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Blaming the Republicans
Ryan Avent has a good post and I agree with much of it (and read him as expressing a good deal of agreement with me). I do, however, disagree with one part:
...if Waxman-Markey is a bad bill, then it is a bad bill largely because the minority party has an energy plan that scarcely recognises the threat of climate change as a problem. This guarantees that the vote will be close, which guarantees that Democrats will have to wheel and deal and wheel and deal to get the votes they need—the last Democrat to be converted can name his price. It's a little silly to complain about the imperfect bill Democrats have crafted, when the Republican minority has basically forced them to build a law that every last Democrat can accept.
I don't mean to pick on Ryan but I am seeing this idea growing in influence and I wish to push on it a bit. (By the way, here is his follow-up post.) A few points:
1. Negative claims about Republican politicians are, in fact, usually true. I don't wish to defend them or make you dislike them less.
2. If a policy idea cannot survive the opposition being partisan and also lying about it, I submit the policy idea is not such a good one. You can blame the opposition with all the justice in the world on your side, but still the idea has major, major problems.
3. The notion of a "minimum winning coalition" is commonplace in political science. Maybe the idea isn't as universal as its early proponents claimed, but still it is an important force in shaping political equilibria. If a policy idea cannot survive being turned into a "minimum winning coalition" version of itself...well...see #2.
4. Both the Republicans and the Democrats share some common problems and they are known as voters. And special interest groups. If your plan cannot survive the influence of voters, and special interest groups...well...see #2.
5. Many government programs can in fact survive all of these negative influences and still emerge as good ideas.
6. The Democrats do in fact rule by more than one seat in both houses of Congress. So maybe the marginal Democratic legislators don't have so much bargaining power after all. You can cite 60+ in the Senate but of course this is endogenous to what the Democrats themselves think public opinion will bear. There is a reason why the Democratic establishment does not, as Matt Yglesias so often recommends, abolish the 60+ requirement. Often they prefer inaction, combined with the ability to blame the Republicans for such. See #4. The often-sad truth is that the Democrats as a whole prefer to tailor policy to pander to their "worst" members.
7. If indeed "the revolution is over" it is a question of critical importance, for progressives, what lessons to take away from the experience. I'm not yet sure what are the correct lessons, from a progressive point of view (Robin Hanson and I have been chatting about this and I hope to blog it more soon). Deep in my bones, however, I feel that if the main takeaway were "the Republicans were at fault," that a significant learning opportunity will have been missed.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 20, 2009 at 07:29 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
How's about the basic lesson that individuals are largely rational and self-interested, and hence, that there's nothing wrong with individual voters choosing to spend lots of money on their health. And further, and individuals not wanting to pay artificially high prices for the energy they use to get from place to place, heat and cool their homes, make their goods, etc.
We can debate whether in some cases, especially with respect to energy and health care for old folks, the costs might be artificially low, but by and large, my observation is that these "problems" are just as price responsive as everything else.
Posted by: MikeDC at Jun 20, 2009 8:03:27 AM
Democrat apologists need to man up and learn math. That's the lesson I take from all this. D > R, all else follows; if it doesn't, it can't be the fault of the R. An impotent, bickering party can't stop ANYTHING you do, so who IS stopping it? That's the question.
Posted by: Vernunft at Jun 20, 2009 8:13:44 AM
I am curious; in light of conclusion in #7, how can you start with #1? Seems Lazy.
Posted by: Scott at Jun 20, 2009 8:39:00 AM
I think you are too sanguine about the inability of a combination of an minority faction of one party and a united, perverse opposition to prevent good policy from being enacted.
However, in this case I think the problem is that the public has not been convinced that this is in fact a good policy, and that energy prices need to rise (and frankly, will in any case.) The Republicans may not believe this (a lot of them seem to be unusually ignorant), and it is contrary to their interests to promote the idea anyway. Presumably the Democrats believe this or they wouldn't promote these measures, but they will not admit it, or attempt to convince anyone that it is true. So despite the fact I think this will be costly and possibly disastrous, I expect we will either get a poor bill or no bill.
Posted by: matt wilbert at Jun 20, 2009 9:00:04 AM
How 'bout it's silly to complain about your energy plan being crappy because of the opposition when you haven't proposed an energy plan that actually does anything about energy?
What has the government done for energy, ever, besides make the price artificially high, pursue idiotic or premature technologies and stonewall real solutions? Well, they have invaded oil producing nations, so we have to give them some credit.
