The Bush Spending Myth
Of course I can’t prove that conservatives are wrong to think that George W. Bush became such a huge failure because Americans disapproved of him spending so much money. But it seems like a very dubious theory. Jon Chait explains:
But to these critics Bush’s primary ideological apostasy is that he supposedly presided over vast new spending increases. Both Democrats and Republicans have gleefully taken up the charge–the former in order to discredit Bush, the latter to shield conservatism from the stench of his failure. It’s a trumped-up indictment. Bush did spend generously on defense and homeland security, with conservative approval, but domestic discretionary spending actually declined from 3.1 percent of GDP to 2.8 percent. It is true that Bush approved a vast new prescription drug benefit. But 89 percent of Americans believed in 2000 that Medicare should have such a benefit. Bush’s critics on the right have no explanation for how he could have gotten elected in 2000 without promising one or reelected in 2004 without following through. Still, the critique has taken hold. The Democracy Corps poll found that, by a 17-point margin, Republicans attribute their party’s failures in 2006 and 2008 to its insufficient conservatism. (Voters as a whole attributed it to excessive conservatism.)
Of course arguably it makes sense to respond to defeat by doubling down anyway. The Democratic Party has moved left since its defeats in 2002 and 2004, and done much better in 2006 and 2008. I think some aspects of that leftward shift have been politically helpful, but others have probably been politically damaging, and all things considered I think it would be odd to argue that the party got more successful because its leader started espousing a more progressive platform. But they won anyway. And it’s a good thing that party leaders now embrace strategic redeployment from Iraq and serious action on the climate crisis not so much because embracing those ideas was or is key to electoral victory, but because those are sound views on key issues and espousing them is consistent with winning elections so politicians should be pressed to do so.
40 Responses to “The Bush Spending Myth”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
November 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am
all things considered I think it would be odd to argue that the party got more successful because its leader started espousing a more progressive platform
Dude, be a bit bolder! I read your book. It’s really hard to articulate a non-convoluted foreign policy from the place the party was before Pelosi used Murtha to turn a pro-withdrawal view into the Democratic Iraq position. And yes, I see the “some aspects hedge” but you really should make a stronger claim.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:36 am
What happened in 2006 and 2008 was that the Republicans utterly discredited their governing philosophy through a series of historically spectacular failures.
The Democrats, who in 2000 and 2002 had partially endorsed conservative philosophies in a different objective climate, found that running against, and finding and promoting candidates who would run against conservative governance would be productive.
We need to not draw too many conclusions from 2006. It’s not usual for a president and a philosophy to be such a spectacular failure.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I think this means that the Republicans need to endorse something like the Frum/Ponnuru/Douthat plan where they strategically move left economically to preserve their coalition.
The question for conservatives, looking back on the Bush years, should be “what failed?” The answer is threefold.
1) neoconservative foreign policy
2) small gov’t economic policy
3) anti-technocratic culture
As much as I would love to see the Republicans turn away from social conservatism, I see little reason to think that opposing stem cell research had much of any effect on their crushing back-to-back defeats.
There are, within conservative traditions, a variety of different ways of engaging with foreign policy that have not been proven spectacular failures (realism, for instance), and a variety of economic policies with better records (domestic neoconservatism), and there’s no necessary reason for the Republicans to hate technocrats.
If the Republicans take the Democrats of 2000-2004 as their historical analogy to the current GOP situation, and Obama manages to pass just a low bar of relative competence, they’ll be stuck deep in the wilderness for another cycle. There’s very little about the current GOP woes that resembles the Democrats’ struggles from earlier in the decade.
We hadn’t failed. We hadn’t done great, sure, but we hadn’t been proven utterly unqualified to lead the country.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:59 am
DivGuy, one thing to keep in mind here is that a bunch of our 2006 Senate victories (MT, MO, VA) were incredibly close. It could be the same this time, with three races still undecided. A party can be a spectacular failure and still not lose 6 of their 15 exposed Senate seats as the GOP did back in 2006.
It’s possible that our leftward shift on Iraq made it possible for Jim Webb to win in VA and that stem cell-related action won us MO. Really, we’re dealing with circumstances so dramatic and sensitive to counterfactual changes that any slight push in our favor could have put us over the top.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:01 am
DivGuy – one problem with your list. The anti-technocratic culture developed out of the anti-science culture that is a fundamental part of cultural conservatism. Of course, the small government aspect played a major contributing role there as well, so maybe the Republican party could still get back to a pro-life, good governance package. Whatever the case, I think it will take another election cycle or two to get there. Republicans are raised these days to believe in cronyism (college republicans?) and it will take a while to get all that sewage out of the system.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Neil – I agree, so maybe I’m not sure what we’re arguing about. I definitely think the Democrats have gotten a bit electorally lucky (especially if we can take one more Senate seat during the counting / runoff period), but I think even with more normal luck, the Republicans would still have taken a pair of crushing back-to-back defeats.
