The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The future from the right

Re: The future from the right

Barry — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:58:58 -0000

"As for the GOP dropping its moralizing wing, I couldn't agree with you more. The Democrats deserve to be in power now, but they need a fiscally responsible opposition to keep them honest. If the opposition remains fixated on antagonizing gays and pro-choicers then we're in trouble."

Posted by MikeF

Mike, there has not been a fiscally responsible GOP since 1980. This didn't stop the Clinton administration from doing very well - and that was even *before* the GOP took Congress.

We'll fix thins - you just lie, b*tch BS and kvetch. Don't worry; the american people do have a short memory, and in 2016 you can probably sell them on Jenna Bush.

Re: The future from the right

Thomas R — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:52:19 -0000

Around 30% of Americans are socially conservative so to abandon that entirely is not helpful or realistic. (Okay considering most here are liberal or Democratic it's helpful in a "I really want them to lose worse than they do now" way)

That said the kind of extreme social conservatism Republicans give airtime to should be ditched. Don't show the kind of social conservatives who read Jack Chick tracts or admire Bob Jones. Or the kind who want sodomy and pornography to be banned. Denounce TV preachers who openly preach hatred of Mormons. Muslims, Hindus, or Homosexuals. Generally speaking de-emphasize the "Southern Baptist" strain of social conservatism. As Pentecostalism is growing, especially among Latinos, you can maybe look for the more tolerant among Pentecostals to replace them. Get smarter social conservatives too, like Robert P. George or some of the people who write for "First Things." (Or Culture 11's "Credo" segment)

One I kind-of dislike, but seems strategically right, is emphasizing effort to reduce abortion rates over efforts at banning. Although banning late-term abortion, and supporting parental consent laws, I think still helps Republicans more than hurts them.

In economic things favor earned-income tax credits and never again imply they're like welfare. Possibly encourage a system like "micro-loans" so poorer people can start home businesses if they can't find work. Dump the "spend and borrow" economic conservativism. Maintain a belief in low corporate taxes, but on individuals target any tax-cuts to those making less than $500,000 a year. (Has to be a bit wealthier than the Democrats would do or they could lose too much "working rich" support)

A major thing is reaching out to Hispanics. Conservatives should do about everything independent Hispanic voters want that existing Republican voters can tolerate. Conservatives should learn Spanish more and hire more experts on Latin America.

Re: The future from the right

howard — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:39:41 -0000

mikef, just to clarify, i'm "howard" and someone else is "Howard."

that said, look, i'm sorry, you seem like a nice enough individual and all, but you clearly don't understand the social security system. it was, for example, designed to be pay-as-you-go; self-sustaining suggests that somehow, a critical mass is reached whereby social security doesn't need current revenues from taxes, and that has never been part of social security.

as for the "problem," which i deliberately put in quote marks, you are confusing a specific condition - the aging of the baby boom generation - with a long-term problem. social security could have remained on a pay as you go basis, but from the standpoint of generational equity, having the baby boomers prepay was the right thing to do.

but this is a specific demographic group, not a long-term demographic problem.

but now let's get to the bottom line: right now, the social security system is producing a surplus, which it will continue to do for years. the fact that the general fund will have to repay its debt to the social security trust fund is, indeed, part of that surplus, but only part. social security in no way is contributing to any long-term budget deficit problem, because, as i have noted, it has its own special purpose tax. the only issue that can arise with social security is whether current expectation concerning benefit levels in 40 years can be met. i can live with the anxiety.

meanwhile, it is a true statement that one of the burdens on the general fund in the coming years will be repaying the trust fund, but it is only one of many burdens, and by a long measure not the most significant. it remains an untrue argument promoted by charlatans that we can group social security with medicare and call it one "entitlement" problem, and you haven't presented any reason why we should. repeated invocations of a non-existent demographic problem do not such a case make.

Re: The future from the right

MikeF — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:35:14 -0000

Howard,

I see it as a demographic problem because SS was originally designed to be self-sustaining; it clearly isn't anymore, and that's because we have an aging population. The fact that this problem was noticed decades ago doesn't make it less problematic.

