Public Policy and Governance – Page 36

Clarifying The Stakes

I have often remarked upon the dramatic changes during my lifetime in what people consider “conservative.” I’ve speculated about the causes, pointed to the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of the contemporary GOP, and speculated that the current “conservative” movement (note quotation marks) is basically an intellectually incoherent expression of MAGA’s underlying fear and racism.

The fear and racism are certainly there, but recently I came across an essay in Persuasion that described an all-too-coherent philosophy underlying the current assault on the American Idea.

Broadly speaking, there are two different kinds of contemporary American conservatism. The more familiar—traditional conservatism—holds that the founding principles and institutions of the American polity remain sound but have been distorted by waves of progressive activism that have eroded our commitment to individual liberty and limited government. The task is to preserve these fundamentals while restoring their original meaning and function.

The second kind of conservatism claims that America was flawed from the start. The focus on individual rights comes at the expense of community and the common good, and the claim that government exists to preserve individual liberty creates an inexorable move toward moral anarchy. These tendencies have moved us so far from traditional decency and public order that there is little of worth left to “conserve.” Our current situation represents a revolution against the forces—religion, strong families, local moral communities—that once limited the worst implications of our founding mistakes. The only remedy for this revolution is a counter-revolution. Instead of limited government, we need strong government capable of promoting the common good and defending moral common sense against the threat posed by unelected elites.

This proposed counter-revolution has little to do with conservatism as traditionally understood. It seeks not to limit the flaws in our founding principles but to replace them. Specifically, it is a revolt against liberalism, the political theory rooted in the Enlightenment that inspired the Declaration of Independence. This New Right is unabashedly anti-liberal, at the level of philosophical principle as well as political practice.

The essay distinguishes between different kinds of anti-liberalism. Fascism, for example, finds legitimacy in the “culture and spirit of a specific people.” Then there is what the essay calls integralism, defined as a distinctive form of religious anti-liberalism that originated within Catholicism.

It arose many centuries before the emergence of liberalism, as a justification for the integration of Catholicism and political power that began under the Roman emperor Constantine and was completed in 380 by emperor Theodosius I, who embraced Christianity not only as his personal religion but also as the religion of his realm. At the end of the next century, Pope Gelasius I formalized the Catholic understanding in his famous distinction between priestly and royal authority. In matters concerning religious practice and ultimate salvation, Gelasius argued, political authorities are required to submit to the authority of the Church.

The essay proceeds to outline the history of this melding of church with state, and its eventual decline, thanks to the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. While MAGA voters are highly unlikely to have heard of integralism, its resurgence among intellectuals on the Right is clearly influencing and shaping our current culture war. “Integralism” is at the root of current attacks on the very basis of the Enlightenment liberalism that undergirds America’s Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Liberal philosophy distinguishes between public and private, and prohibits government from invading the zone of personal autonomy. Liberals may argue about where the line between public and private should be drawn, but they agree that the distinction exists and–more importantly– that it is morally fundamental.

Integralists “reject freedom of religion, and they are prepared to use government power in the name of public morality to control what liberals consider private and individual decisions.” They reject the goal of a legal or public culture that is neutral– that accommodates different beliefs about morality and/or religion.

That philosphical approach explains a lot.

For Integralists, culture war is the only war: seeing neutrality as a myth, they see the battle as Manichean, a war between advocates of personal autonomy and defenders of (their version of) traditional morality.

This explains one of the most confusing aspects of Republicans’ U-turn from their former commitment to limited government. These “common good constitutionalists” want a government with the power to impose their version of the good society on everyone.

If political power always shapes culture, as increasing numbers of traditionalists are coming to believe, they will conclude that they must seize and use this power—if necessary, without the limits they have long advocated.

It’s a war between fundamental–and irreconcilable–world-views. One is consistent with American constitutionalism; one is unambiguously not.

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Performance

There are two meanings of the word “performance,” and America’s two political parties have each embraced one of them.

