Fiscal Responsibility
Back in April, Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) proposed an amendment that would deliver a $250 billion cut in the estate tax. This was described as an effort to help farmers and small businessmen, but in reality “only 0.2 percent of the proposal’s cost, relative to the cost of making 2009 law permanent, would go to tax cuts for small business and farm estates.” The other 99.8 percent of the cost, about $249.5 billion dollars, was aimed at inheritors of estates worth over seven million dollars.
Bayh's Looking Out for Her!
The proposal passed, with Evan Bayh (D-IN) as one of those taking the view that the best way to handle the country’s long-term budget situation was to cut taxes on multimillionaires.
Coincidentally, there’s an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal by Senator Evan Bayh making the case that deficit reduction is super important and Democrats need to start learning to restrain their hunger for new spending. You can tell that the argument is offered in 100 percent good faith, because everyone knows that when you want to launch a serious conversation inside the progressive family the WSJ editorial page is the place to be. It’s a venue with an unparalleled credibility on the left.
44 Responses to “Fiscal Responsibility”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
September 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
This is why I’m ashamed to be a Hoosier sometimes. What a douche.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:51 am
i remember evan bayh leading the fight against the bush tax cuts, and of course, who can forget the strong role evan bayh played in being sure that the iraq war was paid for. i mean, the way he had kerry’s back on that issue!
wait: you mean…i’m wrong? that wasn’t evan bayh proving how much he cared about deficits?
September 18th, 2009 at 10:55 am
We won’t get anywhere so long as we concede any good faith to people like Bayh, Lincoln, and Kyl irrespective of their party labels. They’re corrupt people who make public policy to benefit the few at the expense of the many, and while we have no control over them–because they’re sociopaths who nevertheless haven’t broken the law–we do have control over actual progressive legislators, and they’re the ones who should be asked/commanded to stop taking bad-faith arguments, and bad-faith people, seriously.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Purge these hypocrites from the party. They’re DINOs anyway.
Nice pic, btw.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:58 am
And to think this man made Obama’s VP short list . . .
September 18th, 2009 at 11:00 am
The proposal passed
But only in the Senate:
And of course Baucus, Lincoln and Bayh were in. Why can’t one DC journalist ask those clowns why they keep increasing the deficit, but only if it benefits millionaires?
September 18th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I can’t find the reference, but many years ago Bayh was asked which were the most influential books in his life. He said after The Bible, it would be Atlas Shrugged. It’s the Bible for people going into business or politics.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:05 am
In addition to being in bad faith, it’s totally incoherent.
1. It completely ignores the state of the economy, setting us up for a 1937. “For the next fiscal year, assuming the economy has gathered sufficient momentum, we should freeze domestic discretionary spending, limit increases in defense spending to the rate of inflation, forgo pay raises for federal workers, and institute a federal hiring freeze.” That’s one hell of an assumption, and it totally sidesteps the question of whether the momentum is based on government spending.
2. It ignores questions of timing – “A world saturated with U.S. currency will eventually look elsewhere to invest,” the question is when eventually will happen.
3. No mention is made of increasing progressive taxation – ‘We cannot indefinitely share with the less-fortunate resources we do not possess.’ leaves out the fact that the rich possess a lot of resources.
4. “Andrew Jackson eliminated the national debt during his presidency. Harry Truman restored balance to the federal budget following World War II. John F. Kennedy cut taxes to stimulate growth. Bill Clinton left the nation’s finances so secure that some worried about the size of prospective surpluses.” Rather leaves out the previous Democrat who had to deal with an economic crisis of this magnitude, no?
This is why we need an more active progressive movement to decide who gets to be progressive and who doesn’t.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:06 am
….the view that the best way to handle the country’s long-term budget situation was to cut taxes on multimillionaires.
And dead multimillionaires at that.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:07 am
O/T, but I don’t think a picture of Paris Hilton is the best example to go with this post; she actually tries to earn (more) money in the private sector, instead of asking for millionaire welfare from DC.
Get some pictures of the Walton children next time; parasites doing nothing except waiting for their parents to die while buying the votes of people like Lincoln.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Rich people only need so much money to live on. They certainly can buy one or two of everything (appliances, cars, TVs/stereos, etc) but after that it’s just conspicuous consumption. Wouldn’t eliminating nearly all taxes on the middle class accomplish more? Imagine everyone making $50>200k a year suddenly in a position to buy, replace or fix all the various household items they own, add a second one of whatever, take a vacation, put a kid through school, contract for a service they normally do themselves. What would the effect on the economy be? Would it outweigh the loss of revenues to the Federal Treasury? Maybe we could rethink the trillions we spend on defense and make room for such a measure. Recoveries and strong economies can be sparked and sustained with enhanced funds for saving and purchasing. I hate to sound like a damned Republican but I really am starting to look longingly at that 40% that comes off the top of everything I earn.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:14 am
All this is true of Bayh, but it is also true that he is still more helpful than any Republican Senator from Indiana is going to be. That, by the way, says nothing in particular about Bayh–it is a reflection of how crazy the GOP has gotten, since a sane GOP might well have representatives from states like Indiana that were just as helpful as Bayh.