And likewise, the fact that SS surpluses should have gone towards reducing the national debt (to make future payments easier) is true. But that's not what happened. From a pragmatic standpoint we are sitting on a mountain of debt, with no plans to reduce it, staring at these looming entitlement obligations. That's what worries me, not the idea that there was never a plan. There was, but we screwed it up.

As for the GOP dropping its moralizing wing, I couldn't agree with you more. The Democrats deserve to be in power now, but they need a fiscally responsible opposition to keep them honest. If the opposition remains fixated on antagonizing gays and pro-choicers then we're in trouble.

Re: The future from the right

Ninja Zombie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:32:16 -0000

Kid bitzer: "the question is whether society as a whole gets more when joe has $300,000. and susie has $0, or when joe has $250,000 and susie has $50,000."

No, that isn't the question. The question is whether society as a whole gets more if you *take* $50,000 from joe and *give* to susie, or not.

If you don't give to susie, she may go out and get a job. In that case, joe has $300,000 and susie has $50,000, and society has gained the value of Joe and Susie's full productive output.

On the other hand, taking from Joe may induce him to work less. "Screw this, uncle sam is keeping 40%. I'm not working past 6." His income may go down to $275k, of which he keeps $240k and susie keeps $35k of joe's money. Susie also decides not to get a job. "Screw waking up early, I get $35k now, why work for $40k? In this case, society loses the benefit of all of susie's labor and some of joe's.

To show that robbing joe to pay susie is beneficial to society, you need to argue that side effects such as those I've described do not occur.

That's very different than comparing two arbitrarily chosen hypothetical worlds.

"especially if susie is 4 years old."

Very few people oppose programs to assist poor children (programs that work, at least).

Incidentally, virtually no one is utterly destitute anymore. Even the poor are basically middle class, and have a house, sufficient food, medical care, everything a person needs.

Read this report, which describes the goods and services the poor have access to: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm

Re: The future from the right

zic — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:34:54 -0000

John Henry -- beautiful points. I might suggest the leadership vacuum came from electing leaders with vacuums between their ears; but the real problem was an electorate that found it choose leaders who's word and actions didn't match up. And in conservative circles, in the McCain campaign, that practice remains in vogue.

It's do what I say, not what I do. And it's politics without honor.

I much prefer to lead by example. To follow leaders who inspire by example.

Re: The future from the right

gracchus — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:10:35 -0000

kid-b, re: your gambling point. First, I'm not willing to concede that the gambling industry is all powerful and responsible for our current low taxes, bad services regime. It's not difficult to sell the American people on the belief that they don't actually have to PAY for the services they receive (Most people actually are only keen on small government for services THEY don't need, but that's another issue.)

That said, gambling IS a bane and has become much more widely available in part because it provides governments with a kind of voluntary stupdity tax. The trad conservative/reformist answer would be to ban gambling. However, this has been widely tried before and tends to enrich organized crime and reduce respect for the law. A more measured and effective response would be a regulatory one aimed and reducing the amount of gambling and its impact while minimizing the impact on individual liberty.

I don't know what this would look like, exactly. Off the top of my head: limiting high-stakes gambling to a few locations in the country. Allowing low-stakes casinos, possibly operated directly by charities, elsewhere. A moratorium on new casinos on Indian reserves, and perhaps a gradual buyout of some of their licenses. An end to instant lottery tickets: weekly or biweekly lotteries should keep the numbers rackets at bay without encouraging too much addictive spending. I'd also consider having the FCC ban televising poker tournaments, but this obviously raises free-speech issues.

Still, this is an issue, like gun control, that's almost dead. Only a few theocons really care about this issue, and the "solutions" they're peddling will be worse than the cure...On the other hand, the moneycons will want to peddle their faux-libertarian nonsense on this issue, because casinos are big business.....

