CT Blue

On Tuesday Paul Krugman pointed out,once again, Republican hypocrisy about the deficit:

Much of Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was devoted to describing the menaces he claims face America — mainly the menace of scary brown people, but also the menace of socialism. And there has been a lot of discussion in the news media of what he said on those topics.

There has, however, been little coverage of one of the most revealing aspects of the SOTU: what Trump said about the menace of America’s historically large government debt.

But wait, you may object — he didn’t say anything about debt. Indeed he didn’t — not one word. But that’s what was so revealing.

As always, it’s worthwhile reading, but Krugman fails to mention the extent to which Democrats have allowed Republicans to shape Democratic policy using this issue, while Republicans themselves have merrily had it both ways.

There’s something akin to the Stockholm Syndrome about the way in which Democrats have allowed the Republicans and the media to thwart their (proclaimed) policy objectives by catering to deficit concerns, when the Republicans have proven time after time that those concerns mean nothing to them when they themselves are in power and when the political payoff for deficit responsibility is, in a word, non-existent.

In theory, the Democrats are Keynsians, i.e., they understand that there are times when it makes perfect sense to run up deficits, particularly during economic downturns. It also makes sense to borrow money to, in effect, invest in the future. To put it in simplistic terms, it makes sense to borrow money to buy a house, but not to hold a party. Republicans borrow money to throw money at the rich, their equivalent of a party, and there is no blowback on that score from the media and precious little from the Democrats. When Democrats borrow money (not often enough, and when they do, they don’t borrow enough, e.g., Obama’s pathetic stimulus package) they borrow to invest.

Despite the fact that they are Keynesians in principle, in practice the Democrats have been bludgeoned into adopting only halfway measures which, like Obama’s stimulus, don’t achieve enough for anyone to notice. That is precisely the outcome the Republicans want, because they can then argue that government can solve no problems. This has happened so often that one must wonder whether Washington Democrats are all insane, since they continually do the same thing, and react in the same way, always expecting something different to result.

This brings us to the present Democrats. I think Nancy Pelosi has amply demonstrated that she was a good choice to lead the House Democrats. Trump can’t figure out how to bully her, and she has stood up for the members of the freshman class as they’ve been attacked. But she adamantly insists that the Democrats must continue with the insanity, refusing to consider ditching the pay-gorules to which only Democrats adhere. Fondly do we hope, and fervently do we pray (actually, I don’t pray, there being no god) that the new faces in Congress will ultimately prevail on this issue and that someday the Democrats will simply tell the hypocritical Republicans to shove it when they start moaning about deficits. This is particularly true now, when nothing substantive they pass in the House will ever become law anyway. Come 2020, voters will want to see what the Democrats have to offer and a bunch of halfway measures won’t be particularly attractive.