While I’m glad Republicans are finally talking about smaller government, I’ve expressed some disappointment with the GOP Pledge to America. Why “reform” Fannie and Freddie, I asked, when the right approach is to get the government completely out of the housing sector. Jacob Sullum of Reason is similarly underwhelmed. He writes:
In the “Pledge to America” they unveiled last week, House Republicans promise they will “launch a sustained effort to stem the relentless growth in government that has occurred over the past decade.” Who better for the job than the folks who ran the government for most of that time? …Republicans, you may recall, had a spending spree of their own during George W. Bush’s recently concluded administration, when both discretionary and total spending doubled — nearly 10 times the growth seen during Bill Clinton’s two terms. In fact, says Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, “President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ.” Republicans controlled the House of Representatives for six of Bush’s eight years.
Redemption is a good thing, however, so maybe the GOP actually intends to do the right thing this time around. One key test is whether Republicans do a top-to-bottom housecleaning at both the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
These Capitol Hill bureaucracies are not well known, but they have enormous authority and influence. As the official scorekeepers of spending (CBO) and tax (JCT) bills, these two bureaucracies can mortally wound legislation or grease the skids for quick passage.
Unfortunately, that clout gets used to dramatically tilt the playing field in favor of bigger government. It was CBO that claimed that Obama’s stimulus created jobs, even though the head of CBO was forced to admit that the jobs-created number was the result of a Keynesian model that was rigged to show exactly that result . You would think that would shame the bureaucrats into producing honest numbers, but CBO continues to produce absurd job creation estimates regardless of the actual rate of unemployment.
CBO favors deficits and debt when it is asked to analyze proposals for more spending, but it rather conveniently changes its tune when the discussion shifts to tax increases. Since we’re on the topic of twisted economic analysis, CBO actually relies on a model which, for all intents and purposes, predicts that economic performance is maximized with 100 percent tax rates.
The Joint Committee on Taxation, meanwhile, is infamous for its assumption that taxes have no impact – at all – on economic output. In other words, instead of showing a Laffer Curve, JCT would show a straight line, with tax revenues continuing to rapidly climb even as tax rates approach 100 percent. This creates a huge bias against good tax policy, yet JCT is impervious to evidence that its approach is wildly flawed.
And don’t forget that CBO and JCT both bear responsibility for Obamacare since they cranked out preposterous estimates that a giant new entitlement would lead to lower budget deficits.
Not that we need additional evidence, but the head of the CBO just repeated his higher-taxes-equal-more-growth nonsense in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee. With this type of mindset, is it any surprise that fiscal policy is such a mess?
Douglas Elmendorf said extending breaks due to expire at year’s end would increase demand in the next few years by putting more money in consumers’ pockets. Over the long term, he said, the tax cuts would hurt the economy because the government would have to borrow so much money to finance them that it would begin competing with private companies seeking loans. That, in turn, would drive up interest rates, Elmendorf said.
I’ve already written once about how the GOP sabotaged itself when it didn’t fix the problems with these scorekeeping bureaucracies after 1994. If Republicans take power and don’t raze CBO and JCT, they will deserve to become a permanent minority party.
[…] written several times about the importance of appointing sensible people to head the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) […]
[…] written several times about the importance of appointing sensible people to head the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) […]
[…] notwithstanding more than a decade of congressional power, GOPers did almost nothing to neutralize the bureaucrats who produced shoddy research that helped the left push for more spending and higher […]
[…] And if Republicans win the Senate in the 2014 elections, it will be interesting to see whether they have the brains to at least reform CBO to limit future […]
[…] And if Republicans win the Senate in the 2014 elections, it will be interesting to see whether they have the brains to at least reform CBO to limit future […]
[…] And if Republicans win the Senate in the 2014 elections, it will be interesting to see whether they have the brains to at least reform CBO to limit future […]
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[…] I’ve been very critical of both CBO and JCT, so I’m one of the people in “think tanks” the article is talking about. […]
[…] P.S. In the Kudlow debate, Jared was right about CBO’s position. This, of course, is one of the reasons why the GOP should de-fund this ideologically biased bureaucracy. […]
[…] P.S. In the Kudlow debate, Jared was right about CBO’s position. This, of course, is one of the reasons why the GOP should de-fund this ideologically biased bureaucracy. […]
[…] I’ve bashed the biased and inaccurate work of the Congressional Budget Office, I found this cartoon very […]
[…] Reform the biased number-crunching methodology at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on […]
[…] Reform the biased number-crunching methodology at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on […]
[…] Reform the biased number-crunching methodology at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on […]
[…] This is why I’ve argued it may be best to shut down CBO and also written that – at a minimum – sweeping reform of the Capitol Hill bureaucracy is a test of GOP seriousness. […]
[…] This is why I’ve argued it may be best to shut down CBO, and also written that – at a minimum – sweeping reform of the Capitol Hill bureaucracy is a test of GOP seriousness. […]
[…] is why I said last year that reforming the biased methodology at JCT was an important test of whether the GOP was genuinely on the side of taxpayers. […]