Re: The future from the right

Howard — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:55:31 -0000

The question they should really be asking themselves is "Why do we think that the government should enforce our particular moral values, and how is the desire to do so 'conservative'?"

Seriously, the GOP is going to have to break with the social conservatives just like the Democrats had to break with the segregationists. They might have to go through something similar where the far-right Christianists put up their own George Wallace, but they're going to have to drop that plank from the party platform eventually.

The conservative ideas of lower taxes and smaller government still have a place and an audience, but they just don't jive with the social conservatives' moralizing. As long as they try to cater to the theocratic portion of the electorate, they're going to be in trouble.

Re: The future from the right

lizkdc — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:11:02 -0000

I like what kid bitzer said about the financial elements of the Republican program.

Wrong as I think they are, we'd be far better off with a conservative party that was upfront and consistent about its economic positions, which in turn, would help those of us who are progressives force the Democratic party to do so as well.

I think the right faces a similar problem, but even more complex on religion.

One of the biggest "not coming clean with themselves" battles among conservatives is about the church. Palin stands for a significant Evangelical rump party that *really would* like to vastly increase the role of government in regulating private life based on cultural and religious grounds.

To name only a few issues, they want to see:

* a return to government regulation of reproduction, in both abortion and birth control. Thanks to advances in medical technology since the 1970s, that regulation if reintroduced would likely be *far more* invasive then before Roe v Wade.

* in publicly funded schooling and scientific research, science would need to bend whenever a conflict with religion is perceived.

* allow local jurisdictions where there are Evangelical strongholds to roll back the fairly big libertarian gains for sexual privacy that allow people to mostly quietly have sex with or make marital arrangements with the people they prefer.

And that's not even dealing with the role the true Evangelical hardcore thinks they should have in foreign affairs and national security, which includes a wide range of rather scary positions drawing on theocons' interpretation of reality in the Middle East, Russia and Asia.

It seems that even a moderate conservative like Douhat is convinced that these are sellable positions, since they represent something like the status quo of mad Men era/1960 America.

I just think he's way off on that. Around two thirds of the populace have no interest in living according to the religious culture that one third feels obligated to try to impose on others. Not sure how they're going to rebrand that.

Re: The future from the right

Siryn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:06:13 -0000

You have to remember, Ross favors a means test for entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, etc. If you make six figures, do you really need to use Medicare? Or take in Social Security? Granted, it's only 5-10% of the population, but any savings would be beneficial.

Re: The future from the right

howard — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:57:21 -0000

mikef, i truly do not understand your argument.

there was a demographic bulge relative to social security. a plan was set in place nearly three decades ago to address that bulge and it involved building up a social security surplus and using that surplus to pay down the national debt so that we had plenty of borrowing capacity to handle the bulge in a responsible (rather than entirely pay-as-you-go) way.

if an irresponsible bush administration and an irresposible republican congress "spent" that surplus, it's going to have to be replaced. c'est la vie: they should have thought of that in the first place. it's why bush ran on the lockbox in 2000: he was still pretending to be responsible, even though his numbers didn't add up.

but that's not a demographic problem and it's certainly not an entitlement problem, except insofar as the entire tax philosophy that undergirded this generational attempted theft is a problem of the entitlement of the upper income: that's a general fund problem and can be solved in many ways.

lumping that it in with an entirely different problem - the government's role in the health-care system - is a dishonest argument. as i say, we may as well note that we have a defense spending problem, and a quite serious one, since there are plenty of dollars committed to be spent and no dollars committed to fund.

this is why we have representative governments: to balance out competing needs and interests. but claiming that "entitlements" are the source of budgetary problems is just not an honest assessment of the issues.

Re: The future from the right

Chet — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:01:36 -0000

Now, I agree that we have to honor those IOUs, and I'm certainly not going to argue in favor of defaulting on the Trust Fund - but that doesn't mean that adding over 4 trillion of debt during the 25-year reckoning is not problematic.

4 trillion? That's it?

Whew, I thought you were talking about real money. I was worried there.

