In a column yesterday in the New York Times discussing the Republican Party’s newly minted “Pledge to America”, Paul Krugman noted (bold mine):
... On Thursday, House Republicans released their “Pledge to America,” supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, “Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.” The document repeatedly condemns federal debt – 16 times, by my count. But the main substantive policy proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which independent estimates say would add about $3.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade – about $700 billion more than the Obama administration’s tax proposals. ... So how did we get to the point where one of our two major political parties isn’t even trying to make sense? ...
—Paul Krugman, in “Downhill With the G.O.P.” (23 Sep 2010)
If anything, I think the pledge is not about convincing the public, but skirting the need to convince the public. This election, like the rush to do the TARP bail-out quickly in a no-strings and no-questions-asked way, is a massive exercise in collecting political freebies with too little scrutiny. Here is my response to Krugman, which explains what I mean:
Paul,
Thanks for highlighting the issues but I think the function of the Pledge is more cynical than you allow for. You’re reading it as a promise of what they’ll do intended to attract voters, but I think they mostly intend it as a tool for helping them later support for these items on the off chance they get elected.
Even though their only shot at getting elected is to ride the crest of the throw-the-“bums”-out wave, after the vote they’re going to claim that voters did a thoughtful analysis of the positives offered by themselves, the alleged non-bums, and in a calm and well-researched way these thoughtful voters, seeing the Pledge, decided to select its authors because they liked the Pledge.
I encourage you not to see the Pledge’s points as building on one another. Rather, I suggest they are a proposed axiomatic base, such that if the Republicans get elected, anything they ever do they can claim “We wanted it” because they put this foundation into place during a time of frenzy. That means they won’t have to make any argument whatsoever for these after the election. They’ll just say “this is what you voted for.”
In sum, they’re not trying to persuade with this. They’re hoping they can get the frenzied masses who are not paying attention to details to unwittingly smuggle their plan through the mettle detector so that it can be deployed with impunity on the other side.
Contract or Pledge?
It’s framed as a pledge—one they’re taking, not us. It’s not called a contract this time. A contract might imply the need for our consent. Maybe they decided that wasn't a good metaphor. But it amounts to the same. If you vote for a Republican and that person is later elected, you'll be told you consented. This is their platform and voting is consent. So this pledge is, in practical effect, a contract.
Adding to the deficit by cutting taxes on the rich. Dismantling recent gains in health care. And so on. If you vote Republican in this election, you should expect the Republicans to later enact these policies because they pledged to do so. But more importantly, you should expect them to do it in your name, saying this is what you wanted, that this is why you voted for them.
Please make sure to read the fine print on this contract before you go into the election booth and sign on the dotted line.
If you got value from this post, please "rate" it.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
RomanticPoetess
Sandra Stephens
old new lefty
marytkelly
oaxacangringa
CoyoteOldStyle
Salon.com
Comments
Great analysis. You'll let us know if you hear back from Krugman?
Anna, another possible take is that the Republicans have said clearly what they plan to do, but others are not paying attention, or are not working through the consequences. I think the Republicans are actually counting on that.
I'm not a lawyer, but have the vague impression that there are circumstances under which one is considered too emotional to sign a legal contract. Maybe this is how wills and powers of attorney are challenged or something like that, claiming that the person making these big decisions was so overwhelmed by some recent influx of knowledge that they weren't in their right mind to agree. Well, whether that's true or not, it sort of makes sense. And I guess I'm saying that the same is likely to happen with this mandate. If certain people get elected, it's going to be not because of what they said but because they are simply the beneficiaries of being in the right place at the right time when others are so in disfavor that the populace will vote for pretty much anyone. And so after the fact, when they hold up their “signed contract” and scream mandate, some number of the people, now sobering up after the election, are going to say “wait a minute, I wasn't sane when I signed.”
We should know by now that the snake oil doesn't work. Yet here we are, money in hand, ready to buy another bottle. Voting on fear and emotion rather than facts and logic is the American way.
I'm just as pissed at the Dems right now for deciding to not bring the tax bill up for a vote until after the elections. What are they thinking? The one positive that they could bash the Republicans with and they put the club back in the closet. It's mind boggling.
