Matt Yglesias

31 Responses to “Block the Stimulus, Help the GOP”

1. Brien Jackson Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 12:28 pm

   Well it’s hard to argue with Blackwell’s logic. Obviously if the economy gets better Democrats are going to reap major, major electoral gains. What I don’t understand is saying this kind of thing publicly. I mean, you’ve basically just destroyed any chance of the GOP actually blocking anything, especially if Blackwell wins the RNC race.

2. burritoboy Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

   “What I don’t understand is saying this kind of thing publicly.”

   I don’t get it either. I mean, so far as I can tell, the Republicans do actually believe (insofar as we can ascribe belief to such a large and diverse group of people) that the stimulus is simply bad policy. Arguing against Keynesian stimulus (beyond tax cuts) has been consistent and near universal right-Republican party consensus since the 1930s at the latest.

   If the stimulus is bad policy, then it’s great for the Republicans to let the Democrats to do it. If the stimulus is good policy, then the Republicans should propose and fight for a superior plan than the Democrats.

3. Rob Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

   BB-

   Any honest opponent of the stimulus won’t argue that it will help, only that it will cause long run damage. The fact is the help is what they want to avoid.

4. anonymoose Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

   The one thing I hate with historical (hysterical) analogies is that, in many cases, technology has improved so much that these analogies may not apply any more.

   Public perception is driven by the information that is available to them. There are so many different avenues of information today than there were during the Clinton year. “History suggests otherwise”….but could that be because the public only really got a narrow version of what happened?

   Sites like this one help push back against the skewed versions of events that come out of the traditional media and GOP mouthpieces. The current landscape seems different than before in terms of developing the conventional wisdom. With the different avenues available now for pushback, the Clinton type failure to reform healthcare may be viewed in a different light.

5. Mark Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

   The reason Blackwell can say this kind of thing in public is because the only people who will remember it six months from now are people who read liberal political blogs on Saturdays, and he is not looking for our support.

6. Fred Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

   No one is going to block the stimulus, and the economy is still going to be shitty in 2010. There’s no silver bullet for it. Imbalances that built up over decades won’t get readjusted in two years. The recession will probably be over by the 2010 elections, but we’ll have a jobless recover and unemployment will still be in the high single digits. The GOP will be able to claim (accurately) that it’s the worst economy since the Carter administration.

7. rapier Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   The recession isn’t going to be over by 2010. As a technical thing it’s possible that GDP ‘growth’ will be statistically proven in some limited sense but growth as we knew it is over for a very long time.

   What the Obama administration does or does not do will not effect the medium term outcome. The short and long term outlooks are so grim there will be no metric available to measure success.

   It’s an apparant political death sentence. Do nothing it goes to hell. Do something it goes to hell. The only possible saving grace will be if it’s apparent that whatever is done it is seen to be done with fairness, justice and done on good faith. 75% of Republicans will say it isn’t but they don’t mean a thing come election time. It’s everyone else that counts. If we have elections.

8. colby Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 2:10 pm

   Anonymoose, you may be on to something. I think people are getting more of the story now- the Democratic Congress’ inability to check Bush the last two years is seen as Bush/Republican obstruction as much as it is a Democratic failure- and the Dems certainly didn’t suffer any electoral consequences for it.

   And for that matter, I think it’s fair to call Clinton’s health care snafu his failure- it was the Administration’s secrecy that repulsed Congressional Democrats, giving the Republicans they needed to kill it.

9. burritoboy Says:
   January 17th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

   “The GOP will be able to claim (accurately) that it’s the worst economy since the Carter administration.”

   I think we’ve had this discussion on this blog before. The question isn’t solely about the state of the economy in 2010 or 2012. The question is also very much how the politics of economic policy is perceived. There’s plenty of instances where recessions continued through an election cycle and the dominant parties of the time, as long as they were percieved to be vigorously dealing with the recession even though it was not yet over, were often rewarded – sometimes even heavily rewarded. Roosevelt and the Democrats won in multiple Great Depression races, the Republicans did well in 1982 and so on. FDR did even better in 1936 than he did in 1932.

   I would argue that the Republicans could do better if they put together the best economic policy they can (in their opinion, of course, not mine) and vigorously try to enact as much of it as possible. Then, they can plausibly argue in 2010 and 2012 that their policies would have been better than the Democrats. Attempting a repeat of their obstructionism of 1933-1940 was a very bad strategy for the Republicans then, and, I argue, could be equally damaging for them now.

10. DaveinHackensack Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    “Roosevelt and the Democrats won in multiple Great Depression races, the Republicans did well in 1982 and so on. FDR did even better in 1936 than he did in 1932.”

    As Larry Bartels has pointed out,

    “…studies of economy-driven voting almost invariably find that voters are strongly influenced by economic conditions during the election year, or even some fraction of it, but mostly ignore how the economy performed over the rest of the incumbent’s term”

    [...]

    The 1936 election has become the most celebrated textbook case of ideological realignment in American history. However, a careful look at state-by-state voting patterns suggests that this resounding ratification of Roosevelt’s policies was strongly concentrated in the states that happened to enjoy robust income growth in the months leading up to the vote. Indeed, the apparent impact of short-term economic conditions was so powerful that, if the recession of 1938 had occurred in 1936, Roosevelt probably would have been a one-term president

    So, in a nutshell, how Dems do in 2010 or 2012 depends largely on how the economy is doing that year.