Re: The future from the right

MikeF — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:34:28 -0000

Howard,

The problem is that the government already spent the SS surplus. It's not as if there's some fat, untouched General Fund just waiting to start raining money onto the elderly - all of those payments after 2017 are going to come in the form of added federal debt. Now, I agree that we have to honor those IOUs, and I'm certainly not going to argue in favor of defaulting on the Trust Fund - but that doesn't mean that adding over 4 trillion of debt during the 25-year reckoning is not problematic.

Again, if it were just Social Security that faced this challenge of demography (and it is a demographic problem; the baby boom forced major adjustments on the structure of SS) then I would not be terribly worried. We could raise taxes moderately and be done with it. But the problems of an aging population are going to hit medicare and medicaid at the same exact time, and I worry about our ability to absorb that sort of hit on all of our entitlement programs at the same time.

Re: The future from the right

howard — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:21:52 -0000

mikef, let me add something: the chart you point to? you do realize that it doesn't illustrate either a demographic problem or a problem with entitlements?

insofar as social security had a demographic problem, it was the baby boom bulge, and that problem was addressed through prefunding (never again, but i digress). the 2017 date is the potential date when the general fund has to start paying back the money it borrowed from the trust fund, but so what? i've already addressed that to glaivester, and i'll note - again - that that issue, such as it is, has nothing to do with demographics.

meanwhile, you understand, don't you, that there are no taxes dedicated to defense spending? that defense spending needs to be funded every year? that there is no funding of defense spending outside of the general fund which has plenty of claimants? which is to say if i drew a similar chart for defense spending between now and 2040, it would look even more disastrous.

to your way of thinking, i suppose this means we can't afford defense spending. there must be a pacifist joke in here somewhere....

Re: The future from the right

DougEFresh — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:12:21 -0000

I have read several commentors mention the low level of taxation under Reagan in a negative tone. However, on his site, Obama brags about having a lower level of federal taxation than existed under Reagan. From his site:

Obama’s plan will cut taxes overall, reducing revenues to below the levels that prevailed under Ronald Reagan (less than 18.2 percent of GDP).

So we will continue as a lightly taxed capitalist society if Obama sticks to his word. If it is bad under Reagan, why is it good under Obama?

I don't have much of a clue as to where the conservative movement will move. I can see two possible scenarios involving the religious side. One is that the rest of the party blames them for the loss because Palin was their girl and they lose some power. However, it is equally possible that the religous right gains if their percentage of the party's total increases if there are significant defections.

My hope is that the party becomes more isolationist (though not protectionist), more libertarian (though not corporatist) and more tolerant. I am not going to bet on any of the above happening.

Political predictions tend to make people look foolish, most are what the predicter wants to happen as opposed to a sober view of things. After Clinton won easily in 1992, the idea of a Speaker Gingrich was laughable.

Re: The future from the right

MikeF — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:11:43 -0000

@kid b,

Just a couple points. First, I think you're too hung up on semantics. "Entitlement program" simply means a program where the government is agreeing to hand out money to a segment of the population for a specific reason (age, infirmity, etc.). I am lumping SS, medicare and medicaid together (they're not the only entitlement programs) because they face the same impending crisis of demography.

Second, you're making some false analogies. The bailout did not add $700b to the national debt; that money was allocated to buy up troubled assets. Some of those assets will fail; many others will be profitable. And of course, the bailout will not be a yearly phenomenon. By contrast, all of the money that is paid down to the SS Trust Fund instantly gets added to the national debt, and the annual debt will grow every year.

As for the Iraq War, I agree it was a disaster and a terrible waste of resources, not to mention life and well-being. But how does that invalidate the argument that we will have trouble paying for our entitlement programs in the coming decades?