And I think that it’s true that the Democrats have moved left over the decade, but I think that this move shouldn’t be prescriptive for most political movements finding themselves in the minority. What happened for the Democrats is that the Republicans endorsed a set of stupid philosophies and then implemented them incompetently, thus utterly discrediting their party and their ideas.
The Democrats were in position to “double down” on (some of) their ideas because we hadn’t failed, we’d just been unimpressive and lost. The Republicans have lost because of the spectacular failure of their policies, ideas, and implementation, and are not in position to “double down.”
November 9th, 2008 at 11:11 am
A major reason why there was widespread support for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and perhaps the underlying rationale for the timeliness of its passage, was the projected budget surplus that Clinton and Congress had produced. But for that fact, I don’t think it would have been enacted. The current, far more bleak, budgetary situation has made its passage a huge mistake as well as a present and future fiscal burden.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Ok, DivGuy, maybe we agree then. I took you to be defending the view that leftward moves by the Democrats weren’t essential to our victory and it was all gross Republican incompetence. But I totally agree that the GOP is holding a hard 15 and doubling down is idiocy.
After reading my Nate Silver, I’d put our upcoming Senate gains closer to 2 than 1.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Reagan and Bushes have shown that deficits do not matter, at least politically. How much did we hear about how W added $4-5t in new debt?
The “spent too much” is a lame attempt to say that Bush was too liberal or that the Republicans lost their way. But when have they REALLY taken action to make government smaller or make unpopular cuts? The Republicans are not the party of small government, they are the party of big government without paying for it. Cutting taxes and borrowing provides an illusion that it is all cheap.
Obama should make some hard and high-profile program cuts and elimitations, while at the same time sticking to his priorities like health care and energy. He should talk to people like Reich for identifying corporate welfare program to start with, and outdated government agencies and programs.
Liberals/progressives need to prioritize and recognize that if government is smarter in many areas and willing to make cuts and improve efficiency, it will be more effective and more credible where we care the most.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I took you to be defending the view that leftward moves by the Democrats weren’t essential to our victory and it was all gross Republican incompetence.
Oh, I see. I didn’t mean to be saying that, so thanks for helping me clarify. Unquestionably, the Democrats were able to win in 2006 because they were against the war, and to win in 2008 because they were against regressive taxation and (excessive) deregulation.
And for other happy reasons as well!
I’m just saying that those positions were successful because they were right, and they were proven right with uncommon clarity because of the failures of the Bush administration. (That is, even bad ideas don’t have to be implemented this poorly, and not all conservative ideas are as insanely bad as those Bush chose to guide his governance.)
The Republicans don’t have either the power of being right or the power of having the other side fuck up spectacularly to demonstrate their rightness.
It is conceivable, I guess, that Obama’s ideas are actually really bad and he’ll implement them really badly and the Democrats will be in big trouble. But that hasn’t happened, and if it does, we’ll have to get some new ideas and new policies. Just like the Republicans have to now.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:37 am
God, I hope so. If all we need on energy is John McCain, and all we need on health care is Arlen Specter, we could seriously get shit done. And we’d nail card check.
I’ve been hopeful about the big initiatives all along, but if the Senate is 59-41, it may be all over but the shouting.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Matt: I agree that the position “We lost because we spent too much” is highly questionable–I’m not under the strange illusion that “what I think we ought to do” and “what will be politically successful” are anywhere near identical. But I would ask you (and Chait) to remember your own refrain that “spending” and “domestic discretionary spending” are also far from identical. Discretionary spending may have dropped, but when you add in stuff like Iraq and the new entitlement Bush still spent a ton of money.
As for the issue of how the Republican party should change: I know where I’d like it to go. But I’d like a more libertarian party because I support those policies, not because I think everyone else does.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I think this just points to one of the fundamental contradictions of the GOP’s ‘philosophy’ (really, their sloganism. noone really seems to think anything through on their side.)
you can’t be ’small government cut taxes and spending’ if you also want to increase military spending. Suddenly conservatives see that wars and military hoopla and tax cuts makes the deficit grow, but they can’t figure out why. Until they do, I can’t see how they are capable of governing.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I find Sen. Obama much more amenable to my views than Sen. Kerry. As well, people like Sen. Tester and Sen. Webb are also much closer to my views. You might want to consider that the Democratic Party broadened its base, and that’s how it won.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:54 am
One thing I can guaran-damn-tee: it wasn’t by adding libertarians.
