My essay was mostly a reaction to what I understood to be and still believe to be a graphic that tells a misleading story in an overly simplistic and reductionist way. I stand by that.
While I did not mean to "both-sides" the question as to which party is or is not fiscally feckless/wreckless – did not mean to suggest the answer to be "both!" – I certainly see how some of my wording points in that direction.
Your comment prompted me to return to this page and I responded first to an old comment from Tedow that I had neglected (for whatever reason).
In the area of value judgment (which I skirted in this essay), I do stand strongly with Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann. Read the whole piece from 2013, starting with the excerpt below. As I wrote in reply to Tedow, there is lots of resonance here with this week's monstrosity.
Those who relish using a sequester—some House Republicans, along with a gaggle of radio talk-show hosts, editorial writers and cable television commentators—say this is one small step toward reducing U.S. deficits and debt. But if the goal were really debt reduction, it would be easy to get a bipartisan deal that would lower the debt enough to meet the original target set by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, with roughly a third coming from revenue. The insistence on deep discretionary-spending reductions while calling for even deeper tax cuts shows that the sequester is not about money but about taking a meat ax to government as we know it.
The tactics to achieve that goal—from the sequester to the threat to shut down the government in late March to the next confrontation over the debt limit—have made basic governance a huge challenge for the executives managing programs and agencies, nearly all of whom lack a clear sense of how much money they will have from one day to the next. Planning, recruiting personnel and drafting long-term contracts have become impossible in areas from cybersecurity to embassy security to medical research to homeland security, damaging not industries rife with waste, fraud and abuse but critical services. If only it were all about money!
The deficits were going down in the last years of the George W. Bush administration...before the 2008 financial crisis.
Spending to address the financial crisis was bipartisan, as was the cause of it (arguably).
What is the partisan valence of the before/after deficit pattern under the George W. Bush administration?
Obama entered office with an enormous deficit on account of the fiscal impact of the financial crisis and the enormous spending to address it.
During the Obama administration, the Republican House played hardball on spending, including successfully insisting upon a sequestration plan. Who gets credit for the decline in the deficit over the middle years of the Obama administration?
The trend of the deficit at the end of the Obama years was upward -- at a faster rate than in the initial years of the 45th presidency. Who, if anyone, deserves blame for that?
Deficits were going down in the last years of W.'s administration...AFTER ruining the first budget surplus in decades under Clinton.
And no, the Republican House didn't "insist on a sequestration plan." The GOP - yet again - held a gun to nation's economy over the debt limit that they - yet again - didn't take issue with under W. The sequestration plan was proposed by *Obama*, if I recall correctly, to act as an incentive to both parties to find a deal. NOBODY liked what was in the sequestration plan, because it included cuts to military spending as well as domestic. That was the whole point. However, Congress still couldn't find the spines to actually agree on a deal, so sequestration happened by default (no pun intended). That wasn't the GOP playing hardball, it was the GOP being hypocritical and stubborn.
One year of upward motion at the end of Obama's term does not a trend make. Why blame anyone, especially after years of reduction?
I do not recall whether I saw this comment at the time and (a) ignored it or (b) thought I would get to it and then forgot about. It is possible – but less likely! – that I did not see it at all. I'd say (b) is the most likely.
In any case, I revisited the comments to this post on account of a fresh comment that popped up yesterday.
In February 2013, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann at Brookings put out a valuable piece on sequester. Read it all, as they say. I put an excerpt below the link.
The bottom line across all of this topic is that whereas Democrats advocate for a healthier budget through increased taxes, Republicans (set aside motivation) by contrast (a) consistently advocate for lower taxes and lower non-military spending and (b) frequently resort to heavy-handed tactics in attempts to get their way.
Look at that last excerpted paragraph and the final sentence of the preceding paragraph and see its resonance with the monstrosity enacted yesterday.
The sequester’s origins can’t be blamed on one person—or one party. Republicans insisted on a trigger for automatic cuts; Jack Lew, then the White House budget director, suggested the specifics, modeled after a sequester-like mechanism Congress used in the 1980s, but with automatic tax increases added. Republicans rejected the latter but, at the time, took credit for the rest. Obama took the deal to get a debt-ceiling increase. But the president never accepted the prospect that the sequester would occur, nor did he ever agree to take tax increases off the table.
[...]
Those who relish using a sequester—some House Republicans, along with a gaggle of radio talk-show hosts, editorial writers and cable television commentators—say this is one small step toward reducing U.S. deficits and debt. But if the goal were really debt reduction, it would be easy to get a bipartisan deal that would lower the debt enough to meet the original target set by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, with roughly a third coming from revenue. The insistence on deep discretionary-spending reductions while calling for even deeper tax cuts shows that the sequester is not about money but about taking a meat ax to government as we know it.
The tactics to achieve that goal—from the sequester to the threat to shut down the government in late March to the next confrontation over the debt limit—have made basic governance a huge challenge for the executives managing programs and agencies, nearly all of whom lack a clear sense of how much money they will have from one day to the next. Planning, recruiting personnel and drafting long-term contracts have become impossible in areas from cybersecurity to embassy security to medical research to homeland security, damaging not industries rife with waste, fraud and abuse but critical services. If only it were all about money!
Very well argued.
This did not age well - the trend just continued, and this week we learned it will be even worse going forward...
Thank you for your comment, Anon User!
