administration, when both discretionary and total spending doubled (http://mercatus.org/publication/spending-under-president-george-w-bush)—nearly 10 times the growth seen during Bill Clinton's two terms.


In fact, says (http://mercatus.org/publication/spending-under-president-george-w-bush) Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, "President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ." Republicans controlled Congress for six of Bush's eight years, and their fingerprints are all over Bush's budget busters, including the trillion-dollar wars (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1415708320100114) to replace dictators with democrats in Iraq and Afghanistan.


The Medicare prescription drug benefit, enacted in 2003, is expected (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/) to cost something like $800 billion during its first decade, further darkening (http://reason.com/archives/2006/01/06/prescriptions-for-disaster) Medicare's already dire fiscal outlook. It passed the Senate (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00459) with 42 Republican votes and the House (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/roll332.xml) with 207.


The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which the Republicans now promise to "cancel" because it exemplifies the "bailouts" that have "rightly outraged" the public by "forc[ing] responsible taxpayers to subsidize irresponsible behavior," received 34 Republican votes in the Senate (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213) and 91 in the House (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-681&sort=vote). The yeas included House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)—all of whom are pictured in the Pledge to America as models of fiscal rectitude and all of whom also supported the reckless Medicare expansion.


As of last week, however, the Republicans pledge to "make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations." Such as? Sorry, that's all you're getting before the elections.


"Let's not get to the potential solutions," Boehner said (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday/transcript/will-republicans-win-back-control-november?page=3) in a Fox News interview on Sunday. "When you start down that path, you just invite all kinds of problems." Aren't solutions that invite problems what Congress is all about?


Boehner's insistence that an "adult conversation" about entitlements need not include any discussion of what to do about them suggests a certain lack of seriousness. Likewise the Pledge to America's complaints about Obama's "massive Medicare cuts" and its treatment of anything pertaining to "seniors" (one-third (http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/images/charts/blocks/dfg-shares_fed_spending-big.png) of the budget) as a sacred category.


The Republicans think expenditures related to "security" deserve the same exalted status, presumably because a government that is bumbling, wasteful, and ineffective in every other endeavor could not possibly display those characteristics when protecting Americans from terrorists. Yet defense is, among other things, a fiscal issue, consuming a fifth (http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/images/charts/blocks/dfg-shares_fed_spending-big.png) of the budget. The Republicans' grandiose goal of "bringing certainty to an uncertain world" is inconsistent with their goal of "a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government."


Even if you trust the Republicans when they say "we have a plan" to cut $100 billion from the budget, that amounts to just 8 percent of the current $1.3 trillion deficit (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year2011_0.html). And why trust them? As the Pledge to America warns, "it’s not enough" to "swap out one set of leaders for another."

[101A]

A good article, but one that is so obvious, I'm surprised it was even written.

If Republicans gain control, the only thing that will slow spending is GRIDLOCK; which is probably what helped make Clinton's term so fiscally conservative relative to anything that has occurred since.

[balli]

Even if you trust the Republicans when they say "we have a plan" to cut $100 billion from the budget, that amounts to just 8 percent of the current $1.3 trillion deficit. And why trust them? As the Pledge to America warns, "it’s not enough" to "swap out one set of leaders for another."
This past weekend, All Things Considered had a fabulous, non-partisan, roundtable discussion on what utter bullshit this thing is. Any engaged, smart citizen or any complete moron not afraid of having their hollow-ass, teabag values bitchslapped should give the whole show a listen: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130126335

In lieu, an excerpt or three from the transcript:

RAZ: Howard Gleckman is with the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. He's looked at the Republican plan, and he says if you make the Bush tax cuts permanent and you don't cut Medicare, Social Security or defense, then by the year 2020...

Mr. GLECKMAN: Well, there would be no more money for highways. There'd be no more money for mass transit. There'd be no funds for the national parks. There'd be no subsidies for small businesses. We talked a lot about how important small business is - well, the Small Business Administration, and the assistance that it gives to small businesses, would go away.

We complain that there's not enough food safety. Well, there would be no food safety in this kind of an environment. There'd be no National Institutes of Health to do research in cancer and other diseases. The government, as we know it, would simply disappear.

