Of Ballots & Budgets

If the budget process were like one of those card games where you can win by losing every single hand, the President would be in good shape right now. The budget he submitted to Congress failed to win a single vote in either house. It was voted down today in the Senate, 99-0.

It is not hard to say what this means. The President has calculated that he can produce a budget that shows skyrocketing deficits as far as the eye can see without suffering much damage. His campaign probably supposes, and probably correctly, that Romney won't be able to exploit the issue without offering his own alternatives and that any possible alternative will produce juicy targets in the campaign.

Individual Democrats cannot rely on that same calculation. They cannot afford to put their names on a document that is so manifestly irresponsible. Their strategy is to offer nothing and attack everything that the other side offers. That is fine so long as you think that political calculations are all that's important. If, however, you think that addressing the fiscal solvency of the nation might be at least a little bit important, you would have to note that the Democrats in Congress and the White House are altogether incapable of it.

Fiscal responsibility is a hard issue to win an election on. While I doubt that the issue is hurting Obama now more than it already has, it is possible that it is helping Republicans in Congressional races. The most recent generic polls show a GOP lead of almost 2% in the RCP average. Republicans almost always do better than the generic polling question predicts. Rasmussen has the GOP up by 7% with a sample of 3500 likely voters. Gallup/USA Today confirm that with a 6% lead for Republicans. If those numbers hold, the next Congress will be firmly in Republican hands.

The recall election in Wisconsin suggests that a Governor willing to be bold on fiscal matters can survive the predictable challenges. Rasmussen shows Walker leading in his rematch with Tom Barrett by five points. That is confirmed by a Marquette Law School poll that gives Walker a six point lead. Perhaps a better indicator is the fact that the DNC seems to have decided not to invest in the recall fight. Rachel Maddow has called this the second most important election this year. I suspect she will not repeat that on her MSNBC show if, as seems likely, Walker wins. Walker is showing what the virtue of courage can achieve.

My friend and esteemed blogosphere colleague, Cory Heidelberger, reveals, inadvertently, the problem that the Democrats are resolutely ignoring. He complains about Republicans starving kids to feed the armed forces and comes up with an impressive list of spending cuts that may or may not happen in the near future. That suggests a horizon in which it's only a matter of will to do the right thing, or a matter of guns vs. butter.

What's just over that firmly limited horizon is a fiscal situation in which there will be no money for guns or butter. Borrowing astronomical amounts of money to finance spending now means that interest payments will start to squeeze out all other spending in the future. We are not talking about fifty years from now, but twenty if we are lucky. It isn't going to help to plead "think about the children" if we have nothing left to spend on the children, or on highways, or on defense, or on anything else.

That is the reason that the Democrats in Congress are fiscally constipated. They can't afford to pass anything because it would require them to lift their horizon past this year's election. The rise of the Tea Party movement is evidence that this is present in the consciousness of a large class of voters. How it will affect this election is not something I claim to know. I do know that you cannot make the world go away by refusing to lift your eyes to eye level.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

Where's the evidence that Walker was bold on fiscal matters? He has a budget full of gimmicks and just about as much structural deficit as former Governor Doyle. In fact, Walker has certified to the federal government that the state budget is unbalanced by $3 billion. Walker is a bold liar, but not a bold when it comes to getting the state's fiscal house in order.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/does-wisconsin-have-a-budget-deficit-4o3s9ro-137863973.html

When you steal from the middle class and give it away to the corporate and wealthy elite, you make no headway on fiscal sanity.

And when did the Wisconsin structural deficit start? That would be in the 1990s under Republican Governor Tommy Thompson. Thompson then joined the administration of George W. Bush, where we had VP Cheney telling us that "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter." Republicans then proceeded to explode the deficit and wreck the economy.

You might want to do your preaching to Republicans, who have been far more fiscally irresponsible.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: the entire story of Wisconsin from Walker's election to the present recall testifies to his courage. I understand that you hate him vehemently. That doesn't change the facts.

I think you are right to call out Republicans for fiscal irresponsibility. I only note that you will now demonize them for any attempt to move in the opposite direction.

[Mike Cooper]

I don't know much about his primary opponent, but Tommy Thompson is awful on spending issues. I hope he loses. That would be in keeping with Indiana and Nebraska, where the establishment candidate lost in the Republican party. It is less likely, but it may also happen in Michigan and Utah. The Republicans will win the Senate this year. The American people will win if those Republicans are conservatives.

[Mike Cooper]

oops, forgot the big one, Cruz over Dewhurst in Texas.

[Donald Pay]

People who govern like Walker have no courage. They have ambition and greed. They have powerful out-of-state backers and talk to them, rather than to their own constitutuents. They don't care about your little worries about "fiscal responsibility." They make sure their backers get theirs, and pretend to care about deficits. It's an act.

Walker is in it for #1, and always has been. He'll be a rich man if we get rid of him on June 5. Walker figured out a way to win either way, unless the John Doe investigation puts him in jail. Even then, all the adoring righties, like you, will shower him with money and praise. You're a dupe.

[A.I.]

If, as you say KB, we are quickly approaching a time where there will be no money for guns or butter; it will be because we starved the working class to feed the investment class at a time the latter was already swimming in cash.

[William]

A.I.

I disagree, if we are quickly approaching a time where there will be no money for guns or butter; it will be because we (through our GOVERNMENT) destroyed the MIDDLE CLASS (many of whom were members OF the working class).

You apparently view the world of economics as a "zero sum game", where the economic pie is static and either one "wins" or "loses".

As a nation, America has historically ( AND uniquely) created an ever increasing "pie" that benefits everyone that is fortunate enough to participate in our economy.

The "poor" in America are members of the "1%" when compared to the world's population. While it might seem trite or calloused, America has the "fattest poor people in the world."

We define "poor" in a world of luxury unknown to previous generations and we are rich beyond the wildest dreams of those only a century removed.

As William F. Buckley once said, as we seek to "immanentize the eschaton", we ignore the nature of mankind at our peril.

Every generation takes for granted that what they "know", what they are accustomed to, is "normal". The "default position" for far too many is that the luxuries we now accept as "given", truly are. History proves otherwise.

If we truly wish to destroy the blessings we (most of us) have been blessed to have been born into, the quickest way to destroy America as a culture and a nation is to divide us along class and racial grievances.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: I feel your pain.

A.I.: If what you say were true, it might have been well for the President to put it in a budget and for the Democrats in Congress to vote for it. Did he? Did they? No, and no. The Democrats have nothing to offer, for reasons I list.