Obama proposes much stronger federal regulation of markets than Kerry and a much larger expansion of the welfare state than Kerry. If you support those things, you’re not really a libertarian. Which would be a good thing.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:54 am
After the Bush administration, true conservatives might want to start a new party. The nest has been pooped so badly, that I don’t see how your basic conservative could rise above the lunatic fringe without a whole new brand.
All the excuse-making is embarrassing. The last eight years have been a shameful disaster. What didn’t they do wrong?
November 9th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The Bush profligacy results from tax, wage, regulatory and trade policies. The First Big Lie of conservatism since Ronald Reagan is that the nation, especially the high end individuals and corporate entities economically could go on a 30 year (interrupted briefly during the Clinton years) tax holiday even in times of military conflict. I believe that we should amend our constitution do demand that except in times of financial depression or attack from a foreign nation and exempting military families, any military action will be paid for by a special progressive income tax with specific taxes applied to private war profiteers, such as Halliburton.
The Second Big Lie is that there ever has been something known as “Free Markets,” an Orwellian euhemism for a tax and regulatory corporate welfare at the expense of the populace, which combined with wage and trade policies led to a chronic wage deflation leaving the nation without revenues and the populace economically in over its head to support the consumerist economy that keeps us afloat. This has been particularly pernicious when the whole Bush economic boom was based on the housing industry, which required that a large portion of our citizenry go unfathomably into debt to support.
Finally, the third Big Lie of conservatism is that of the United States of America in this era could ever possibly be a small government economy. The state of California alone has a larger economy than most nation states in the world. In line with the corporate welfare state, which is at the heart of conservatism as it exists in reality, is the failure to understand that the government economy should like all economies weigh its investments with some responsability. The decades long investment in Star Wars technology alone could have if better placed covered improved education, health care, and energy policies. If the Bush prescription bill had bothered to set up negotiation for drug pricing–the whole advantage of pooling national wealth–instead of giving big pharma a pass, we could have easily covered the cost of expanding S-chip.
Conservatism in America, not just neoconservatism, is a pipe dream that does not take into account reality. It wishes to impose a well-sounding idea on the truth, and as a result as a thirty year experiment it has ultimately led to the slow motion disaster of which we are currently in the first stages.
There is a lesson in this for liberals as well: there are more things in heaven and earth than our dreamed of in (your) philosophy. But until conservatives get their head out of the sand of their own propaganda, they will be irrelevant at best, scary destructive at worst.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
DivGuy,
It may surprise you but among my friends there were a *lot* of usual libertarian voters (including myself) that found Obama’s views very likable. I think one of the misconceptions a lot of people have of libertarian-leaning people is that they really care about the top marginal tax rates. For me anyway, it’s much more about ending the war on drugs, no wiretapping, no torture, open laws for gay marriage and abortion, etc, while just letting the smartest people possible handle the economic side. I have no particular opinion on stimulus packages or SCHIP but I trust Obama’s advisors are the best people to get out of this mess; I do have very strong opinions on social issues however.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
“Mr. Obama and his advisers acknowledge that their focus has to shift, but the change is still likely to be challenging, and a bit disappointing. “Unfortunately, the next president’s No. 1 priority is going to be preventing the biggest financial crisis in possibly the last century from turning into the next Great Depression,” says Austan Goolsbee, an Obama adviser. “That has to be No. 1. Nobody ever wanted that to be the priority. But that’s clearly where we are.”
Goolsbee is a very bright fellow. Even on economics, I predict that I won’t be much bothered by an Obama administration. But time will tell. As for your views about libertarianism, the earlier post made my point.
“Lots of independents — as well as voters who identify with one of the major parties — hold broadly libertarian, or “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” views. A lot of those voters moved from voting Republican to voting Democratic between 2000 and 2006, and it looks like they did so again this year.”
November 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I also think the Bush budgets contributed to the shift of people from the Republicans to the Democrats (not so much spending per se as exploding deficits and debt, which in turn feeds into issues of incompetence and corruption). As others are implying, I think we could look for some of this effect specifically among libertarian-minded folks (and note again the shift of college-educated whites to Obama), but I would also suggest it contributed to a general sense that Republicans simply could not be trusted on fiscal and economic issues.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Prescription pills http://MyRxPill.com
November 9th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
DivGuy: So in other words, what conservatives need to change are:
1) Domestic policy
2) Foreign policy
3) Philosophy/ideas
Once they do that, they’ll be all set.
Snarking aside, Republicans ran out of ideas in the 1980s. 1994 was a kind of homecoming parade where the victories of the past were relived one last time.
More tax cuts don’t address any of our current problems. Aside perhaps from farm support, there are no huge federal programs that are going to be ended or privatized, because few voters would ever permit such a thing. The free market cannot address global warming, by definition. Rising entitlement costs can be fixed through (a) higher taxes or (b) fewer entitlement benefits.