Anyway, the upshot is that although no one seems to like this suggestion, the only real solution to this problem is for progressives to get more Democratic Senators elected from more blue/purple states, such that you need less help from senators like Bayh to pass progressive legislation.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Lately Matt seems to have developed a wonderfully biting, ironic style of writing about the misdeeds of the rich and powerful. Posts like this need a wider audience. We need more of this stuff. Somebody get this kid a regular spot on the NYT op-ed page.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I don’t think one should presume that Bayh would be necessarily better than any Republican in Indiana. Richard Lugar is one of the saner Republican voices in the Senate. Mind you, he saves most of his outbursts of sanity for foreign policy, but that’s important.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:55 am
How did it pass the Democratic Senate? What was it bundled with?
September 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Re 12 and 14: Even if we concede that Bayh is saner than Burton (that’s easy) and Lugar (debatable but let’s just concede it), he’s more harmful because he’s a Democrat. He therefore poisons the debate within the Democratic party in a way that no Republican can, at least not over the long term. Sometimes you *don’t* want to keep your enemies closer than your friends, the old adage notwithstanding.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am
So having supported expensive proposals in the past disqualifies someone from discussing fiscal responsibility in the present? I think our current wars are pretty expensive. Does that mean anyone who supported them has to stay mum on questions of fiscal responsibility? What was MY’s view on the wars, again?
As for the venue… boo hoo. If Rush Limbaugh were to complain that someone from the Heritage Foundation shouldn’t publish op-eds in the NYT because that paper “lacks credibility” among wingnuts, I think we would roundly and correctly criticize him for being an idiot.
Lots and lots of people read the WSJ. It’s a perfectly reasonable place to try to place an op-ed.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I don’t think one should presume that Bayh would be necessarily better than any Republican in Indiana. Richard Lugar is one of the saner Republican voices in the Senate.
It isn’t just an assumption. People like Nate Silver at 538 have been tracking this issue periodically. Here is one relatively recent summary.
The upshot is Bayh got a 45.65% crucial votes (progressive) score in this analysis, which is low for a Democrat. But Lugar got a 15.22% score. And this is with Bayh voting more conservative than his lifetime score and Lugar voting more liberal than his lifetime score.
Do this with any state where there are Senators from both parties, or with Senators from similar states if you want to broaden the comparison, and you will see the same thing: even the most conservative Democrats score better than the most liberal Republicans from the same or similar states.
And by the way, Lugar’s score does indeed make him a relatively sane Republican. But the emphasis has to be on relative: the Republicans really are so insane right now that there just isn’t any overlap in these cases.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
MattY – enough with the populist rants. If you actually wanted to inform your readers, you could try to explain why the measure passed. How many other democrats supported it (in case you haven’t heard, the Democrats DO have a majority in both houses), what the arguments were in favor of it, etc. Clearly this coin must have had another side to get it to pass. This post read like something from DailyKos. No useful information, just partisan red meat.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Even if we concede that Bayh is saner than Burton (that’s easy) and Lugar (debatable but let’s just concede it), he’s more harmful because he’s a Democrat. He therefore poisons the debate within the Democratic party in a way that no Republican can, at least not over the long term.
As I just noted, all objective evidence suggests that Bayh really is voting much more progressive than Lugar.
Anyway, “poisoning the debate” has to be a second order consideration relative to having the votes to pass progressive legislation. Indeed, much as they make a big show of being a “deliberative body”, the Senate actually acts in pretty predictable ways given its composition. Moreover, Bayh is not alone in “poisoning the debate”, and it is debatable whether any one such Senator actually makes much difference as long as there are several around to “poison the debate”.
So fine, if progressive Democrats actually get to the point they can win all their votes without Bayh AND without all the other Senators more or less like him, then maybe they can think about dispensing with Bayh et al on “poisoning the debate” grounds. But that will still require first electing a lot more Democratic Senators from blue/purple states.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
yes. The definition of “fiscal responsibility” is a person who’s fiscally responsible not someone who simply invokes “fiscal responsibility” when it is a useful argument for self-serving policies they support. Otherwise, you merely allow people a voice in an argument they have no moral legitimacy to take part in.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Nine other Senate Democrats voted with all of the Republicans for the amendment, which was adopted 51-48
I don’t understand – I thought you needed to have a minimum of 60 votes to pass in the Senate. Or do I misunderstand the rules? 60 votes if supported by Dems – but 51 votes if supported by Republicans. That’s the way it works, right?