One definition is “to perform a task”–in this case, to govern. Like President Biden, most contemporary Democrats have concentrated on that definition. I have previously posted about the effectiveness–the performance– of what Republicans dismissively label “Bidenomics,” and others are beginning to report on those positive outcomes as well.

Robert Hubbell quoted the New York Times for news that direct investment in manufacturing had doubled between 2014 and 2021. Also, “per the report, foreign direct investment “in the computer and electronics sector rose from $17 million in 2021 to $54 billion in 2022.”

Jennifer Rubin noted that the President has begun running ads touting the effects of his economic policies.

Respondents keep telling pollsters they are pessimistic about the economy and think we are in a recession, perhaps a reflection of the incessantly negative media coverage. However, as the mainstream media catches up with economic reality (admitting we likely will avoid a recession) and as public and private investment running in the hundreds of billions of dollars works its way through the economy, Biden stands ready to explain how his agenda — “Bidenomics” — brought us from fears of a pandemic recession to recovery. With unemployment and inflation in decline and wages rising, the public finally might be more amenable to hearing an uplifting message.

Performance=doing the job.

Then there’s the other meaning of “performance”– “to act for an audience.” That’s the definition chosen by virtually every Republican candidate for public office. The audience they are performing for is the MAGA cult that has replaced what used to be a political party.

Performance in that latter sense ignores the hard work of policymaking , instead appealing to the grievances of the intended audience–and dismissing the policy preferences of the wider American polity.

I didn’t watch the first GOP debate, but I’ve read about the candidates’ embrace of positions held by a distinct minority of Americans. As Robert Hubbell summed it up, in addition to pledging support for Trump if he is the eventual nominee, even if convicted,

the candidates espoused other outrageous positions: climate change is a hoax, support for a national abortion ban, blaming teacher unions and single mothers for the problems in education, proposing invading Mexico with US special forces, and cutting aid to Ukraine. None of the candidates provided an actual proposal for America’s future, other than Ramaswamy’s line, “Drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear.”

I’m bemused by voters who support candidates having no obvious experience with– or understanding of– government, as though the skill of managing the enormous complexities of that task can just be picked up on the job. If we needed any proof of the wrongheadedness of that belief, the ongoing performance (in both senses of the word) of the GOP’s looney-tunes culture warriors should provide it.

Perhaps instead of “debates,” we should hold public examinations of candidates for public office. We could focus on whether they understand what the duties of those offices are–and aren’t. (Here in Indianapolis, the Republican candidate for mayor seems to think he’s running for sheriff–his ads give no indication that he understands there are other dimensions of the job.)

Take a look at the positions embraced by that pathetic crew of presidential candidates–positions that disclose their utter ignorance of the proper role of government and the daunting complexity of many issues presidents face. Their lack of intellectual integrity is appalling enough, but their willingness to ignore international law and medical science, disrespect teachers, and deny the reality of climate change disqualifies every one of them for any public office.

As Rubin reminds us, it’s a fearful worldview.

We have become so used to Republicans railing about elites, critical race theory, transgender kids, immigrants, IRS stormtroopers, the FBI and more that we become acclimated to a terribly dark, frightful view of America.

That “dark, frightful view” runs from local politics (our Republican mayoral candidate’s ads describe my city–which is actually pretty vibrant–as a dystopian hellhole) to federal candidates assuring the MAGA cult that they can return America to an imagined “yesteryear,” when–glory!!– men were men and women were barefoot and pregnant.

Hubbell reminds us that GOP performance has an upside: most Americans reject the party’s few positions (on abortion and climate change, by twenty to thirty percentage points). These positions ought to render them unelectable in a general election.

Democrats should convert every negative, destructive, mean-spirited notion espoused on the debate stage into a positive, productive, forward-looking message about Democratic accomplishments over the last three years.

The key, as always, is turnout: the GOP cannot win a national election–if the rest of us vote.

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R.I.P. GOP….