Do people really care about the deficit and their grandchildren being burdened with debt? Many alive can remember the ups and downs of the deficit, even a surplus a couple decades ago. Most people are concerned with their own deficits - which can only be fixed by jobs.
And surely people have noticed that tax cuts to the rich don't produce many (any?) jobs. Surely they've noticed that there are few jobs because they got shipped overseas. They expect them to return?? The only solution, that I can see anyway, is for the government to get involved NOW and start work on infrastructure repair and replacement (50-year-old gas pipes might be a place to start), retrofitting buildings, green energy (even if it's More Expensive), investing in schools and teachers...but all this is (eek) government stuff and possibly even (socialistic), and Congress and possibly even the American people would rather cling to an ideology and die...all same some nutty religion... We've got these wonderful neo-cortexes taking up space in the front of our brains - when do they kick in? When does the reptilian brain get firmly relegated to operating the digestive system and the pancreas and stuff.
Speaking of shifting, it would seem that failure to recognize the simple fact that the clumsiness and philosophical unwholesomeness of the Obama presidency have revolted huge chunks of the population has moved from being parochial to being abjectly blind.
Myriad, the debt and deficit really matter a lot, and the issue of ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids having to pay it off matters. However, as noted in my article Deficit Attention Disorder, I don't think it's the only thing that matters. We need to spend prudently, but the problem is that some specific things the Republicans don't want us to spend on are investments that will pay back later. You can't stop investing in education at a time when an educated workforce is what will allow you to pay off the debt. You can't stop investing in health if you need a healthy workforce to pay off the debt. We can't stop investing in the military at a time when there's a likelihood of increased military action due to global resource depletion, however spending money foolishly on wars we don't need is not a good example of investing wisely in that. It's tricky and the answer is neither spend nor don't spend, but spend wisely. Or, to borrow a new word I heard on C-SPAN this morning, don't spend “irwisely.”
Gordon, the Right is often insulating itself from criticism by accusing others of doing the things it's doing itself. It wages class warfare while accusing others of it. It creates corporate death panels while accusing the left of planning death panels in health care. I didn't see O'Reilly last night (can't imagine how I let that happen—I used to be such a regular viewer), but I'd guess this is just more of same.
Thanks for an insightful post on this latest news coming out of Washington.
Dolores, there's certainly plenty of stuff in this pledge that make good solid talking points for substantive debate. I hope the debate goes toward substance and away from all the stupid rhetoric of namecalling. Sad thing is, I think that such name-calling sells. Not sure what to do about that.
To the substance of your piece, it seems to me the Rs never really cared a whit about what people wanted, unless those "people" are those nice frankensteinian folks minted by Supreme Court fiat. But you're probably right in saying that this gives them some cover for the future. What I dont understand is why people are still willing to swallow whole the notion that cutting taxes on the rich and letting free market forces (a misnomer if there ever was one) dictate will somehow make life better for us bottom 98%. We've had 30 years from the Grade B Great Communicator's original postulation and it aint like things have gotten a whole lot better in that time.
The easy proof that tax cuts for the rich will not fix the jobs problem is that the tax cuts for the rich are already in place and it's not fixing the jobs problem. So we can j ust eliminate that from concern. Also, the CBO (I think) but in any case various economic analyses that keep getting cited (it's on my list to track down a proper reference) say that the tax cuts will not pay for themselves.
My rule on this is simple: If you want to reward people for creating jobs, you do so by making a tax cut for people who make jobs. When there is a middle state that only might be causal, and only in some circumstances, then you water down the benefit of the tax cut by delivering tax cuts to people who don't do the thing. Like you could give high salary to everyone who has unruly hair because it took someone with unruly hair to invent E=MC^2. But you'd do better by just having given a high salary to Einstein. The tax cuts for the rich thing is the same. Rich is a precondition to hiring, but there are rich people who don't hire. So why reward the ones who don't? That just makes the incentive “to get rich” instead of “to hire.”
And, btw, I'm glad someone caught the “mettle detector” pun. Thanks for calling it out. :)
friends don't let friends vote Republican
Yes, the people do not want Social Security!
egads...
They indicate their true intentions with their actions not their words.