Feigned Anger and the Politics of Accountability

I enjoy the Economist. Though I am not a subscriber, I read the allotted number of free articles, and often, the debates. Generally speaking, the debates are good ones, with two reasonable and intelligent debaters. There are certainly exceptions, such as this embarrassment on China's military, during which one of the debaters simply eschewed the topic and used the forum as an opportunity to hammer US foreign policy. I've been bitter about that since reading it and wanted the opportunity to say something about it, but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about the Economist's current debate: does Barack Obama deserve a second term? I am predisposed to believe the answer is yes, especially when compared to the alternative. However, neither of the debaters - to this point - has made the issue a comparative one, both judging the president on his merits or lack thereof. Though I disagree with the opposition, Michael Barone, I acknowledge that he makes a number of good points. It is this quality of debate that makes me a fan of the Economist.

However, there is one issue raised by Mr. Barone with which I take much grievance. It is the issue of debt. To quote Mr. Barone, "Mr. Obama's greatest failure is his refusal to confront America's long-term fiscal problems."

This rehashed argument is flimsy at best, but it is also hypocritical in the extreme. For starters I would like to point out that the outrage Republicans feign over spending is just that, feigned. For some reason, Obama is held to a standard that other presidents don't seem to have been. Republicans did not blast President Bush for his spending, nor Reagan for his. They did predict fiscal disaster when President Clinton raised taxes in the 1990s, but of course President Clinton in the only president in the past two decades who has turned in a budget surplus even once, and he did it four times. He also presided over a period of remarkable economic growth. Where were the Republican spending hawks when President Bush was chaperoning the passage of Medicare Modernization Act through a Republican Congress? That bill was more costly than Obamacare - which of course was designed based on conservative ideas that would curtail rising healthcare costs - but I don't recall any gathering of ominous fiscal clouds when it was passed in 2003. Where were the fiscal hawks when President Clinton was bringing in more money than he spent? Busy railing against tax revenue no doubt.

This can be chalked up to politics as usual. When your guy spends it is patriotic; when the other guy spends it is excessive and portends a future of fiscal ruin and decay. But all of this ignores the real issue and the facts behind it, both of which have been cited repeatedly by myself and others.

For starters, it is worth saying that President Obama can and should do more about the deficit and controlling spending. Though he has shown a willingness to cut more than most Democrats find acceptable, he should make more serious attempts to reform entitlement spending without hurting the people who need entitlements, and he should find ways to cut the military's budget without taking away America's ability to defend itself. I would actually like for Mr. Obama and Paul Ryan to sit down together for a day and see if they could find some common ground on these issues. It needs to happen.

But having said that, Mr. Barone completely ignores the fact that by attempting to fix unemployment and the economy, President Obama is attempting to fix long-term fiscal problems. Even without any increase in tax rates, a bigger tax base means more revenue. One could perhaps say President Obama hasn't done enough to fix unemployment, but of course that blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans in Congress who have opposed any and everything the President has suggested. It can therefore be argued that they are the ones failing to address the nation's long-term fiscal outlook. Furthermore, as I have already pointed out, the only President in the last two decades to bring in a budget surplus did so with the benefit of increased tax revenue which coincided with a period of economic growth. Republicans' staunch refusal to consider higher tax rates for even the most wealthy hardly supports the claim they want to right the fiscal ship. It is rather another example of feigned anger and the politics of accountability, and two things Republicans seem to be doing well are feigning anger and eschewing responsibility.

There are reasons to be disappointed in Mr. Obama. I have listed some in previous posts, and as I stated earlier, I wish the president would show more commitment to needed entitlement reform. But the claims about his exaggerated spending are nothing short of false. Could he do more? Absolutely, and I wish he would. Has he tried? Arguably more than his predecessor who spent far more than President Obama and simultaneously lowered taxes.

Unlike the debaters from the Economist, I am not above comparisons. I think Mr. Obama deserves a second term based on his merits alone, but if "his greatest failure" is his refusal to address long-term spending, then I would still much prefer him to Mitt Romney whose fiscal plan seems to be a carbon copy of the one that got us into this mess.