I often disagree with Bret Stephens of the New York Times on the issues, but I appreciate his intellectual honesty. Stephens is a genuine political conservative, appalled by Donald Trump and clear-eyed about the transformation of the GOP from a center-right political party into an unrecognizable cult held together by grievance.

As he observed in a recent exchange with liberal columnist Gail Collins:

If there were truth in advertising, Republicans would have to rename themselves the Opposite Party. They were the party of law and order. Now they want to abolish the F.B.I. They were the party that revered the symbols of the nation. Now they think the Jan. 6 riots were like a “normal tourist visit.” They were the party of moral character and virtue. Now they couldn’t care less that their standard-bearer consorted with a porn star. They were the party of staring down the Evil Empire. Now they’re Putin’s last best hope. They were the party of free trade. Now they’re protectionists. They were the party that cheered the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which argued that corporations had free speech. Now they are being sued by Disney because the company dared express an opinion they dislike. They were the party that once believed that “family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande,” as George W. Bush put it. Now some of them want to invade Mexico.

The party that used to defend the right of businesses to run their own affairs–the party that, as Stephens notes, was committed to free trade– is relentlessly attacking corporations that have recognized the importance of diversity and inclusion, and is in the process of embracing tariffs–aka trade war tactics.

According to the Washington Post, in a recent interview with Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow, Trump explained that he favors a universal 10% tariff on all goods imported into the US:

“I think we should have a ring around the collar” of the U.S. economy, Trump said in an interview with Kudlow on Fox Business on Thursday. “When companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay, automatically, let’s say a 10 percent tax … I do like the 10 percent for everybody.”

The Post reported that Trump and his advisers are promoting the imposition of a universal tariff on all imports as “a central plank in his 2024 bid for a second term.”

As virtually all economists–conservative and/or liberal– will insist, tariffs are a terrible idea. (In his daily newsletter, Robert Hubbell characterized a 10% universal tariff as “an economy-destroying debacle of generational proportions.”) Hubbell quoted one expert on the subject who characterized the idea as “lunacy.”

What is wrong with tariffs, you ask? Well, other than leading other major economic powers to conclude the United States cannot be trusted as a trading partner, tariffs are basically a hidden tax ultimately paid by US consumers. Also, history confirms that the imposition of tariffs by one country inevitably triggers retaliatory tariffs by others.

We saw the effects of such tariffs when Trump imposed a number of them on China during his disastrous Presidency. They wreaked havoc on U.S. farmers. The impact was so severe that the administration had to make massive grants to farmers to offset the losses.

As Forbes reported at the time,

The Trump administration gave more taxpayer dollars to farmers harmed by the administration’s trade policies than the federal government spends each year building ships for the Navy or maintaining America’s nuclear arsenal, according to a new report. A National Foundation for American Policy analysis concluded the spending on farmers was also higher than the annual budgets of several government agencies. “The amount of money raises questions about the strategy of imposing tariffs and permitting the use of taxpayer money to shield policymakers from the consequences of their actions,” according to the analysis.

According to experts, the value of US imports in 2022 approached $4 trillion. A 10% universal tariff imposed on that amount would cost consumers $400 billion.

This insane tariff proposal is just one more bit of evidence–as if we needed any– that Trump hasn’t the foggiest idea how economies work. His behavior during the four years he was President convincingly demonstrated that he also lacks any understanding of how government operates. He may well be the most profoundly ignorant person ever to occupy the Oval Office (and we’ve had some clunkers…)

Given Stephens’ entirely accurate description of the “Opposite Party,” and given the loyalty of MAGA Republicans to a self-obsessed clown whose positions are, indeed, “opposite” of those traditionally held by the GOP, all I can conclude is that grievance–primarily racial grievance–has Trumped sanity. (Double-entendre intended..)

The GOP that once was is dead. R.I.P.

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Let Me Count The Ways…

In several previous posts, I have expressed my strong distaste for Congressman Jim Banks, who will be the Republican candidate for US Senate in 2024. It seems only fair to explain at least some of the numerous reasons for my revulsion.

