Politics

Tom Schaller on the latest obstructionism by the conservative Dem bloc in the House:

... [a} story in The Hill about the obstinate-yet-conflicted House “Blue Dog” coalition is exactly the sort of problem that ought to frustrate liberals. Here you have (some) conservative Democrats who have repeatedly voted to fund a war without worrying about how to pay for it, and now all of sudden they show pangs of fiscal responsibility about not coming up with the monies to fund one program in the new war spending bill. Blue Dogs finally getting with the program: Sounds great, right?

Not so fast, because the part they are raising fiscal responsibility objectives about is…wait for it, because it’s really going to infuriate you…education benefits for veterans. Where was this sort of ethic from Blue Dogs when the Bush administration was asking for billions to be handed over to venal, wasteful, no-bid contract-winning war profiteers?

“Some of us oppose creating a new entitlement program in an emergency spending bill, whether it’s butchers, bakers or candlestick-makers,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition who serves on the House leadership team as a deputy whip. The so-called GI Bill of Rights, authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), would give veterans money for college and cost $720 million in its first two years. But critics say that could grow to billions in future years.”

No! Not billions spent without funds to pay for it -- that just never happens in defense spending!

Two comments: First, thank goodness for Webb. Second, I’m going to keep saying this until it starts to sink in: Since Reconstruction, the Blue Dog element within the Democratic Party has gone from dominant majority, to significant minority to what it is today -- a declining coalition of conflicted complainers. Among the blessings of building a non-southern Democratic majority is that there is greater intraparty ideological cohesion, thus marginalizing Blue Dogs and their hand-wringing interference with emerging liberal project.

I really like Matt's "transcendent enemy" formula. Some nominations for that role: 1) "Wall Street predators", from last night's Obama speech; and 2) the "superclass", from David Rothkopf's new book, or some variation on it. The extremely wealthy or corporate CEO or similar categories by themselves aren't sufficient as transcendent enemies—it's the nexus of wealth, power, and actions driven by conservative ideology that needs to be the target.

Jared Bernstein is discussing his new book at TPM Cafe this week, and he's been getting into it with a conservative economist over the concept of merit and how much people are paid.

Alan found principle #1 ambiguous, and since it’s central to a) the book, and b) my understanding of the economy, let me repeat the principle and try to clarify.

#1: Economic outcomes are generally thought to be fair, in the sense that market forces dole out rewards to those who merit them. But that’s not always the case. Power, whether it’s based on political clout, wealth, class, race, or gender, is also a key determinant of who gets what.

This seems crystal clear to me, but maybe that’s because I view many of the economy’s outcomes through this lens. Simply put, I see evidence of large and growing gap between overall economic growth and the living standards of working families. And I see disproportionate power—not merit, not marginal product, not efficient resource allocation—as one driving force behind it.

Probably the best indirect evidence that pay doesn't reward productivity is this chart showing income growth under Republican and Democratic presidents. The party of the president has a profound influence on who gets what, and unless higher wage earners become more productive than anyone else under Republican presidents, or unless everyone gets more productive under Democrats, politics and power has a lot to do with how much you're paid.

That said, is this a good argument for progressives to get into? If I had to answer, without much direct evidence, I'd say no, just because you're swimming against such a strong current. People, especially Americans, tend to believe in a just world, that people generally get what they deserve. Maybe with elites who buy conservative economics it's a good idea to have at it, but I doubt it'd play in Peoria. Conservatives will probably win, and it's better to talk about job quality and inequality on more favorable grounds.

Why can't politicians come together and find common ground? Why are our politics so polarized? A new book, Polarized America, proposes an intuitive explanation: rich people want it that way.