Re: The future from the right

howard — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:09:33 -0000

glaivester, it's amazing how often we have to go through this, but still:

the supreme court has actually ruled on special purposes taxes (in this case, the highway trust fund). they are not fungible. they must be used for the purpose congress intended.

and the point is that working people have already paid their regressive social security tax share, which was used to "fund" upper-income-slanted tax cuts.

when it's time for the money to be paid back, the upper-income will, though the progressive tax system, have to pay back what they've borrowed from working people.

they got the deal on very advantageous terms and they took full advantage of it. they should stop squealing and stfu.

regardless, this is not a social security problem: it's an irresponsible governance problem manifested in the general fund and the failure of modern right-wing ideology.

Re: The future from the right

howard — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:04:10 -0000

mike f, to return to the discussion: social security has no meaningful problem at all.

the reason is simple: it has a dedicated tax (despite the bush administration's best efforts to treat that tax as fungible).

what the law requires is that there be a balance: currently, we are in a prefunding mode which has been loaned to the general fund. the general fund will repay the trust fund. by the end of that repayment, we'll have worked through the demographic bulge of the baby boomers.

at that point, it is possible that we will be able to pay currently projected benefits and it is possible that we will note: that moment of danger has generally been receding about as long as the right-wing has made it an issue.

so when i say social security has a minute funding problem, i mean it quite precisely: the problem that social security may (or may not: there are, of course different scenarios that the trust fund analyzes each year, and some of those scenarios never show a problem) have would require, at worst, lowering benefits.

the notion that there is a "demographic" problem as such causing problems for social security is just total blather.

the medical side, as kid bitzer in particular has explained, is a different matter: the market place does not do a good job allocating health-care resources. as i noted, even hayek himself accepted the value, in an affluent society, of a government role in delivery of health services, in part because it improved the mobility of labor.

Re: The future from the right

Glaivester — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:39:53 -0000

The supposed gaps in funding for social security are the right's favorite bugaboo, but it's just not the case. Even the Congressional Budget Office doesn't anticipate a social security shortfall until at least 2050.

The problem is that after 2017 or so, Social Security is going to have to draw down on the so-called "Trust Fund." The term "Trust Fund" is misleading, because it implies that there are some indpendent source of resouces out there to pay it off. In reality, the "Trust Fund" was invested in U.S. Savings Bonds, meaning that to pay out anything from the "Trust Fund," we have to take it from the General Fund.

In other words, the so-called existence of the "Trust Fund" does not actually solve anything once Social Security starts paying out more than it takes in, because for every dollar we take out, we have to put a dollar in - we are in the same position as we would be in if Social Security were just considered part of the overall budget.

Re: The future from the right

John Henry — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:30:34 -0000

The biggest problem is a leadership vacuum.

They need a real leader who can synthesize the neocon (proactive defense), theocon (values-driven government), moneycon (globalization and deregulation), libertarian (low taxes, balanced budget) messages into a more palatable center-right Republicanism. John McCain did not have the rhetorical skills and integrity to do this properly. No one listens to him. If McCain wins, they will do nothing.

Besides that they generally just need to Grow Up!

1. Some regulation saves you from yourself. Just because you moved out of mommy and daddy's house it does not mean that none of their rules apply. Businesses need to be regulated to prevent them from destroying what they don't own i.e. the economy - a public good.

2. Regular maintenance saves money. Consistent enforcement of laws prevent large expensive problems.

3. Don't burn bridges. Diplomacy is cheaper and more effective than bullying.

4. Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash. Stop talking tough, if you aren't willing to raise taxes. Wars are messy and expensive. Putting them on a credit card makes them even more messy and expensive.

5. The Chocolate Cake diet does not work. You are not going to lose 20 pounds by eating only chocolate cake. Similarly, cutting taxes does not raise revenue. The Laffer curve is a bad joke.

Re: The future from the right

kid bitzer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:30:06 -0000

mikef--

"If it were just social security that faced this, then fine - we could increase the payroll tax, increase the SS Trust Fund, etc. "

so is this the argument for lumping them all together as 'entitlement programs': the fact that they all have to be paid from the same pot, and that they are all going to rise in the future?

because if that's right, then i think you'll have to include defense spending as an 'entitlement program', too. every tax dollar spent on missile defense is a tax-dollar not put into the trust fund etc.

i mean--look at that chart. it's fairly alarmist, and in 2035 or so, it still only predicts a shortfall of 700 billion dollars.