Marc Carmichael, the likely Democratic candidate, has outlined a “top ten” of the far-Right, culture-war issues championed by Banks that Carmichael opposes. Here are just a few of them:

Banks’ adamant opposition to abortion for any reason, and his celebration of the Dobbs decision.
Banks’ opposition to a ban on military-style assault weapons.
Banks’ dismissal of climate change and government efforts to counter it.
Banks’ ugly attacks on LGBTQ+ youth. (As Carmichael accurately observed, those children are “being used as political pawns by mean-spirited, calculating Republicans who needed a new social wedge issue” after Roe v. Wade was overturned.)
Banks’ support for gratuitous tax cuts for the rich and for corporations.

There is much more–there are very few MAGA positions that escape Banks’ fervid support–but in addition to his full-throated embrace of Donald Trump and MAGA orthodoxy, Banks is one of the Rightwing lawmakers whose willingness to send the country into default is a result of monumental ignorance of the difference between fiscally conservative budgeting and raising–or refusing to raise–the debt limit.

A recent report from State Affairs Pro included an interview in which Banks enthusiastically supported the crazies’ opposition to raising the nation’s debt ceiling. “Congressman Banks made clear he was opposed to raising the debt limit.” (Banks said he would continue to fight for ‘fiscal conservatism.’)

Banks clearly doesn’t understand the Constitutionally-mandated process for spending tax dollars.

The Constitution requires that Congress make all spending decisions—the President proposes, but Congress disposes. Sometimes–okay, often– Congress authorizes more spending than the government collects in revenue. That requires government to borrow the difference, in order to cover the deficit that Congress has already authorized. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Congress also votes to authorize borrowing that exceeds the previously-set debt limit, or ceiling. This seems silly, since that vote comes from the same Congress that has already voted for the spending that requires the borrowing, but the practice of raising the debt ceiling has historically been uncontroversial–for years, the ceiling has been raised by votes from large, bipartisan majorities. More recently, as MAGA Republicans have substituted pandering for governance, a significant minority of GOP Representatives has refused to vote to raise the ceiling.

This is insane.

Failing to raise the debt ceiling would do nothing to reduce the national debt. Instead, it would cause the U.S. to default on what it owes. All economists, conservative and liberal, agree that if Congress were actually to fail to raise the ceiling, the results would be catastrophic. Such an act would require the United States to stop paying many of its bills—very much including social security and medicare, defense contractors and members of the military. Economists warn that such a failure to pay our bills would likely precipitate a worldwide economic collapse.

The last thing the U.S. needs is another Senator who either doesn’t understands that or doesn’t care.

When it comes to international affairs, his record is equally disastrous. Banks joined 69 other Republicans (led by loony-tunes Rep. Matt Gaetz) in voting for an amendment to strip all current and future military aid to Ukraine in its fight against Vladimir Putin’s horrific and illegal war.

A look at the rest of Banks’ voting record confirms his unsuitability for any public office. He has voted against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the For the People Act of 2021, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022, the Chips and Science Act, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021, and the Respect for Marriage Act—among others.

He hasn’t alway voted no–he voted for impeaching President Biden for some unspecified reason.

Politico has reported that,

During the summer of 2021, Chairman Jim Banks sent a memo to members of the Republican Study Committee encouraging them to “lean into the culture war.”

The head of Congress’ largest conservative caucus sent a memo titled “Lean into the culture war” to its Republican members, encouraging them to embrace anti-critical race theory rhetoric.

Earlier this year, Banks vowed to start an “anti-woke” caucus, joining MAGA warriors Ron DeSantis and Kyle Rittenhouse.

Today’s GOP is now the Trump party, and Jim Banks is an enthusiastic member of the looney-tune wing of that sorry assemblage. He is the Hoosier version of Marjorie Taylor Green, uninterested in actual governance and fixated on performative culture war.

