It’s Stupid How We Always Seem to do It Again
Dave Weigel runs down some reasons for thinking that GOP refusal to cooperate with President Obama’s recovery plan won’t recapitulate the 1993-94 cycle. Certainly, there are a lot of differences and conservative tactics with regard to the stimulus are pretty strikingly bold. Still, I think the upshot of this course of action in 2010 will have relatively little to do with who or what is popular in January 2009 than with how things look in September and October 2010.
The president’s supporters need to be able to point to a situation that’s clearly improving. The Clinton years are remembered as good economic times—we’ve never again enjoyed living standards as high as those that prevailed in 1998-2000—but the political struggles of the early Clinton years had a lot to do with the fact that economic recovery remained anemic through the first couple of years of his administration.
59 Responses to “It’s Stupid How We Always Seem to do It Again”
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January 29th, 2009 at 8:40 am
The good life of the later Clinton years was the natural peak before the trough that resulted from Greenspan et al’s policies. You should know this.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:45 am
I’m willing to predict here and now that Democrats will hold onto both houses of congress after the 2010 elections.
In 1994, the Deocratic party had essentially controlled the HOR since 1931, and both houses for the past eight years. The “Reagan Revolution” was recent memory, and so the modern conservative movement still had passion had true passion and was not fully discredited.
Plus, 1991-93 is not 2007-09 — the collapse of the global financial system being slightly different from your run of the mill recession.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Thank you Matt- at least SOMEBODY gets it. I’m sick of arguing with clueless apologists for Obama’s stupid bipartisan schtick. The Republicans are totally irrelevant and should have been ignored from the start. ALL that will matter in 2010 is whether voters feel the economy is headed in the right direction- and as the party in power, the Democrats will get 100% of the credit or blame regardless of any political maneuvering occurring now.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I think the fact that the Reagan revolution and the Southern Strategy have run their course and then some — are there significant numbers of Southern conservative Democrats still waiting to go Republican who haven’t? — makes this era very different from 1993-1994.
And so far I don’t know of Obama’s plans to offer a Republican / Big Business-backed economic agreement (NAFTA) which specifically gives a big middle finger to labor and liberals and which must be passed with a strong majority of Republicans and a minority of conservative Democrats against the majority of Democrats in both houses.
If he does pull a NAFTA, then maybe it’s more comparable.
Also, if like in 1993 they try to give health care to the control of a small number of the largest insurers and HMO’s in a bill basically written by them, such that it’s hard for health care reform supporters to even defend it, then it’s more comparable.
Anything can happen, and Republicans could win seats in 2010, and/or this could be like the FDR era and Republicans go to the wilderness for 35 years. But I don’t see the signs of a Democratic Party fundamentally riven between following basic Democratic thought and policies and a strategy of using Republican approaches to isolate labor and liberals.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Isn’t the theory that things don’t have to be better for everyone, but key constituencies have to be better off? Union workers, educators, researchers, heavy contractors, banks, auto workers, etc. Put enough people on the dole, and lock in their votes. And cut off opponents–it’s actually better for their situation to be worse, since they will have fewer resources to resist.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Yes, that and the fact that in 93, democrats had run the House for 40 years unbroken, giving the wingnuts a “give us a chance” narrative. In 2009/10 they have had their chance and screwed the pooch big time. Those of you who want the dems to run roughshod over the irrelevant GOP sound just like the GOP in 2001-06. “Lets just do what we want and kick the dems to the curb”. The bill that just passed the house, is the most progressive one since Johnson’s Great Society legislations in the sixties, and you are bitching about it not being progressive enough.
To which I say.
Do not let Perfect become the enemy of the Good.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:10 am
So, it seems we need a more sophisticated model to explain why the Republicans did well in 1994, but got hammered in 1934.
Assuming you’re not being disingenuous, I think the answer is: because, economically, things were a lot worse in 1932 than they were in 1992. One could attribute the 1990s recovery to the normal business cycle (and thus not give credit for it to the party in power.) In the Great Depression, there was a widespread sense that he wheels had come off and people wanted help.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:11 am
We need a more sophisticated model to explain why the Republicans did well in 1994, but got hammered in 1934.
I immediately see two differences.
- The crisis in 1934 was dire; the troubles by 1994 was more or less over.
- The congressional Democrats had been in power for two terms by 1934, while they had been been in power for 42 scandal-ridden years by 1994.