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 20, 2009 9:02:07 AM
I agree with your ''minimum winning coalition'' point. But it seems to me that when it comes to energy and health policy the major obstacles are special interests and rationally inattenative voters. Here is my logic: special interests (health industry and energy companies) provide the money necessary for the opposition to resist the change. And the politicians need to convice enough voters that it is a bad idea. And these two policies have several things one can scare the public about.
One point that I haven't seen discussed by you and the liberal bloggers also is the idea that winner take all elections and presidential democracies favour local rather than broad based public goods. That according to Torsten and persson (2003)( my interpretation) may explain small size of government and failure to provide universal health care in the US while its european counterparts achieve it.
Posted by: Natt at Jun 20, 2009 9:18:20 AM
I'm confused over your definition of "good idea". Is the golden rule a good idea? Was a federal union a good idea? Was social security a good idea? Was Medicare a good idea? Was federal aid to education a good idea? Was insurance for catastrophic illness a good idea? Were price supports for farmers a good idea? IMHO there are multiple dimensions: the validity of the idea and its ability to mobilize enough support to be enacted into law and sustained over time.
Posted by: Bill Harshaw at Jun 20, 2009 9:20:03 AM
However, in this case I think the problem is that the public has not been convinced that this is in fact a good policy, and that energy prices need to rise (and frankly, will in any case.)
Yes, in fact the Democrats and the President ran on lying about the intended result of their policies, just as he overpromised on no one losing their current coverage, because it polls well. (In honestly, a good health care reform could be a net improvement even if some people lose their current coverage. Members of Congress had to know that, e.g., allowing the working poor to buy into Medicaid would cause some employers to drop health insurance and encourage employees to buy Medicaid instead, yet acted surprised.)
Considering that the President and his Party have aggressively denied that their bill will raise energy prices and state that they oppose a gas tax, I doubt we're going to get anything useful out of the bill. Not that that's surprising, for anyone that's followed cap-and-trade in Europe. Cap-and-trade has offered little to nothing in emissions reductions over their energy and gas taxes. The US even has a better record in CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2009 than Europe thanks just to the effect of natural energy prices. (Since without as high taxes, the percentage price increase has been higher here.)
I'm not so sure that, politically, Democrats would want an effective bill anyway. And in any case they certainly ran against one. They ran on a platform of magical policies without tradeoffs. Though that does well represent what the American people want. The American people want to feel good about doing something for the environment without actually having to feel pain or change their behavior.
Posted by: John Thacker at Jun 20, 2009 9:39:17 AM
The threat of climate change is a problem the Republicans should deal with. That is, the THREAT of climate change. That goes for all these "problems" that democrats conjure up that anything you do affects everyone else and is thus justifiably within the purview of government.
And where has this particular theme come from? I don't remember the Republicans whining about the democrats not helping with their agenda. I remember the Democrats whining about unilateral actions.
Besides, isn't the idea just wrong on its face. If the Republicans put up a competing plan, then there would be more wheeling and dealing and sausage making.
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 20, 2009 9:44:35 AM
Did the gov't ever come up with the correct price for those toxic assets, or is that a different subject?
No, of course it's not. It's all about initial distribution. They could provide pro-rated credits based on current usage. That would be 'fairest,' but of course, that would entrench all incumbents. It will be interesting if energy innovators have to buy carbon credits from coal plants, but that is another topic. They could separate initial provision from the eventual conservation. They could set up a "Fed" to buy carbon credits from the market later. They could even use it to throttle the economy. The accounting would be more honest and transparent. Why haven't they done that? Because they suck, and it's not my fault.
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 20, 2009 10:14:32 AM
I don't really get your model. If in order to implement an idea you have to appease enough people that the idea is ruined that doesn't make the idea bad. Robin Hanson's ideas are often very good but impossible to implement and any attempt to implement his ideas would likely result in a ghoulish parody of his ideas coming into being. That outcome is in no way a referendum on the merits of the ideas themselves.
And as far as allocating blame goes you blame the people who are least supportive of good ideas. Now maybe the best version of the idea isn't good. And maybe allocating blame is not productive. If I think an idea is good and the good idea cannot get implemented I blame those who do the most to prevent the idea from being implemented. It's the unions fault that slavery could not be abolished without a civil war?
Posted by: Michael Foody at Jun 20, 2009 10:16:30 AM
I find it hard to believe #2. Consider some policy that you think of as "good" policy, that has not yet been implemented. For concreteness, imagine the Democrats decided to introduce a bill to greatly reduce agricultural subsidies. Doesn't it seem quite likely that the Republicans, in response, would be partisan and would lie about the effects, and that these efforts would kill the bill?
Posted by: vinc at Jun 20, 2009 10:30:55 AM
As has been pointed out, the argument in #2 doesn't follow from #1.