The growth in income inequality and political polarization, both beginning in 1975, are highly correlated. Indeed, the authors find that as the better-off have been getting richer, they've moved further to the right, and taken the Republican party with them. From a review in The Independent (by a conservative academic who seems shocked by how persuasive the book is):

Chapter 3 and parts of chapter 2 focus on the relationship between constituency income and legislative behavior. The most important finding here is that since 1975 legislators have become increasingly responsive to their constituents’ income-based preferences. Put another way, constituency income has become an increasingly important variable in explaining legislators’ voting. Furthermore, McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal run a series of tests in which they regress a voter’s party identification against income, sex, education, race, church attendance, and so on. Again, they find that the coefficient on income has increased over time.

Polarization has been a one way street- mostly, the Republican party has moved to the right, while Democrats have become only modestly more liberal. Why no backlash to income inequality? In part because of political inequality.

Chapter 4 begins with a puzzle. In democracies, rapid increases in income inequality typically manifest themselves in an expansion of the welfare state. The reason for this outcome is simple: when the median voter sees his economic position falling relative to wealthier individuals, he demands policies that redistribute income and wealth downward. Why didn’t such redistribution happen in the United States? The answer, the authors argue, is that the median voter’s income is much higher than and has not fallen as much as the median nonvoter’s income. Furthermore, the bottom of the U.S. income distribution today consists in large part of relatively poor immigrants who are not citizens and have no voting rights.

You wonder if the authors also mention the legions of ex-cons who don't have the right to vote. In any case, economic inequality, political inequality, and conservative politics seem to go hand in hand. Just another reason why income inequality is worth fighting.

Unlike Margy, I think there are sound strategic reasons for Hillary to put forward a poverty reduction plan, at least if she wants to have a shot at winning the Democratic nomination. Going back to the distinction between transactional and transformative politics, any sound strategy to win the Democratic nomination this year will require both kinds of politics. Having a poverty-reduction plan is part of transactional politics this year for Democratic candidates.

One may wish this wasn't the case—that some other more effective and transformational frame for issues of economic deprivation had the same relevance and resonance as the poverty frame does for the part of the Democratic Party base that prioritizes these issues. But for right now poverty is the dominant frame among this group of Democrats. As a result, not having a plan that is framed as a poverty reduction plan has almost certainly hurt Hillary because it allows her to be easily characterized as someone who cares less about poverty than Barack Obama. As an example, take a look at this Huffington Post blog by former Edwards and Move-On staffer Ben Brandzel.

The latest from Kuttner on how Dems and allies mis-messaged the stimulus:

In addition, the Democrats were (and still are) hobbled by the fiscal conservatives in their own ranks. In the negotiations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House Blue Dog Caucus insisted that the overall size of the stimulus be held down. The Clintonian idea that the Democrats should first and foremost be the parsimony party still has substantial support. The Democrats actually entered the negotiations proposing a smaller stimulus number than the administration.

The Democrats also bought the centrist mantra, repeated endlessly by a chorus that included former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and countless others, that the stimulus should be "timely, targeted, and temporary." Why this tepid trilogy of weak T's? Democrats were fearful that the economic downturn, absent these caveats, would become an excuse for another round of permanent Republican tax cuts. So instead of looking toward the fall election and the real economic plight of the electorate, they kept looking over their shoulders at the Republicans.

The conventional wisdom among centrist economists is that stimulus bills are very risky. By the time they get through Congress, the recession is often over (hence, timely); Congress is tempted to turn them into Christmas-tree, special-interest bills (hence, targeted); and tax cuts, once enacted, tend to become permanent holes in the tax code (hence, temporary). This wisdom is accurate as far as it goes, but in a structural economic crisis, it doesn't go very far. So instead of coming out of the box with a recovery program that offered at least a down payment on reversing 30 years of economic insecurity, and beginning a serious effort to repair the financial crisis, Democrats yet again were enablers of President Bush.

They were rewarded with a photo op beside a hugely unpopular and failed president bringing Democrats to heel. In the larger context of the general election, Timely, Targeted, and Temporary signaled nothing so much as Think Small.