RAZ: Which may not be such a bad thing for a certain segment of the American public, but that's not necessarily what the Republican plan promises to do. President Reagan is quoted in that manifesto, and many Republican leaders argue that this plan is based on his economic principles.

So we called up the architect of Reaganomics, David Stockman, who was Reagan's budget director, to find out what he thinks about it.

Mr. DAVID STOCKMAN: When I look at the Republican plan, I have to say I think it's half right on some things, and it's half-baked on a lot of others. It is right in at least addressing the out-of-control spending problem. And it is true that non-defense discretionary spending has soared not only since Obama came in, but even as bad during the Bush administration; it rose 60 percent.

The problem is the deficit is 1.5 trillion and growing, and what they're proposing on non-defense spending will save 100 billion if we're lucky. And I doubt that they would actually accomplish that if they were in charge.

So when you try to solve the problem by filling 7 percent of the hole, I don't think you've gotten very far. And in the process, you're telling the people of America that we can solve this issue - which is very dangerous, the deficit that we're facing and the debt we're building up - by not raising taxes on anyone. That, in my judgment, is a big lie.


RAZ: Now, as you mentioned, the Republican plan talks about cutting discretionary spending - nothing too specific, but presumably things like education and infrastructure spending. No talk about cutting mandatory spending, things like Medicare and Social Security. Can you begin, you know, to tackle exploding deficits without beginning to take a hard look at those programs?

Mr. STOCKMAN: No, I don't think you can. And that's why I think, as I said, the plan's half right but also half-baked. They're being disingenuous when they say right in the second or third page, I see here, that we will exempt seniors -that's all of Social Security and Medicare, I presume, and federal retirement and so forth - that will exempt veterans; will exempt all of defense, Homeland Security. And you have to pay the interest on the debt.

Well, that happens to add up to 2.4 trillion - or almost two-thirds of the budget. So if you're exempting two-thirds of the budget, and you're focusing only on non-defense discretionary, which actually is only about 500 billion - or 15 percent of the budget - it's pretty obvious you can't get the job done.


RAZ: David Stockman, let me ask you about the idea of making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Some economic analysts have said that if you do that, that by the year 2020, the government wouldn't have enough money to spend on anything except for Medicare, Social Security and defense - if it's lucky. Do you think that sounds about right?

Mr. STOCKMAN: Yes, I do. We couldn't afford the Bush tax cuts when they were put in, in 2-0-1, 2-0-3. Now, we're - eight years later, we're trillions in additional debt later, we're two unfinanced wars later, we're a trillion dollars of stimulus spending later, 800 billion of TARP. So it's pretty obvious if we couldn't afford them back then, in no way, shape or form can we even dream about affording them now.

RAZ: Do you think President Obama is being honest with the voters?

Mr. STOCKMAN: No, I don't think he is at all. I think when he said no taxes on the middle-class or on anyone below 250,000, he was being totally disingenuous. That's most of the people in the country. Sure, there...

RAZ: You're saying he has to raise their taxes as well?

Mr. STOCKMAN: Sure, absolutely. He should tell them, we're going to raise all your taxes because that's the only way we can support all these programs that I want to keep. He's for, you know, everything we have in the budget today. And a lot of it is meritorious, and a lot of isn't. How this president, who ran on the ticket that I, you know - change you can believe in; I'm going to tell you -tell it to you like it is, can possibly take that no-tax pledge, and then support all of this spending and all of this stimulus, just doesn't add up.

Time to pay for all this shit you've spent on, folks.

[boutons_deux]

A good article, but one that is so obvious, I'm surprised it was even written.

If Republicans gain control, the only thing that will slow spending is GRIDLOCK; which is probably what helped make Clinton's term so fiscally conservative relative to anything that has occurred since.

paralysis and corruption, Congress' two primary traits.

Clinton had the benefit of a the longest peacetime expansion and its tax revenues supporting him, and his successful effort to pay down the national debt(and save the $Bs of interest on it). Taxes rates were higher then, and the economy did wonderfully, like in the 1950s.