Posted by: Michael at Jun 20, 2009 11:45:06 AM
"It's the unions fault that slavery could not be abolished without a civil war?"
Of course. Another day.
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 20, 2009 11:55:42 AM
Congressional gridlock is nothing new. It is a bit self-serving to suddenly "discover" this problem only after the party one supports is in power.
Posted by: anonymous at Jun 20, 2009 12:21:13 PM
As the cliche goes, "Congress does two things well: overreact and nothing." Marketing ___(issue du jour)___ as a crisis reveals a Congressional attempt to overreact.
That is the lesson, this time and every time. Apparently we still haven't learned it.
Posted by: Jeff at Jun 20, 2009 12:55:52 PM
The often-sad truth is that the Democrats as a whole prefer to tailor policy to pander to their "worst" members.
So the fiscal legislation of 2001 to 2006, and social and justice legislation of 1995 to 2006, was the product of yielding to the most logical and reasoned policies of the best and the brightest of the Republican Party?
Keep in mind, the polls as interpreted by Republicans say that the US is 80% conservative or something like that, so clearly a lot of Democrats are going to share the conservative values of the highly principled Republicans. But then, I suppose that qualifies as Democratic legislators pandering to the "worst" of their constituent voters, the conservatives.
Posted by: mulp at Jun 20, 2009 2:59:43 PM
"If a policy idea cannot survive the opposition being partisan and also lying about it, I submit the policy idea is not such a good one."
That's nonsense. Lot's of good policies are ruined this way.
A sufficiently sleazy or even evil group can wreak havoc on society even if it is a very small minority. This is obviously true if they break laws. It is also true even if they don't literally break laws. Our constitutional government is wonderful but the reality is it also requires a large measure of goodwill, common sense, trust and honesty to be successful. Put the identical constitution and laws in a different culture, and it might well be a complete failure. Allow our culture to decay by tolerating and excusing lying and watch our constitution and laws become worthless.
In any system I've ever seen, it remains entirely possible for partisanship or lying to ruin good business deals, good government policies, good relationships and lots of other good human interactions.
And no, they should not get a free pass to behave in this way.
Posted by: a student of economics at Jun 20, 2009 3:34:01 PM
The constant need for a supermajority vote of 60 is altering our political process. This is a relatively recent development. It had traditionally been reserved for more important issues, not every vote.
Steve
Posted by: steve at Jun 20, 2009 4:10:27 PM
Oh, so what you are saying is whatever gets passed is good? I'll go with that. Even though it looks and sounds awful, if it is passed it must have been appealing enough. Can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I agree this makes good a very loose term, and not I would use, perhaps acceptable or tolerable is better. I wouldn't really blame the Reps. I don't think any of them are likely to suffer from warming. I just wish they would see they are likely to on the hook for the bill when it comes due and take a long term approach.
I am wondering how necessary this will be for oil if we are already at peak oil. Still will need it for coal though.
Posted by: Lord at Jun 20, 2009 4:41:18 PM
Big question is whether McCain will support it even if he can't persuade anyone else, or whether he will find an acceptable excuse.
Posted by: Lord at Jun 20, 2009 5:01:36 PM
I can just imagine all the Reps in the next election saying they _would_ have supported it if the Dems hadn't crafted such a bad bill. It's called political expediency, or having your cake and eating it too.
Posted by: Lord at Jun 20, 2009 5:06:09 PM
And let's not hear you complain about any laws henceforth, after all, they are _good_ laws.
Posted by: Lord at Jun 20, 2009 5:19:58 PM
I don't understand why Tyler believes #2 to be true. There is a built-in "noisiness" to the channel when attempting to convey W/M's outcomes to legislators and important constituents. For example, one has to compete with individuals' folk models/comprehension of climate change & economics. Partisanship and lying only serve to decrease the signal to noise ratio.
If we were talking about a public sanitation bill, the merits & demerits of the policy would be more straightforwardly comprehensible. In what way does the intuitiveness of the policy impact its objective utility if enacted? Certainly it alters the political calculus of passing the bill, but I don't think that is what Tyler means? I also endorse "a student of economics" point.
Posted by: Rice at Jun 20, 2009 5:59:00 PM
As several people have also stated, your second argument is hard to believe, especially since it's coming from someone who has repeatedly mentioned the foolishness of politicians and is more or less a libertarian. Are you saying that the vast majority of bills that have been passed by slight margins (indicating disagreements) are good bills? The only way I can think to reconcile this with your other beliefs is if you think many bipartisan bills have been absolutely terrible.
Posted by: David C at Jun 20, 2009 6:06:04 PM