[…] burden jumps considerably above the long-run average in just two years. Keep in mind, though, that government forecasters assume that higher tax rates have no adverse impact on economic performance, so it’s quite likely that neither tax revenues nor GDP would match the […]
[…] I’ve bashed the biased and inaccurate work of the Congressional Budget Office, I found this cartoon very […]
[…] is that the plan reportedly will not balance the budget within 10 years, at least based on the antiquated and inaccurate scoring systems used by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committe…. While I would prefer more spending reductions, I’m not overly fixated on getting to balance with […]
[…] is that the plan reportedly will not balance the budget within 10 years, at least based on the antiquated and inaccurate scoring systems used by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committe…. While I would prefer more spending reductions, I'm not overly fixated on getting to balance with […]
[…] is that the plan reportedly will not balance the budget within 10 years, at least based on the antiquated and inaccurate scoring systems used by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committe…. While I would prefer more spending reductions, I’m not overly fixated on getting to balance […]
[…] is that the plan reportedly will not balance the budget within 10 years, at least based on the antiquated and inaccurate scoring systems used by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committe…. While I would prefer more spending reductions, I’m not overly fixated on getting to balance […]
[…] of Democrat politicians, but let’s also make sure that CBO takes a lot of the blame. The bureaucrats deliberately low-balled expenditure estimates to please their political masters. If Republicans had any brains, they would fire all of […]
[…] of Democrat politicians, but let’s also make sure that CBO takes a lot of the blame. The bureaucrats deliberately low-balled expenditure estimates to please their political masters. If Republicans had any brains, they would fire all of […]
[…] of Democrat politicians, but let’s also make sure that CBO takes a lot of the blame. The bureaucrats deliberately low-balled expenditure estimates to please their political masters. If Republicans had any brains, they would fire all of […]
[…] of Democrat politicians, but let’s also make sure that CBO takes a lot of the blame. The bureaucrats deliberately low-balled expenditure estimates to please their political masters. If Republicans had any brains, they would fire all of […]
[…] already written that fixing the mess at CBO and JCT is a critical test of GOP resolve, and I actually thought this would be a relatively easy test for them to pass. It is an ominous […]
[…] already written that fixing the mess at CBO and JCT is a critical test of GOP resolve, and I actually thought this would be a relatively easy test for them to pass. It is an ominous […]
[…] already written that fixing the mess at CBO and JCT is a critical test of GOP resolve, and I actually thought this would be a relatively easy test for them to pass. It is an ominous […]
[…] already written that fixing the mess at CBO and JCT is a critical test of GOP resolve, and I actually thought this would be a relatively easy test for them to pass. It is an ominous […]
I’m likewise underwhelmed when people claim they’ll make an effort to change their behaviour – probably as a result of personal experience with a drug addict, (a relevant comparison here).
I’ll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else about that: Don’t try to figure out whether the tears are contrite or not. Even if they are, it wont matter a hill of beans at the end of the day, so you don’t want to reward them upfront.
Which addicts will reform? Who knows? Some do. Some don’t. But they all sound the same, and either way most of them are fantastic actors.
The natural response is to believe such a thorough admission of personal imperfection, and further the natural response to immediately reward and encourage the person making it.
That’s a mistake.
For drug addicts, it’s favours and money they’re after – perhaps even momentary respect they’ve been missing for so long. Once they have it, that resolve generally evaporates with a speed and sudden arrogance jarring to the average person. Sound familiar?
Don’t pay the ferryman. If you’re gonna give someone a chance, consider them on probation while they prove they mean it.
Christians are particularly susceptible to this, and can have the story of the Prodigal Son play out literally week after week in their own home as a result. But I don’t recall the Prodigal Son changing his mind a week later and asking for another advance on his inheritance.
Consider another parable where the King reinstates a debt he was all too willing earlier to forgive. In both cases, if the person does what they say they are going to do, then there’s no problem is there? Yet the same people grovelling for your pardon will up and accuse you of being unforgiving if you hold them to account.
In short: I don’t think y’all should give a good goddamn what the GOP “pledges for America”. On the contrary, the people should be giving the GOP their own list of what they demand from the party and people they’re going to support.
Can individual politicians guarantee you specific legislative outcomes? Of course not. But there’s things they can do:
1. Read the goddamn bills! And vote “NO” by default if they’re denied sufficient opportunity.
2. Vote “NO” to bills that are loaded to the eyeballs with extrinsic/sebaceous blubber. Hell, I’d tell them they’d better get used to small print, because I’d want to can their arse if they voted for anything over two pages long.
3. Vote “NO”/veto anything that is unconstitutional.
That’s what I’d consider “results” vs promises. Just saying “NO”. Interestingly that qualifies as results when it comes to reformed drug addicts too. Uncanny.
And I’m sure you guys at Cato already have a list somewhere you can dig up. You should outright make it a declaration and see about getting the Tea Party guys to publicly endorse it.
Our march to the left has been because the repubs are always satisfied with the status quo.
The dems win and march us to the left. The repubs win and keep us there. The dems win and march us further left. The repubs win and keep us there. Etc, etc.
We need to start dismantling the socialist programs enacted by the left.
Start by rescinding o’care. Then push some of these initiatives to disable dems constituencies. Pass legislation requiring voter id’s to vote in a national election. Pass vouchers for schools for any district accepting federal funds.