11. N Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    I agree with burritoboy – a bad economy in 2010 or 2012 will certainly hurt the Democrats, but the extent of the political costs will depend greatly on voter perceptions of the two parties. Even if people are unhappy with the (lack of) economic progress after 2 or 4 years of Obama, they won’t automatically become Republicans unless they’re convinced that GOP leaders are more likely to attend to their immediate concerns in the following years.

    A key factor here is the advantage that the Democrats have gradually established over the GOP in terms of public credibility on most economic issues. Even as the Democrats were losing elections and being pushed around by the Republicans on security/foreign policy issues post 9/11, they continued to effectively cement their reputation as the party that’s more in touch with the pocketbook concerns of ordinary Americans. That investment in shaping public opinion, made while in opposition, will probably pay some dividends now that they’re in power.

12. James Robertson Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    A thought that’s inconceivable to Matt: It’s possible to be opposed to the “stimulus” plan on the grounds that you don’t think it will work. Personally, I don’t see how adding more than a trillion (annually) to the national debt will help us, especially when it will all go to typical Congressional pork projects. But hey – that’s an impossible thought, so Matt’s head might explode if he came across it.

13. eric k Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    Robertson,

    We’re talking about what Ken Blackwell is arguing though and that isn’t the case he is making.

    He says that blocking the stimulous will be good for Republicans in 2010, but he also says a good economy will be good for Obama, so using his own logic he is implying that blocking the stimulous is bad for the economy.

14. James Robertson Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

    What’s new about that? Democrats were salivating over the possibility of a down economy (to help their electoral prospects) back to 2005. The fact that Matt finds this interesting speaks volumes about his naivite in politics.

15. burritoboy Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    “What’s new about that? Democrats were salivating over the possibility of a down economy (to help their electoral prospects) back to 2005. ”

    Apparently you are unable to tell the difference between:
    a. noting the commonplace idea that the party in power has trouble when the economy is bad BUT doing nothing to make it bad (Democrats in 2005 through today).
    b. obstructing policies which you yourself believe will be effective policies so that the economy is bad and thus your political opponents will be defeated. (Ken Blackwell)

    It’s roughly the difference between noting that “if you do push the baby carriage off the cliff, it will fall down and kill the baby” and saying “let’s make sure the cliff has no guard rails, so the baby carriage WILL fall off the cliff and then we can collect on the insurance money”.

16. burritoboy Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    “However, a careful look at state-by-state voting patterns suggests that this resounding ratification of Roosevelt’s policies was strongly concentrated in the states that happened to enjoy robust income growth in the months leading up to the vote.”

    Yes, but all Bartels is arguing is that 1936 was a stronger economy than 1935. 1936’s economy wasn’t better than 1928, for example. 1936 wasn’t a great or even good economy in general, only it was better than the immediately previous horrid years. The current analogue is if 2012 is better than 2011, not if 2012 is a ideal good economy (i.e., people will not be comparing 2012 to 1999, but to 2010/2011).

17. JonF Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    Re: It’s possible of course that the blockers rather than the blocked would wind up getting the blame, but history suggests otherwise.

    What history? I don’t recall that the still-miserable economy of 1934 and 1936 (and the unyieling opposition of the GOP to the New Deal) paying any political gains to the Republicans then. The only possible way for the GOP to benefit politically from a bad economy (that they decidedly own) is if they change their tune totally and start proposing new, and popular, alternatives. For sure if they go into 2010 and 2012 still bleating about “socialism” and campaigning for scrapping the estate tax and privatizing Social Security they will get no where fast. So far the GOP shows no sign of forgetting anything or learning anything– it makes Louis XVIII look like a brilliant innovator.

    Re: When Bill Clinton failed to deliver on his promise of health care reform, this was taken as a sign that his presidency was “failing” not that congressional opposition was blocking needed measures.

    This is true, but it ignores that fact that the GOP’s fingerprints were not on that failure. Rather it the Democrats themselves, both in Congress and the White House, that flubbed healthcare in 93-94. There were no great debates in Congress, no filibusters, no climactic votes. The whole thing just whimpered off stage due to too many small minds and big egos bickering it to death in committee.
    That will not happen with the stimulus bill– or any major Obama initiative. The Democrats are too organized, and the GOP has too few seats in Congress, for that to happen. If the GOP hamstrings anything it will be by direct frontal assault, and the GOP will own the failure.
    Remember Harry Truman’s “Do Nothing” Congress?

18. Skeptic Says:
    January 18th, 2009 at 10:19 am

    I find it fascinating that the Republicans always choose their cause over America. They seem perfectly willing to let Americans die, or even help them die, to trash the economy, to destroy without reckoning or remorse.

19. brendan Says:
    January 18th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    As Skeptic notes, and as Mr. Blackwell’s comments and strategy exemplify, my dad was right when he taught me that Republicans are mean.

    complicated, hard to appreciate in all its nuances, but an idea worth the intellectual work required to grasp.

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