Paul Krugman idealizes the democratic process in Clinton, Obama, Insurance (Feb 4, 2008). If Congress adopted policy on merit alone, we would already have guaranteed, quality, affordable health care in this country. And gun control too.

There’s every reason to conclude that proposals sounding like they limit choice --by including something called a “mandate”, for example — will trigger public concerns about government interference and administrative competence. Indeed, even focusing on the “universal” aspect of health care proposals makes people who already have it think about what they would have to give up for others to get it.

We’ve recently had a brief debate about whether words matter in campaigns. Careful consideration about the public conversation that can create the space and public support for guaranteed health care in the future is exactly what’s called for now.

Some evocative observations from Matthew Yglesias:

Donna Edwards takes the nomination from Al Wynn. The significance is three-fold. On the one hand, Wynn was a bad rep and now he's gone, which is good. On the other hand, this is a very safe seat for Democrats, so a talented, principled representative like Edwards has the opportunity to use it as a base of operations to be a major progressive leader. It's very desirable to get these seats into the hands of people who'll be more than just reliable votes, but actually go the extra mile to really advance important causes. There's no telling if Edwards will live up to that promise, but she's an extremely impressive individual who certainly has the potential.

Last, the tree of progressive politics must be watered with the metaphorical blood of sellouts ever now and again. Some people seem to me to walk around in their head with a model in which politicians are very principled ideologues who then divert from their default status due to electoral fears. In a more plausible schematic, they have a natural tendency to drift in the direction of utter corruption and only electoral fear keeps them doing their jobs in a somewhat responsible manner. The demonstration effect of even a narrow win is large, and that of a substantial defeat like the one Wynn suffered can be very big indeed. Elected officials across the country are taking note.

Despite representing one of the more progressive Congressional districts in the United States, Maryland's Rep. Al Wynn (D) voted for both the Iraq War and the atrocious credit-card-industry-written bankruptcy bill.

In last night's primary, Wynn lost in a rout to Donna Edwards. Open Left has more on Edwards, and why this is a great victory for progressives.

From the NYT, how many times GWB used the following words in the SOTU:

Iraq/Iraqis: 38
Terror/terrorists(s): 23
Taxes: 15
Al Qaeda: 10
Freedom: 10

Economy: 6
Jobs: 5

Proponents of Third-Way style moderation often argue that their views better represent typical voters, voters whose views are supposedly less ideological and more moderate than Democratic party activists. Turns out, however, that the public isn't all that moderate, as Emory University's Alan Abramowitz finds in a new paper:

In recent years, a number of media commentators and scholars have blamed primary voters for the rise of polarization in American politics. According to this argument, primary electorates are dominated by strong partisans whose views are more extreme than those of rank-and-file party supporters. This article uses data from recent exit polls of primary and general election voters as well as the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to test the primary election polarization theory. The evidence does not support the theory. In fact there appears to be very little difference between the ideologies of each party's primary voters and the ideologies of its general election voters. These findings suggest that the polarized state of American politics today reflects the polarized state of the overall American electorate rather than any peculiar characteristics of primary voters. The findings also suggest that even after they secure their party's nomination, it may be risky for candidates to adopt more moderate policy positions in order to appeal to swing voters, because any such move toward the center would risk alienating a large proportion of their party's electoral base.

Among the consequences: the call that Michael Bloomberg and various has-been politicians have made for a "government of national unity" that would "get government back to the center" will fail, as it should.

E.J. Dionne on what Congressional Dems need to do to get back on track:

Congressional Democrats need a Plan B. Republicans chortle as they block Democratic initiatives -- and accuse the majority of being unable to govern. Rank-and-filers are furious their leaders can't end the Iraq War. President Bush sits back and vetoes at will.

....

The Democrats' core problem is that they have been unable to place blame for gridlock where it largely belongs, on the Republican minority and the president.

....