September 18th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
JustMe, insisting that we need to evaluate the messenger rather than the message is clear sign of a weak mind.
Either Bayh’s argument is solid, or it isn’t. Doesn’t matter what color his skin is, what his bank account has, who he slept with in the past, or bills he signed in the past. It is an argument, and it stands alone when viewed by an honest mind.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
JustMe,
So Yglesias’ initial support for the very expensive war in Iraq disqualifies him from commenting on fiscal responsibility? If so, I suppose you are very upset that he wrote this post about Evan Bayh’s fiscal responsibility, or lack thereof.
I suppose it helps that MY has since recanted his support for the war. But I am not sure to what extent. Even if it had ended years ago and cost a lot less money, it clearly would have been an expensive undertaking. Moreover, when you bring in MORAL LEGITIMACY into the discussion, that takes it beyond a question of accounting. People who supported this war are, I suppose, morally responsible for all of its consequences. You take the good with the bad.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I don’t understand – I thought you needed to have a minimum of 60 votes to pass in the Senate. Or do I misunderstand the rules?
That’s because it was the budget, and taxes – you only need 50 votes + the VP. So corpo-democratic Senators can’t blame horrible budget bills on the Republicans or Rush Limbaugh then, they really have to take a stand themselves for millionaires and billionaires on those issues.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Wrong. The messenger is usually picking up what he thinks will be a compelling message in order to support a self-serving policy he wants. And then he will abandon that message to support other policies he wants.
Bayh is perfectly free to advocate tax cuts for the rich and pro-war policies. He’s not entitled to any moral authority or to have his moral and ideological indignation as an “honest broker” taken seriously when he never discovers fiscal responsibility until it’s “convenient.” His behavior is that of a typical conman, rather than someone trying to argue in good faith, and his arguments should be accorded the same respect.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Baucus has said before that he supports a repeal of the tax but has indicated it would be difficult to get through the Senate.
I recall Matt’s post from a few months ago, in which he bemoaned Baucus’s denial of agency:
How could the United States possibly persuade insurance companies to give up profits? [Author T.R.] Reid answered that Switzerland, home to many powerful insurance companies, had done it in 1994 when it adopted the Bismarck model. The insurers fought it tooth and nail, of course, but now they compete energetically to sign up people for basic care on a nonprofit basis because they constitute a customer base for supplemental insurance that they’re allowed to sell on a for-profit basis. This answer didn’t satisfy Baucus. “Perhaps you don’t know how much money [U.S. insurers] have,” he told Reid.
Funny, when Baucus laments the difficulty of passing health care reform, he caves; when he laments the difficulty of passing a cut in the estate tax, he supports the cut anyway.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I am pretty sure it was a strategic vote. Red (or purple, or whatever) state Dems (Republicans surely do it as well) try to find some issue that they can vote for to please their fickle voters (”I voted for huge tax cuts!”), but won’t ultimately pass. And sure enough this did not pass (it made it out of the senate then died). The WSJ op-ed was not very good but it was better then most of the other crap they print in Op-ed territory.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Can you ever filibuster amendments? Or only whole bills?
September 18th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
JustMe, either you can defeat an argument on its merits, or you can’t. Attacking the messenger instead of the message is Rush Limbaugh/Daily Kos type garbage, and should be disregarded. Moral authority and ideological indignation, likewise, are frauds perpetrated by those who can’t make strong arguments.
That is one thing to admire about Obama – he tends to argue using facts and ideas rather than disregarding arguments because so-and-so is really a hypocrite. Learn from him.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
18. I accept that summary measures are useful, but I think very few people’s optimum (and certainly not mine) is on the far left of the distribution. Nor do I necessarily think that we the people can all be lined up on a one-dimensional spectrum, even if members of congress can.
Richard Lugar’s loose nukes work is important, as is his occasional stepping in to blunt the most outrageous Republican foreign policy silliness. As Matt like to point out, some time these gusy are going to come back into power, and it would be nice if the guys who did were sane. I’d like sanity on budget policy issues too, but I’ll take sanity on foreign policy first and foremost.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I have no interest in defeating an “argument.” I am interested in supporting and defeating certain “policies.” Mr. Bayh is simply choosing whichever argument he thinks is most compelling in support of whichever policy he supports. To say you have to engage his argument on his own terms is to already cede the ground in favor of a bad policy.
