Not Doing the Wrong Thing Isn't Doing the Right Thing

Ruined Church in Detroit - by Angela Anderson-CobbThe otherwise tedious debt ceiling drama concluded with a wonderful moment when Gabbie Giffords, to many a symbol of reconciliation and hope amidst bitter acrimony, participated in the vote. It was a lovely reminder that life is more than the constant tug-of-war of politics. Some things are transcendent, universal, and meaningful, rather than another helping of momentary, tendentious, and instrumental.  

I feel a great sense of relief at the prospect of business as usual. Supposedly business as usual is terrible and dysfunctional here in the nation's capital, but it certainly seemed more interesting around here before this endless debate started. A couple of times it seemed like someone had an actual policy idea (the first Boehner-Obama deal and the Gang of Six proposal), but those melted away before the heat of ideological purity. So instead there were endless stories about meetings, ratios, triggers, gimmicks, whether or not Boehner or Obama are fit leaders, the sanity of the Tea Party. All that national energy focused like a white-hot laser beam on a process that everyone knew would go down to the wire and leave everyone unhappy.

That's the sign of a good compromise! Liberals think Obama sold them out and resent the focus on the debt when the economy is still in such bad shape.  Conservatives think the bill won't really accomplish anything for a really monumental long-term problem. And everyone's right!

This plan doesn't do much of anything, but that's great! Its insane to try to fix the U.S. budget deficit for the next ten years in a series of meetings one summer. It's an enormous undertaking; it deserves gradual reform that minimizes the cost to the economy and maximizes the efficiency of the process.

In other words, there is no way Congress should be in charge of long-term debt planning.

As a liberal, I am nervous that this wasn't the end of the horror but just the grusome opening act. Criticizing Obama for being overly concerned with his electoral prospects in 2012 is all well and good, but his opposition are no kind of "compassionate conservatives."

The liberal blogverse has recently debated the merits of technocracy in achieving liberal ends. The thinking is that neoliberal technocrats fight for small policy victories that come at the expense of the larger goal of creating a sustainable political backing for liberalism.

I'm glad someone is thinking about how to create a sustainable long-term push for progressive goals, but I'm terrified that it's too late to stave off the dismantling of the social safety net. Growth is going to stagnate for a while, and we aren't willing to invest or innovate to improve our economic outlook. Can you imagine any scenario where taxes are raised by enough to pay for Social Security and Medicare in the long run without dramatic changes?

There are some free lunches out there. Many of our problems are now self-inflicted wounds; like an immigration system that prevents hard-working savers from joining the economy, while fruit literally rots on the vine; or an intellectual property system that discourages innovation and rewards filing unnecessary patents. Or even investments in public goods like education, infrastructure, and research that increase long term growth prospects.

Unfortunately, one party suffers from a crisis of imagination, where their best case scenario is staving off the apocalypse and circling the wagons to not make things worse.  The other party is afraid of its own shadow and split between coalitions with mutually exclusive goals.

But at least when push comes to shove most of the adults can come together to get nothing much accomplished under the threat of murder-suicide.