There might be a third difference if Obama stays popular like FDR, and not bumbling and distracted like Clinton, but that’s impossible to predict. I do think Republicans are crazily optimistic about how worried voters are about spending right now, when they’re all panicking about losing their jobs.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I’m starting to think that Democrats aren’t good at politics. This bill is meant to buy votes, it isn’t meant to work in some other way.
The safest thing to do is to oppose it. If it works, you say it wasn’t necessary–and the evidence is that things are now fine. If it doesn’t work, you say you were right to avoid wasting all that money. There’s no upside to spending this trillion, except the votes it buys from the wealth it transfers.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:28 am
But Matt, wouldn’t the GOP make solid gains with a shitty economy regardless of their support of the stimulus? As a liberal who supported the Iraq War yet nonetheless benefited from it being a total disaster, I thought this would be self-evident.
Obstructing a popular bill from a popular President after he made honest efforts to include you is just going to come off as spiteful… no matter what kind of hard on it gives cable news.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:34 am
If Republicans thought this bill would actually turn around the economy, they would have voted for it. But why would Obama want the economy to go back to normal (at least anytime soon)? Think how far FDR was able to shift this country to the left, precisely because the economy remained crappy for so long.
The best case outcome for liberals is enough economic improvement to make it look like their policies are making progress, but not enough to warrant an end to the “crisis” which they can use to advance their priorities.
What Yglesias and other young Dems don’t realize is that this is the last bullet in the chamber, WRT fiscal policy. If this doesn’t work, we’re out: the bond market won’t put up with a re-try a few years from now, without driving interest rates and inflation to Carter levels. That’ll lead to the second trough of a double-dip recession, and it will make Dem plans to expand the welfare state dead in the water. Higher interest rates will mean that interest payments on the debt will crowd out any additional entitlement spending.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Must be Opposite Day, because Freddy Boy has hit on the precise opposite of the truth. They’re afraid Obama WILL succeed in reviving the economy and desperately want him to fail, because that’s their only chance of not being toast for the next several election cycles(at least). Some of their shills, like the fat pillhead, have even openly admitted that they want the stimulus to fail. (What was all that about Country First?)
January 29th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Re “but the political struggles of the early Clinton years had a lot to do with the fact that economic recovery remained anemic through the first couple of years of his administration.”
—————
It had a lot to do with the fact that the Democrats and Clinton FAILED to make major Structural changes — in News Media Fairness, in Campaign Finance, and in Grassroots unity –when they controlled the White House and Congress from 1992-1994.
In part because a hundred or so billionaires thought the Democratic Party was their private club — and all they had to do was shell out a few $million every 4 years to put out a bunch of deceitful bullshit in expensive urban media markets on the East and West Coasts.
Plus, when it came to being a whore for rich men, the Republicans had nothing on Bill Clinton. The quarrel was always over who would be boss, never over methods or hesitation to fuck the working class.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:22 am
DTM, risk of default isn’t the primary risk on government debt. The Fed is talking about buying Treasuries. Monetizing the debt is the risk. That’s not default risk.
The plan isn’t meant to “work.” It’s a political plan. That’s the only explanation that actually makes sense to me. Look at the funding choices and spin another story. You’d have to be deluded to think that the goal is stimulating the economy.
And you misunderstand my point: Republicans aren’t in the position of having to hope for bad things. They can hope for the economy to improve and still say that the trillion dollars for this bill (and the trillions to come for other bailouts) shouldn’t have been spent.
Steve, if someone thinks the bailout is a waste of a trillion bucks, shouldn’t he want the plan to fail (as in, not pass)?
January 29th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Thomas is cute. He actually wants us to give the Republicans credit for thinking! How quaint. They’re reptiles. All their little brains can hold is simple-minded ideology and political calculation of the dumbest kind (i.e. hoping Obama fails so they can inherit the ruins.)
January 29th, 2009 at 10:40 am
“Thomas is cute. He actually wants us to give the Republicans credit for thinking! How quaint. They’re reptiles.”
If you don’t understand how a thinking person could have a different political view than you, that just means you don’t fully understand the issue at hand.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Oh come on — 1998-2000 was great for the beneficiaries of the creative class bubble and marginally encouraging for the working class, but it was no picnic. And real wages for real workers (people who have no control over their working conditions) edged up only marginally in the 1990s. Meanwhile former welfare recipients were put into slave labor (workfare).