For some reason, cutting taxes fucks up the economy and benefits only the super wealthy. Everybody else stagnates at best, but more and more are declining.

[TeyshaBlue]

A good article, but one that is so obvious, I'm surprised it was even written.

If Republicans gain control, the only thing that will slow spending is GRIDLOCK; which is probably what helped make Clinton's term so fiscally conservative relative to anything that has occurred since.

You might be on to something.

[Winehole23]

A good article, but one that is so obvious, I'm surprised it was even written.The "pledge" hasn't got much run here, so what the hey.


If Republicans gain control, the only thing that will slow spending is GRIDLOCK; which is probably what helped make Clinton's term so fiscally conservative relative to anything that has occurred since.Good point. Gridlock also sets the scene for Clintonesque triangulation.

[MannyIsGod]

A good article, but one that is so obvious, I'm surprised it was even written.

If Republicans gain control, the only thing that will slow spending is GRIDLOCK; which is probably what helped make Clinton's term so fiscally conservative relative to anything that has occurred since.

The Clinton administration actually oversaw a good deal of streamlining and downsizing in government. Its a very little known fact.

Girdlock doesn't solve problems, but it can stop the creation of new problems.

When so much of our country is inept and ignorant then perhaps it IS the best we can hope for. Its a pretty god damn low bar, though.

[MannyIsGod]

The "pledge" hasn't got much run here, so what the hey.


Probably because EVERYONE sees right through it. I mean not even Darrin or WC are going to point to that thing as a good indicator of whats to come. You might get Crookshanks too, however.

[boutons_deux]

I read where the Repugs did deal with a national conservative rag NOT to trash their pledge.

Even the Repugs know their pledge is their standard pure bad-faith bullshit.

[101A]

The Clinton administration actually oversaw a good deal of streamlining and downsizing in government. Its a very little known fact.


I am not aware; I should know more about that.


Girdlock doesn't solve problems, but it can stop the creation of new problems.

When so much of our country is inept and ignorant then perhaps it IS the best we can hope for. Its a pretty god damn low bar, though.

Everybody Fly....er......jump.....ummmm......hop,,,,well, can you step, hell just lay down and roll over the bar - thanks.

[101A]

I think the pledge exists ONLY because of the "Contract" in '94; Repub's aren't sure EXACTLY what the recipe was then, but they are trying to cover their bases.

[MannyIsGod]

I am not aware; I should know more about that.


I was just looking for links on the subject but I haven't been able to find any but I did read a good deal about it in the past. Its very often ignored but I'll see if I can dig up some information on the subject. I have done so in the past here but I just can't remember where it was I looked and found it.

[Winehole23]

@Manny:

Sure. That it's utter cowflop still rates a mention, tho.

[MannyIsGod]

Oh sure - I was simply adding to the discussion.

[MannyIsGod]

Trying to anyway.

[101A]

Trying to anyway.

5 posts, 6 now, by my count.

Props.

[CavsSuperFan]

In a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, President Obama said he has Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones on his iPod. ..Unfortunately, the question was "Do you have a plan to fix the economy?"

[LnGrrrR]

I think the whole idea that $250,000 is the "tax cap" is ridiculous. The average family makes, what, $50k? The cap should probably be around there; MAYBE 100K. But 250k? Yeesh.

(Yes, I know that will hose people living in Manhattan. Sucks to be them.)

[Wild Cobra]

Probably because EVERYONE sees right through it. I mean not even Darrin or WC are going to point to that thing as a good indicator of whats to come. You might get Crookshanks too, however.
I know better than to trust republicans with the number of RINO's they have. That said, no matter how bad they may be, they are not as bad as democrats.

[Wild Cobra]

I think the whole idea that $250,000 is the "tax cap" is ridiculous. The average family makes, what, $50k? The cap should probably be around there; MAYBE 100K. But 250k? Yeesh.

(Yes, I know that will hose people living in Manhattan. Sucks to be them.)
i think there should only be one marginal rate. Everyone pays the same percentage. I also believe there should be no deductions. Why should there be a tax break incentive to do what someone can afford?