I know it's been awhile since I posted but I've been busy writing a paper that will likely determine my future in academia. During this period, a lot of stuff has happened that I could have wrote an insightful commentary on and now I'm opting to discuss the new Deficit Commission plans for reducing the debt in the United States. The Bowles-Simpson commission has released what is essentially a center-right plan for reducing the debt that has many liberals upset about the priorities the government has seemed to set when it comes to reducing the debt.
Before we get too far, I want to say that no one actually cares about the debt in a meaningful manner. We care about the national debt the same way we care about our societies obsession with celebrities. We talk about and then proceed to buy Star magazine at the checkout counter. The elderly maintain that they don't want to leave a pile of debt to their children but they refuse to accept any cuts to Medicare, one of the largest government expenditures. Throughout the country people decry government waste, but not when it comes to them. Farmers still want agricultural subsidies that encourage them to overgrow and artificially inflates the price of land, Congressmen still want to build the F-22, not because it will help us fight terrorism (it was designed to fight MiGs from the 80's), because it's built in their districts. Students aren't going accept cuts to Pell Grants because it lowers the cost of college. The list goes on, it's not government waste when it helps them. Though there are groups that quite vociferously protest the debt right now, they weren't saying much when many of the structural costs were put in place. No one complained about launching two wars, initiating a huge tax cut, as well as creating a socialized drug plan that was unfunded; all of which would lead towards the position that we're in now, and we knew it then too though we didn't care, 'cause NO ONE REALLY cares about the debt.
Democrats care about the debt loosely, a lot of them buy into Keynesian models meaning that massive government debts can be a good thing, especially at the present time. (That is, debt can be good if the government is trying create economic demand which it currently isn't doing, the debt has more to do with our unwillingness to actually pay for government services, the housing collapse, and the ensuing efforts to halt a total economic collapse.) Really, we have bad deficit spending because it isn't priming the economic pump, it's just paying for the stuff we already made commitments to and are only in the red because the economy is doing piss poor. In some respects, Democrats care about the debt a little bit more, as can be demonstrated by HCR actually reducing government expenditures on health care over the long term, according to the CBO. Also, as can be demonstrated by the last Democratic President eliminating the debt, whereas the Republican administrations that bracketed him exploded it. (I'm exempting the first Bush from this.)
Republicans care about the debt because it's a good issue to campaign on and because for some reason they have this mantle of fiscal conservatism which they only have because they say they do. It's like vegetarians who say they don't eat meat and then proceed to chow down on fish, crab, and shrimp. I'm firmly of the belief that when you call yourself something, it should have some reflection in reality. Call me crazy. They don't care about the debt because they aren't going to cut anything and still cut taxes. Farm subsidies? Nope, because most Republicans represent rural areas that really like them. Military? Nope, because the military is sacrosanct and they also like the money that goes to their districts. Medicare or Social Security? Never, that would mean their elderly base would desert them in droves. Closing tax loopholes or eliminating tax breaks for highly profitable companies? Again, never because then their corporate supporters would stop supporting them. Not to mention that to Republicans, these actions count as a tax hike which they are physically incapable of performing. Also, according to Republicans, tax cuts pay for themselves despite the fact that they don't. If you have an expanding economy, revenue goes up, but there is no linkage between low taxes and better economic performance. The US has incredibly high tax rates throughout the '50's and '60's and guess what? Still had a booming economy. Yes, theoretically taxes can be so high as choke economic activity, but according to Republicans any level of taxes chokes economic activity.
The question now is whether we should care about the debt. The economy is in the dumps and the best way to reduce the debt is to improve the economy. Severely cutting programs in the government will likely have the effect of increasing unemployment, which is bad for the economy. Look at the states, states have to run balanced budgets which means cutting services and employees, which results in increased unemployment interestingly enough. When you have more unemployed people, there's less economic activity creating a huge drag. Increasing taxes and cutting large amounts of spending is the only way to reduce the debt, aside from economic recovery, doing either of those things will likely exacerbate the economic troubles that we find ourselves in. As such, given that, and the fact that no one actually cares about the debt in any meaningful manner, no, we shouldn't care about the debt. Anytime someone says they care about the debt, just remember the vegetarian who eats fish.
** I've decided to save my views on the debt commission for later because I've just wasted a lot of verbiage on why no one cares about the debt.
** I also need to add that what was released wasn't technically the debt commission's findings, it was a memo released by the two guys heading it, Bowles and Simpson.
It occurs to me that you are so correct that no one will listen- send this to TNR!
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