I carry about no afterglow from the 1990s — they only look good compared to the 80s and the 00s which both stunk putrid economically for workers.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I fear the lack of understanding is on your end. Even most conservative economists, those who aren’t simply out-and-out Republican shills, have acknowledged that monetary policy has gone as far as it can go and fiscal stimulus is needed.
Here’s a free clue: Ideology != understanding.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Steve,
Most Republicans aren’t against a fiscal stimulus per se, but this one, which is mainly a wish list of Democratic priorities, the vast majority of which won’t provide any stimulus this year or next. And no, monetary policy hasn’t gone as far as it can. Look up “quantitative easing”.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Bzzzt. They are for tax cuts (that’s always their “answer” to everything) which will have little or no stimulatory effect. That’s not “being for a stimulus”. But thanks for playing.
And yes, the consensus of competent economists is that we are in a liquidity trap and further monetary easing is not possible. And “quantitative easing” is so valuable that it left Japan in a decade-long L-shaped recession. No thanks.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:06 am
I would like to use Laffers famous napkin on the re-pukes to clean the mess they have made of this country for the last 28 years or more of Reaganomics.The re-pukes have gone Hoover on America again and I hope Obama marginalizes them with the senate passing the stimulus.Pork spending to the re-pikes is another word for socialism and it it works, just ask any republican lawmaker with his S.S,V.A.bene`s and his or hers platinum health cre that 45 million American don`t have access to how they like their socialism.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:12 am
The Republican (House) strategy may work, may not work, but it’s the only hand they have to play. The nature of the House with its two decades of gerrymandering have made most of the seats on both sides reliably ‘red’ or ‘blue’, so right now the republicans still in congress have very little downside for failure even if they’re seen at fault. Otoh, they’re not going to get credit if things get better, because the Democrats will naturally get more and hold onto the swing districts. So ‘accommodation’ will bring them little benefit, but obstructionism might – if things actually get worse.
The Senate calculus is completely different, with a lot less ’safe’ seats proportionately. This is why, even back to the first round of TARP, congressional republicans were able to get a large enough block to vote it down, but the Senate vote was an overwhelming, something like 75-18 (back in a closer to 50/50 senate). You’ll probably see the same thing when HR1 goes to the senate; some minor sweeteners, then all the ‘gang of 14′ voting for it.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
“Still, I think the upshot of this course of action in 2010 will have relatively little to do with who or what is popular in January 2009 than with how things look in September and October 2010.”
This is really key. I’ll bet you that, if you poll folks in November 2010 and ask them how many people remember the Great Contraception and National Mall Gambit, all of the people who do will be commenters on blogs like this one. In other words, a miniscule portion of the population. What will matter to people is how much progress has been made. I don’t see how eliminating two popular provisions that do genuine good is going to help in that calculus.
Oh, and as for the “but now Republicans are seen as obstructionist!” argument? Here’s Mark Halberin:
So I guess maybe everyone hasn’t picked up on how genius this plan is yet.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Mark Halperin thought that McCain forgetting how many houses he had was bad news for Obama. For a more objective source, why don’t we ask Cantor and Boehner how Obama’s doing?
If the economy is still in the shitter in 2010, people aren’t going to turn to the guys who voted against the stimulus packages. The Republicans are still playing defense even as their support shrinks. It’s going to take years of sustained glaring incompetence for Obama to seriously lose support.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Considering that the Clinton economic policies lead to the current disaster, is that the analogy one wants to make? As for the present Republican obstructionism: inevitably the economy will improve, however slightly, the Democrats willr eap the harvest, the GOP is sowing its own destruction. Reread the history of the Great Despression.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
It has nothing to do with whether he’s right or not; he’s obviously an idiot. The point is that the people who actually care about bipartisanship are people like Halperin. They’re Villagers. And they always think that the Democrats should be more bipartisan. Trying to win them over is like trying to eat soup with a fork, and it’s pointless anyway since (as we just saw in November) their opinions have little to do with how people vote.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
If Halperin doesn’t matter, then he doesn’t matter. Under this view, all the Obama theater is theater and can’t be good or bad; if Obama decides to eat a baby on television tomorrow, it won’t matter, because people’s votes can be predicted by economic indicators and the baby-eating won’t affect the economy. On the other hand, if there’s some kind of argument that Obama has given up something he didn’t want to give up in exchange for Republican votes that he didn’t need and didn’t get, I haven’t seen it yet.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
“Halperin has proven many times he doesn’t reliably represent current media narratives, let alone public perceptions.”