Greatness Conservativism (ie big government conservativism) has been called a solution in search of a problem, but that’s unfair. There was a problem for which greatness conservatism was the answer: conservatism is not a governing philosophy. It is a temperment.
Conservatism is your elderly aunt in the passenger seat, telling you to slow down and stop driving like a jackass. She may not have a driver’s license of her own but she knows when you’re driving like a jackass.
We need a robust conservatism in the form of a permanent minority party, but the only governing program they can offer is “those liberals sometimes go too far.”
November 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Sen. Obama’s Agenda As Of Today
From the NY Times, Sen. Obama’s agenda:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/politics/09promises.html?pagewanted=1
1)” Energy and Economy, Intertwined
“Working With Iran
“I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade.”
OCT. 31, DES MOINES” ( We’ll see. Doesn’t bother me a whole hell of a lot )
2)” Beyond ‘No Child Left Behind’
“A truly historic commitment to education — a real commitment — will require new resources and new reforms.”
MAY 28, MAPLETON, COLO” ( I’m betting on more reforms than resources )
3)”Reaching the 45 Million Uninsured
“If you don’t have health insurance, you’ll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.”
OCT. 31, DES MOINES” ( I’m for a single payer national health plan, so I don’t like this. I know, I know, how can that be libertarian? It can’t, but I have my reasons for biting the bullet on this one. Namely, a free market won’t happen, and the current hybrid plan is the worst of both extremes combined. So throw me out of the libertarian caucus if you must )
4) “Interrogations and Guantánamo
“We’re going to lead by setting the highest of standards for civil liberties and civil rights and human rights.”
FEB. 20, DALLAS” ( Agree completely )
5) “Security and Citizenship
“We cannot deport 12 million people. Instead, we’ll require them to pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line.”
SEPT. 10, WASHINGTON” ( Agree completely )
6) “Tax Breaks, Old and New
“As president, here’s what I’ll do: cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year.”
OCT. 29, PAID TELEVISION ADDRESS” ( Agree completely )
7) “Withdrawing From Iraq
“Nobody’s talking about bringing them home instantly, but one to two brigades a month. It’ll take about 16 months to get our combat troops out.”
MAY 16, WATERTOWN, S.D.” ( Agree completely )
“I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leaders at a time and place of my choosing.”
JUNE 4, WASHINGTON” ( Agree Completely )
9) “Negotiating Nafta
“I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.”
FEB. 26, DEMOCRATIC DEBATE” ( Agree completely: This is terribly misunderstood. All he’s saying is that we can use leverage to promote liberty and decency. I’m fine with that )
10) “But then he hedged, foreseeing the unforeseen. “We don’t know yet what’s going to happen in January,” he said. “And none of this can be accomplished if we continue to see a potential meltdown in the banking system or the financial system.” ( Agree completely )
From his acceptance speech:
“Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for every dime: by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow.
But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st-century challenges with a 20th-century bureaucracy.”
Enough said. That’s fine with me. Try them out, but cut them out if they don’t work or are too costly.
November 9th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I think other people have pointed this out, but Matt misses an important point here, and that is that military spending is spending. (A point he understands everywhere else).
I think that it is very true that the conservatives lost votes largely because they were spendthrifts, and because moderates who expected fiscal conservatism were disappointed in the failure of the GOP to practice fiscal conservativism after they gained conrol of both Congress and the Executive Branch.
Now, this is not to say that most people have any particular programs they are angry about. They are angry that the GOP spent like drunken sailors, which they know because of how high the deficits are and how big the budgets are, but, other than the War on Terror, they don’t have anything specific that they are angry at them for spending on. Some moderates and a lot of non-establishment conservatives explicitly state this as what the GOP did wrong. Unfortunately for the Hannity types, Iraq is so unquestionably necessary that they put their blinders on as to how much it is costing us and therefore blame the GOP for some vague “overspending” without any specific programs to blame it on.
Which brings us to what the GOP fiscal irresponsibility has been: Iraq. Despite claims by most of the Bush loyalists, the largest single source of GOP fiscal irresponsibility has been Iraq. There is also a general sense that the GOP doesn’t mind big government as long as the people suckling at the federal teat are their cronies.
In other words, people voted out the GOP because while they preached “smaller government” in practice they were for “big government as long as it doesn’t benefit the non-wealthy.”
November 10th, 2008 at 2:06 am
power leveling cheap
March 11th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Incredible site!
March 12th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 14th, 2009 at 4:58 am
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
xanax
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 am
buy viagra online
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 am
viagra
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 am
Great site. Good info
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
cheap brand pfizer viagra