Cutting the estate tax is bad policy. Health care reform is good policy. Trying to dress up your opposition to health care reform by saying that fiscal responsibility is paramount when one has dedicated ones political career to supporting fiscally bad ideas means that you are a dishonest broker who does not deserve the respect of having your arguments engaged in. What obligates anyone to defeat (or support) the argument Bayh is making? His job is to stab you in the back in order to support policies he wants, and he’ll lie, connive, and form alliances with destructive elements in order to do it. Saying you need to engage this sort of agent on his argumentative merits is the mark of a battered spouse.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
That is one thing to admire about Obama – he tends to argue using facts and ideas
What “facts and ideas” has he been using to sell out the health care reform to pharma and insurance lobbyists? Only that a single-payer system would be un-American or something.
Not to mention Iraq or torture investigations: we are still waiting for his argument supporting Bush policies.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias: Back in April, Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) proposed an amendment that would deliver a $250 billion cut in the estate tax. This was described as an effort to help farmers and small businessmen, but in reality “only 0.2 percent of the proposal’s cost, relative to the cost of making 2009 law permanent, would go to tax cuts for small business and farm estates.” The other 99.8 percent of the cost, about $249.5 billion dollars, was aimed at inheritors of estates worth over seven million dollars. [...]
September 18th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Matt doesn’t use “facts” to argue, he uses “figures”. There’s a world of difference, seeing as most of his ‘figures’ are BS numbers written by this lying think tank or that lying think tank.
Matt basically just says whatever he thinks will allow him to make a point. It doesn’t matter if it’s true, and it doesn’t matter (at all) if it’s consistent with his previous statements. A post by Matt Y is pretty much guaranteed to be pure sophistry.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Why don’t you just primary Bayh?
I don’t understand – I thought you needed to have a minimum of 60 votes to pass in the Senate. Or do I misunderstand the rules? 60 votes if supported by Dems – but 51 votes if supported by Republicans. That’s the way it works, right?
No, it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and 51 votes to pass a bill. Apparently no Democrat filibustered.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
With regards to the estate tax, I’m shocked – shocked – that Evah Bayh would support making it easier for children to coast through life on their parents’ name or money.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Paris Hilton is at least doing something positive with her life. Other heirs – I’m looking at you, Steve Forbes! – not so much.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
fmr_hoosier,
Don’t get me wrong, I agree Lugar is relatively sane and has done some good work on foreign policy. I also agree it is important to have two parties with sane members.
Why don’t you just primary Bayh?
For that to work you need to convince the Democratic Party in Indiana it is a good idea to give up Bayh’s incumbency advantage. And because these days the state Democratic Parties in purple/red states like Indiana are relatively sane (as compared to most state Republican Parties in purple/blue states), that is going to be a tough sell–you’d have to discount whatever progressivity gain you might get with a replacement by the highly increased risk of losing the seat.
In fact, it probably isn’t even a good idea for the national party, although at least in that case you could make a case for picking someone like Bayh to make an example out of.
September 18th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Matt: Lots of indignant snark the last couple days. Good stuff indeed. Keep it coming.
September 18th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I’ve always thought that you could demolish public support for estate tax cuts with a commercial that would go something like this:
Paris Hilton and the Arkansas farm family from the reality show she did a few years ago are standing on the farm where it was shot. The farmer looks into the camera and grumbles that he won’t benefit at all from the estate tax cut because the value of his farm is just $X and the estate tax only applies to estates with a value of $Y or greater, and that only a handful of small farms will benefit. Paris then grins evilly and announces how many extra millions she’ll inherit.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
“If you actually wanted to inform your readers, you could try to explain why the measure passed. How many other democrats supported it (in case you haven’t heard, the Democrats DO have a majority in both houses)”
No one said it passed the House. I don’t think it did. Besides the final Senate version was essentially gutted by a Durbin amendment that required that the estate tax cut be matched by a huge tax cut for middle-class Americans. Evan Bayh is still a huge tool.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Evan Bayh: “We cannot indefinitely share with the less-fortunate resources we do not possess”
How do share something when does not exist? And then, even more incredibly, share this nothingness indefinitely? Evan Bayh is one fucking crazy cat.
Evan Bayh: “Hey, dirt poor pig farmer, I would like to share this bag of air with you, but I can’t share it with you indefinitely.”
Pig farmer: “That’s awfully nice of you…I think. But where is the bag?”
Evan Bayh: “Oops. So sorry. There is no bag. Have a nice day! Don’t forget to vote!” Varrooooom……
September 20th, 2009 at 4:16 am
The estate tax–is there any other tax that applies only to money which *by* *definition* has not been earned by the person who pays it?
I liked it better in the days when Republicans (and DINOs like Bayh) claimed to value work.
Of course, those were the days before Welfare reform. Now that the non-working poor have lost AFDC, Republicans don’t even have to pretend to admire the working poor.