Dick Lugar must be spinning in his grave at the thought of Jim Banks as an Indiana Senator.

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I Know Facts Don’t Matter…

Talk about “sucking all the oxygen out of the room…” The four indictments of Trump have consumed most of the media, masking what would otherwise be a greater emphasis on administration actions and policies, and overwhelming what ought to be applauded as the enormous success of “Bidenomics.”

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is one year old; it is central to “Bidenomics.” A recent Treasury Department analysis found that it has incentivized unusually strong business investment–investment Axios recently called a “tailwind for economic growth.”

Together with the bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act, the IRA has especially spurred investments in manufacturing and clean energy. According to Treasury officials, evidence shows that private investment has held up, even in the face of increases in interest rates. And the report also noted that most counties where IRA-related investments have been announced are areas where college graduation rate, employment and wages are lower. In other words, Republican, largely rural areas.

As Heather Cox Richardson noted in a recent daily Letter,

The IRA was the eventual form President Joe Biden’s initial “Build Back Better” plans took. It offered to lower Americans’ energy costs with a 30% tax credit for energy-efficient windows, heat pumps, or newer models of appliances; capped the cost of drugs at $2,000 per year for people on Medicare; and made healthcare premiums fall for certain Americans by expanding the Affordable Care Act.

By raising taxes on the very wealthy and on corporations and bringing the Internal Revenue Service back up to full strength so that it can crack down on tax cheating, as well as saving the government money by permitting it to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, the IRA was expected to raise $738 billion. That, plus about $891 billion from other sources, enabled the law to make the largest investment ever in addressing climate change while still bringing down the federal government’s annual deficit.

“This is a BFD,” former President Barack Obama tweeted a year ago.

It is a “BFD,” and it is extremely frustrating that reporting on its effects has been smothered by a combination of “it bleeds so it leads” reporting and the massive amounts of propaganda “flooding the zone” ala Bannon.

The law has driven so much investment in U.S. manufacturing that the CEO of U.S. Steel recently suggested renaming it the “Manufacturing Renaissance Act.” Manufacturers have been returning previously off-shored production to the U.S., bringing supply chains back to the U.S. And as Richardson emphasized,

These changes have meant new, well-paid manufacturing jobs that have been concentrated in Republican-dominated states and in historically disadvantaged communities.

The IRA has also been enormously consequential to the fight to tame climate change.

Scientists Alicia Zhao and Haewon McJeon, who recently published an article in Science, today wrote that the IRA “brings the US significantly closer to meeting its 2030 climate target [of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 50–52% below 2005 levels], taking expected emissions from 25–31% below 2005 levels down to 33–40% below.”

Republican presidential candidates have—predictably–refused to credit the act with these results; Richardson quoted former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who called the IRA “a communist manifesto,” although, with their usual hypocrisy, “Republicans have been eager to take credit for IRA investments in their districts without mentioning either that they voted against the IRA or that they are still trying to repeal it.”

The Environmental Defense Fund recently issued a statement rebutting several of the Republican misrepresentations–okay, lies–about the IRA. The organization noted the difficulty of getting factual information out:

The truth takes about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as false stories do. Six. Times. Longer.

And this is from a study that is a few years old, before the global pandemic and the 2020 U.S. election — events that caused an explosion of lies online by Bad Actors.

A simple google search brings up dozens of reports from highly credible and nonpartisan sources, confirming the truly massive economic and environmental benefits triggered by the IRA, and the fact that those benefits are being felt in parts of the country that have previously been left behind.

Those reports won’t reach the millions of Americans glued to Faux News and its clones, or the other millions who have turned off the news because they no longer know what or who to believe–a situation that explains Biden’s low approval numbers.

My middle son said it best. In a conversation a while back, he said “Biden is the first President I’ve voted for who vastly exceeded my expectations.”

To quote Barack Obama, Biden’s Presidential performance has been a BFD. Too bad so few Americans understand that.

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