Well, if you’re interested in objective tests of public perceptions, maybe you’d like to see this Rasmussen Reports poll, which shows support for the stimulus slipping to 42%. The fall is due to a loss of support from independent voters. That jiu-jitsu throw can come any time now.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
If you think that the American electorate by and large a) even knows that the contraception and Mall provisions were dropped and b) thinks higher of Obama for that, then you’ve got a lot more faith in the electorate than I do.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Didn’t want to give up, or SHOULDN’T have given up? That’s a distinction (concerning, to take a big example, the large proportion of useless tax cuts in the package) that matters. Ultimately it will matter a lot- but too late- to Obama himself (not to mention, the rest of us), if this package doesn’t get the job done.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I think this is right. American voters are tuned in like never before in my lifetime. The prospective of an empty pot tends to focus the mind, I suppose. And again, Obama’s reachout to wingnuts wasn’t about getting them on board IMO, it’s about maintaining the appearance that at least of following his campaign promises, and maintaining the good graces of the public. He will need it precisely because fixing the economy is going to take a long time. And yes, it is politics, and it’s frustrating sometimes, but it is what we have in a democracy. And those politicians who master it along side serious policy intitiatives, tend to fair better that those that don’t, or those who only do the politics.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Barbar: You’ve got it backwards. Either the media’s perception matters, in which case Obama seems not to have gained anything. Or it doesn’t, in which case he traded away these provisions for, as Matt says, nothing at all.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
@tomemos: But Halperin *is* a Republican. Of course he has to try to spin something other than “yeah, we’re being obstructionist”, but that doesn’t mean anyone will swallow it. The news is full of the huge concessions Obama already made and the Republicans are spitting on him anyway. Those facts are hard for even the corporate media to avoid.
P.S. IIRC, the Gingrich Congress would sometimes insert provisions in conference that weren’t in the House *or* Senate versions of a bill. This was sometimes criticized as dirty pool, but wasn’t actually illegal, so Pelosi and Reid could slip these provisions back in then.
Or, for that matter, they might stay in the Senate version and then go into the reconciled version and the House would just have to live with them or nuke the whole thing – and who wants “voted against a plan to help the economy” on their resume when they campaign for reelection?
January 29th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
“But Halperin *is* a Republican.”
I think you’re thinking of Mark Helprin. Halperin is the editor of Time, and by all evidence seems to be a Democrat, albeit one who is generally wrong on TV.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“Otoh, they’re not going to get credit if things get better, because the Democrats will naturally get more and hold onto the swing districts. So ‘accommodation’ will bring them little benefit, but obstructionism might – if things actually get worse.”
You don’t oppose a something with a nothing. I would argue that the Republicans, if they put together a real plan that could work (even in their opinion), actually wouldn’t do badly at all – even if the economy does well under a Democratic plan. People would say that the Republicans just had different ideas, maybe we would be doing even better if we had paid more attention to them, etc. 1930’s Progressive Republicans in the US and Conservatives in the UK who made peace with the realities of the Great Depression didn’t do badly.
If you don’t have your own plan, you just don’t have much to say. What do you do to convince people you want to help them economically? You need to have some active plan. Otherwise, you have a press conference where you’re blathering some vague pieties about the glories of American capitalism. If you have a plan, then you can have all sorts of bills to pass, press conferences to have, pork to hand out, etc.
That’s why the conservative parties could only rise to power again in the late 1960s/1970s – they could then run with a plan, i.e. a plan to tear down the Keynesian state. Once the Keynesian state was gone, they again had no plan and were defeated.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
we’ve never again enjoyed living standards as high as those that prevailed in 1998-2000
I call bullshit. You are confusing living standards with median real income. Those are very different things. Living standard include technology, and 2008 technology is certain better than Clinton-era technology.
It would be a nice liberal talking point, except it is simply not true.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Weigel may or may not be right but he is playing fast and lose with Crowley’s post to back up his “Clinton was reeling from scandals” argument.
I would argue the major difference between 1994 and 2010 will be which party nationalizing the election helps. If the economy is picking up, being on team Obama is going to be a net plus for Dems in purple districts in FL, OH, and NY who were elected in ‘06 and ‘08.
The 2012 Senate races are what will make or break the Obama era.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Tell that to the all time record 4.8 million Americans currently collecting unemployment benefits.
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