... What's the alternative to the internecine Democratic finger-pointing of the sort that made the front page of Thursday's Washington Post? The party's congressional leaders need to do whatever they must to put this year behind them. Then they need to stop whining. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should put aside any ill feelings and use the Christmas break to come up with a joint program for 2008.

They could start with the best ideas from their presidential candidates in areas such as health care, education, cures for the ailing economy and poverty-reduction. Agree to bring the same bills to a vote in both houses. Try one more time to change the direction of Iraq policy. If Bush and the Republicans block their efforts, bring all these issues into the campaign. Let the voters break the gridlock.

If Democrats don't make the 2008 election about the Do-Nothing Republicans, the GOP has its own ideas about whom to hold responsible for Washington's paralysis. And if House and Senate Democrats waste their time attacking each other, they will deserve any blame they get next fall.

E.J.'s right on. Next year in Congress needs to be about big, defining issues that lots of people care about.

New America's Michael Lind argues in the FT that the center is shifting (back) to the left:

Whether a Democrat or a Republican is inaugurated in January 2009, the centre of political gravity in the US is well to the left of where it was a decade ago. President George W. Bush's own contribution to the shift has been negligible. It is the result of long-term, tectonic shifts in political and economic ideology that are affecting all developed countries.

....

It was during this period, in the 1980s and 1990s, that many of the parties of the left, trying to move towards the centre, adopted moderate economic conservatism, now called neoliberalism. "Clintonomics" resembled Rockefeller Republicanism more than New Deal liberalism. President Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, then the UK prime minister, collaborated on a project they called "the third way" - a term that had once been used for the welfare-state liberalism that was now redefined as the extreme left position.

That era has come to an end. The two great trends now are the collapse of libertarianism as a political force and the rise of economic populism.

....

What formerly was the left - welfare-state liberalism - is once again the -centre. To its left (in economic, not social, terms) is protectionist -populism; to its right, neoliberalism.

This comes as a disorienting shock to Clinton-Blair third-way neoliberals. Having positioned themselves as the reasonable mean between the welfare-state left and the economic libertarian right, they have awakened to find that they are now the extreme right. The clever ones are inching their way, ever more carefully, towards today's new centre.

You can hear the change in what prominent would-be centrists are saying. In the 1990s, when neoliberalism was the centre, the line was: we must slash middle-class entitlements in order to be more competitive in the global free market. Now the line is: in order to save free-market globalism from populists preying on middle-class economic anxieties, we must expand the middle-class welfare state.

The winners - at least for now - are welfare state liberals such as oldfashioned New Dealers in the US and their equivalents in other countries. The position of the original "third way" of 1932-68 always made sense. Middle-class social insurance programmes, by guaranteeing economic security, reduce the appeal of populism, socialism and other kinds of -radical statism, and make possible broad political support for open and competitive national and global markets. You will hear much more of this line as politicians rush to occupy the new centre in the years ahead.

E.J. Dionne's recent piece on the implications of the Australian election stressed leader Kevin Rudd's moderation and framing of the election as a debate between the old and the new by emphasizing issues like global warming, education, and broadband technology. All of which is true, but even more important was Rudd's focus on workers' rights, an issue too often derided by conservatives and neo-liberals as old-school despite economic shifts that increase its relevance. As David Ritter explains in a great piece in the Prospect (UK): "Labor was elected because it opposed the government’s industrial relations laws through a prism of debate that avoided divisive cultural politics and reframed a class-based division as a question of national identity." Here's more:

.... Rudd's Labor party managed to move the struggle over national identity away from cultural concerns and reframe it in economic terms—specifically workers’ rights. Equality was married to fraternity in a single phrase that came to dominate the campaign: "Australian working families." Facing a government that had presided over high growth and employment, Labor retook the political heights of Australian nationalism through an emphasis on rights at work.

....