My essay was mostly a reaction to what I understood to be and still believe to be a graphic that tells a misleading story in an overly simplistic and reductionist way. I stand by that.
While I did not mean to "both-sides" the question as to which party is or is not fiscally feckless/wreckless – did not mean to suggest the answer to be "both!" – I certainly see how some of my wording points in that direction.
Your comment prompted me to return to this page and I responded first to an old comment from Tedow that I had neglected (for whatever reason).
In the area of value judgment (which I skirted in this essay), I do stand strongly with Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann. Read the whole piece from 2013, starting with the excerpt below. As I wrote in reply to Tedow, there is lots of resonance here with this week's monstrosity.
.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/five-myths-about-the-sequester/
Those who relish using a sequester—some House Republicans, along with a gaggle of radio talk-show hosts, editorial writers and cable television commentators—say this is one small step toward reducing U.S. deficits and debt. But if the goal were really debt reduction, it would be easy to get a bipartisan deal that would lower the debt enough to meet the original target set by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, with roughly a third coming from revenue. The insistence on deep discretionary-spending reductions while calling for even deeper tax cuts shows that the sequester is not about money but about taking a meat ax to government as we know it.
The tactics to achieve that goal—from the sequester to the threat to shut down the government in late March to the next confrontation over the debt limit—have made basic governance a huge challenge for the executives managing programs and agencies, nearly all of whom lack a clear sense of how much money they will have from one day to the next. Planning, recruiting personnel and drafting long-term contracts have become impossible in areas from cybersecurity to embassy security to medical research to homeland security, damaging not industries rife with waste, fraud and abuse but critical services. If only it were all about money!
Biased labeling aside, is the graph itself inaccurate? Correlation is not causation, but there is a hell of a lot of correlation going on here.
The deficits were going down in the last years of the George W. Bush administration...before the 2008 financial crisis.
Spending to address the financial crisis was bipartisan, as was the cause of it (arguably).
What is the partisan valence of the before/after deficit pattern under the George W. Bush administration?
Obama entered office with an enormous deficit on account of the fiscal impact of the financial crisis and the enormous spending to address it.
During the Obama administration, the Republican House played hardball on spending, including successfully insisting upon a sequestration plan. Who gets credit for the decline in the deficit over the middle years of the Obama administration?
The trend of the deficit at the end of the Obama years was upward -- at a faster rate than in the initial years of the 45th presidency. Who, if anyone, deserves blame for that?
Deficits were going down in the last years of W.'s administration...AFTER ruining the first budget surplus in decades under Clinton.
And no, the Republican House didn't "insist on a sequestration plan." The GOP - yet again - held a gun to nation's economy over the debt limit that they - yet again - didn't take issue with under W. The sequestration plan was proposed by *Obama*, if I recall correctly, to act as an incentive to both parties to find a deal. NOBODY liked what was in the sequestration plan, because it included cuts to military spending as well as domestic. That was the whole point. However, Congress still couldn't find the spines to actually agree on a deal, so sequestration happened by default (no pun intended). That wasn't the GOP playing hardball, it was the GOP being hypocritical and stubborn.
One year of upward motion at the end of Obama's term does not a trend make. Why blame anyone, especially after years of reduction?
Hello Tedow!
I do not recall whether I saw this comment at the time and (a) ignored it or (b) thought I would get to it and then forgot about. It is possible – but less likely! – that I did not see it at all. I'd say (b) is the most likely.
In any case, I revisited the comments to this post on account of a fresh comment that popped up yesterday.
In February 2013, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann at Brookings put out a valuable piece on sequester. Read it all, as they say. I put an excerpt below the link.
The bottom line across all of this topic is that whereas Democrats advocate for a healthier budget through increased taxes, Republicans (set aside motivation) by contrast (a) consistently advocate for lower taxes and lower non-military spending and (b) frequently resort to heavy-handed tactics in attempts to get their way.
Look at that last excerpted paragraph and the final sentence of the preceding paragraph and see its resonance with the monstrosity enacted yesterday.
Thank you for your comment.
.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/five-myths-about-the-sequester/
The sequester’s origins can’t be blamed on one person—or one party. Republicans insisted on a trigger for automatic cuts; Jack Lew, then the White House budget director, suggested the specifics, modeled after a sequester-like mechanism Congress used in the 1980s, but with automatic tax increases added. Republicans rejected the latter but, at the time, took credit for the rest. Obama took the deal to get a debt-ceiling increase. But the president never accepted the prospect that the sequester would occur, nor did he ever agree to take tax increases off the table.
[...]
Those who relish using a sequester—some House Republicans, along with a gaggle of radio talk-show hosts, editorial writers and cable television commentators—say this is one small step toward reducing U.S. deficits and debt. But if the goal were really debt reduction, it would be easy to get a bipartisan deal that would lower the debt enough to meet the original target set by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, with roughly a third coming from revenue. The insistence on deep discretionary-spending reductions while calling for even deeper tax cuts shows that the sequester is not about money but about taking a meat ax to government as we know it.
The tactics to achieve that goal—from the sequester to the threat to shut down the government in late March to the next confrontation over the debt limit—have made basic governance a huge challenge for the executives managing programs and agencies, nearly all of whom lack a clear sense of how much money they will have from one day to the next. Planning, recruiting personnel and drafting long-term contracts have become impossible in areas from cybersecurity to embassy security to medical research to homeland security, damaging not industries rife with waste, fraud and abuse but critical services. If only it were all about money!