700 billion dollars. does that number ring any bells?

that's the amount that republicans were happy to give to secretary paulson for disbursal to his friends on wall street.

look: when the republicans say we need to spend one trillion dollars on the iraq war, no one blinks an eye. we just pay it.

when the republicans say we need to spend one trillion dollars propping up wall street, we just pay it.

it's only when democrats say that we may need to spend more on social security and health-care in the future that the media and the elites start running around screaming "crisis! crisis! crisis!"

hell, when it comes to spending on business and war, the same elites tell us there will be a crisis if we *don't* pay.

this is a mug's game. no one ever screams that the defense department is going to run out of money at some future date. we pay for it year by year, and costs go up year by year. yeah, we can argue about whether we pay too much. but nobody screams "crisis!".

the only thing needed to keep social security in the black for ever and ever is political will.

and better discourse. don't buy the distortions.

Re: The future from the right

MikeF — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:10:30 -0000

@kid b,

You said that "[SS] will spend more in the future, obviously, but it will also have more people paying into it. there is no structural flaw in the system."

This is incorrect. If your assertion were true, then SS would stay in the black indefinitely and everything would be great. The reality - caused by changing demographics, namely the aging of the boomers - is this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Medicare_%26_Social_Security_Deficits_Chart.png

If it were just social security that faced this, then fine - we could increase the payroll tax, increase the SS Trust Fund, etc. But any discussion of the future of SS is tied to a discussion of the other entitlement programs, because they ALL face the same demographic-driven crisis that is pushing SS into deficit.

Re: The future from the right

CitizenE — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:54:18 -0000

The conservatives are stuck in a civil war between the social Darwinist elites and identity politics of the white man's diminishment militias. The latter are a symptom of the worst in humanity, and exists all over the world. Turf wars, animal behavior. Hobbes. The former are sold on basic myths:

1. That the US government the biggest, baddest, mostest will ever be small by any measuring stick on earth. Ronald Reagan initiated the by God biggest government boondoggle in planetary history--aka Star Wars--for a starter.

2. That there ever was a free market economy, when in fact it has always been a front for K-Street corporatocracy.

3. That we could pay for all that by giving those that made out like bandits a pass--the sawbuck for you fool, Fort Knox for the fat cats bait and switch.

A conservative Hotel made of cards on Boardwalk, while everyone else in so much debt just to make it to their next paycheck that one strong wind in New Orleans or Galveston Texas is liable to bring the whole thing down.

Conservatives talk responsible, but walk, stagger around in the most spaced out pipe dreams, my goodness. And what's worse, they think they alone hold the secret keys to the capitalist system, when time after time those liberals have to come in when the muck is up to our necks and get them out of it.

Re: The future from the right

JordanT — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:49:10 -0000

But it's glib to dismiss the social security crisis as a "minute funding problem at worst"

He was talking about putting SS, Medicare and Medicaid all in the same boat, instead of talking about their problems separately. The problems that SS faces, and the solutions to it are far different than those of Medicare.

Re: The future from the right

tom c — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:48:18 -0000

I think Ross's next essay should be on how to make a bucket hold water through the process of drilling holes in the bucket. He could start a weight loss program through the diet where you eat nothing but deep fried twinkies at the state fair. That should go at least as well as selling social conservatism to an electorate that isn't especially bigoted or reducing the debt by taking in less revenues. Here's my advice. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George changes his life around (for an episode) by doing the exact opposite of whatever his insincts tell him. Do that. And have a happy Festivus.

Really, look at where the right is at. The know they have put themselves in the minority and the far right is talking about shunning Frum, Brooks, Sullivan et al for telling them that they were shooting themselves in the foot. That is a great way to learn from mistakes. Find the people who wouldn't have made them and warned you that you were making them. Then don't listen to them. I don't think Ross in particular is making this last mistake but the movement that he wants to comeback certainly is. Ugh.