The turning point came in 2005. Taking advantage of an electoral triumph the previous year in which his coalition gained control over both houses of parliament, Howard introduced the euphemistically named WorkChoices industrial relations legislation, which abolished the previous system of part-centralised fixing of wages and working conditions, while destroying collective bargaining and seeking to entrench individual contracting with few guarantees. The reforms were never popular. Although the flourishing economy softened the immediate impact on workers, deep-seated fears arose among parts of the electorate about what would happen when things were less rosy.

WorkChoices created a divide in the electoral alliance that had brought Howard to power. Those workers who had supported Howard because of antagonism towards Keating’s preoccupation with cultural politics were faced with a government that had legislated against their economic interests. Howard’s team attempted to refocus the debate on "cultural values." At last weekend's election, the Liberals continued to hope right up to the last minute that Australian workers might vote against their own economic interests. Crucially, Rudd refused to fight on cultural grounds, having warned even before he became opposition leader that it was "critical that social democrats recognise that the culture war is not just a diversion," but "a fraud." The gift of WorkChoices was that it gave the opposition a clear point of differentiation from the government that was not only consistent with historic Labor values, but was of broad-ranging appeal. Ironically, it was now Howard who was seen to be preoccupied with elite concerns.

WorkChoices drove blue-collar voters back to Labor for economic reasons, despite the fact that the country as a whole continued to prosper. The contest came down to two different visions of Australian national identity, framed around workplace issues. The government’s vision was an Australia of the individual, bereft of collective support. On the other hand, Labor’s opposition to WorkChoices represented an explicitly socially democratic view of society, in which the government has a role in moderating the labour market. Labor was elected because it opposed the government’s industrial relations laws through a prism of debate that avoided divisive cultural politics and reframed a class-based division as a question of national identity. The unpopularity of WorkChoices allowed Kevin Rudd’s Labor to make the better case that it spoke for the nation.

E.J. Dionne on why Labor won in Australia over the weekend:

Everything [Labor Party leader Kevin] Rudd did cast the election as a choice between the past and the future, the old and the new, the tired and the fresh, all embodied in his core slogans, "New Leadership" and "Fresh Ideas." The issues he emphasized -- the need for action against global warming, an "education revolution" to make Australia "the best educated country in the world," and a pledge to bring broadband technology to the entire nation -- reinforced his resolutely up-to-date aura.

Another fresh, new idea emphasized by Labor in the election was social inclusion. In its Australian Social Inclusion Agenda, authored by Julia Gillard, who will be Australia's first woman Deputy Prime Minister, Labor explained:

A national social inclusion agenda is long overdue in Australia. Australia has failed to learn from the way disadvantage is being tackled in Britain, Europe. South Australia and Victoria have been leading the way in our nation. Both have recognised the need for a targeted, coordinated and assertive approach to tackling social and economic disadvantage.

....

Promoting social inclusion requires a new way of governing. Australia must rethink how policy and programs across portfolios and levels of government can work together to combat economic and social disadvantage in Australia.

The current Government has not sufficiently recognised that being socially excluded tends to be the outcome of a series of problems which need a “joined up” solution. Instead the Howard Government’s approach has resulted in disconnected policies and programs.

Social inclusion is a relatively new concept in Australia. Writing in 2003 about the potential for using social exclusion as a new framework for measuring poverty in Australia, Peter Saunders noted:

It is now four years since Andrew Jones and Paul Smyth published their article ‘Social Exclusion: A New Framework for Social Policy Analysis?’ in Just Policy and probably more than five years since they wrote it (Jones and Smyth, 1999). In what was a perceptive contribution to the rather limited Australian literature on social exclusion, Jones and Smyth identified five potential benefits of a social exclusion framework. They were:

• Broadening the analysis of poverty;
• Providing a bridge to discussions of equality and citizenship;
• Providing a basis for understanding the peculiarities of difference;
• Highlighting the spatial dimensions of exclusion; and
• Facilitating cross-national comparisons.

A hat tip to Rudd and Labor for running with a new framework on poverty and disadvantage. It will be interesting to see what they do with it now that they're in power.