Comments on: Linkage

By: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Recalling The End Of Welfare As We Know It

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 03:58:45 +0000

[...] As well as the above-quoted review, I’d also highly recommend this review of American Dreams by David Glenn in Dissent. (Hat tip: Crooked Timber). [...]

By: Crooked Timber » » The Assassin’s Gate

Crooked Timber » » The Assassin’s Gate — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:53:25 +0000

[...] I finished reading George Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate on the plane back from Europe yesterday, and discovered when I got back home that Kevin Drum had already said half of what I wanted to say about it. Anti-war people should read this book – it really does a terrific job of setting out the complexities of politics in Iraq. Pro-war leftists and liberals should read this book too, and reflect carefully on Packer’s documentation of how badly “democracy-building” was implemented in practice. But there’s something quite troubling about the book’s rhetorical set-up. On one level, the book resembles Jason DeParle’s book on welfare reform, American Dream. It’s a meditation on the relationship between the abstract debates of policy wonks and intellectuals, how ideas from these debates get implemented (with quite astounding incompetence in this particular instance), and the results that implementation have for individuals’ lives. But on another, it’s an indirect defence of a particular policy stance. In the book’s closing pages, Packer sets out his indictment of the Bush administration: I came to believe that those in positions of highest responsibility for Iraq showed a carelessness about human life that amounted to criminal negligence. Swaddled in abstract ideas, convinced of their own righteousness, incapable of self-criticism, indifferent to accountability, they turned a difficult undertaking into a needlessly deadly one. When things went wrong, they found other people to blame. The Iraq War was always winnable; it still is. For this very reason, the recklessness of its authors is all the harder to forgive. [...]

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 09:58:33 +0000

Caught me skimming a bit; it’s not the author that are surprised so much as unnamed leftists. In reading quickly, I conflated the two. David says, “It is also the case that no leftist who reads this book attentively will come away with the idea that if only we had better jobs, housing, and health-care subsidies, all would be well.” I’m left wondering if anyone believed that, and if so, whether that belief survived actual contact with poorer neighborhoods. Further down, “The second reason why leftists should reflect on the social crisis is that it occupies so much of the psychic energy of the poor themselves.” Again, unknown leftists are supposed to hold a position that’s hard to believe was grounded in reality. Is the author constructing straw men for some intra-lefty quarrel? Then, “A similar point is apparent in DeParle’s book. Caples, Jobe, and Reed tend to see their jobs as background noise; if they lose one low-wage job, they can find another one relatively easily. They’re more inclined to worry about what do to with an alcoholic boyfriend or a recalcitrant son-things over which they exercise at least some control-than about any farfetched scheme to organize a union or to change the labor market to their advantage.” To which I thought, well wouldn’t you, too?

By: BadTux

BadTux — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 02:17:41 +0000

George: I actually looked at the real statistics, as published by the U.S. Treasury, for tax receipts after the Reagan tax cuts. Income tax receipts plummetted, as you would expect. Income tax receipts did not reach 1981 levels again until Reagan’s tax hikes of 1987 (“tax reform”) took effect. What the Wall Street Journal corruptly did was count social security taxes as “tax receipts”. It turns out that in 1982, Alan Greenspan and etc. held a series of conferences regarding “The Future of Social Security”. They decided that in order for Social Security to be secure for the future, a massive hike in social security taxes was needed. Rep. Dick Cheney and others thus voted for a massive hike in Social Security taxes in 1983, hiking them from 9.350% in 1983 to 14% in 1984, then 15% by 1990. And this massive tax hike was strictly on the poor—due to income caps, rich people paid not a single dime more, and there are no (zero) exemptions to payroll taxes, they are a flat tax on earned income period. In short, Reagan managed to transfer a huge chunk of taxation from the rich to the poor. Doh, who woulda thunk it?! In short: Reagan raised taxes in 1983 by more than he cut taxes in 1981, and that, not any magic “supply side” fairy dust, is why revenue recovered—albeit as IOU’s in the Social Security fund, rather than as actual cash-in-hand. In short, Reagan was the biggest Credit Card President we ever had until George W. Bush took office. – Badtux the Statistical Penguin

By: George

George — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:47:59 +0000

Brad DeLong is not generally to my taste, but I’ll take your word that he is against the idea. So like I said, there is educated opinion on both sides. (The WSJ Op-Ed page does publish some amazing crap sometimes, but they also publish plenty of very fine stuff. They get outside contributors, you know.) Just because one diasagrees with the theory doesn’t mean that there IS no theory (which is what the phrase “political hackery” would imply).

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:46:10 +0000

Doug – where exactly does David say, or even hint, that he was surprised at poor people’s concerns with safety? You’re reading a level of bemusement and condescension into the piece that simply isn’t there. He’s reporting on what he saw, and pointing out that it can’t be reconciled with some of the simplifications that left-liberals make about welfare.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 14:33:11 +0000

Ditto rob on tax cuts. Spend a little time with Brad DeLong for details. If the graphs George mentions come from the editorial page of the WSJ they’re better suited for fish wrap than policy making. Even from the reporting side, I’d be very careful. Reform of the tax code is a coming thing. Happens every 15 years or so in the US. Like taking a ship into drydock and scraping off as many barnacles as possible. (Last done in 86.) It’s overdue, and it’s a vote-getter, as people see the special breaks that lobbies have gotten. K/E are getting a little mileage from this with the line about no tax breaks for outsourcing. There’s more popular acclaim to be had there and a ready-made issue for 2006 mid-terms. On the Dissent piece, I was surprised that the author was surprised about how concerned poor people, esp poor black people were about crime and security. Had they never had contact with poor people before? Never been in the “bad” neighborhoods? Gracious me, apparently not. Well, at least some eyes were opened.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:32:36 +0000

George—the Reagan tax cut leading to higher revenue is a myth. It depends upon taking tax revenue at the depth of the 81 recession and moving forawrd, ignoring the tax increase Reagan authored. As to why the welthy pay a higher percentage its becuase they are the ones seeing income growth. As to Social Security reform, it will cost not save money to change Social Security.

By: George

George — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:09:18 +0000

A couple comments on that Schmitt piece (or rather your excerpts; will read the full article when work permits): Speaking as more-or-less a fiscal conservative, I think Schmitt may be missing two big things. First, according to the theory behind Bush’s radical tax cutting, increased economic growth will make up for all or most of the loss of tax revenues over the long term, due to the structural (as opposed to merely fiscal) stimulative effect of cutting the marginal tax rate. Whether this is true or not I don’t know; I’m neither an economist nor a statistician, but I have seen pretty graphs (usually in the WSJ) that purport to show that this happened after major tax cuts by Reagan and Kennedy. And the evidence (published in the Detroit paper, I believe) that the upper tax brackets now contribute an even larger share of total tax revenues, even though they received the bulk of the cuts, suggests that this phenomenon is already at work – although even if true, it obviously hasn’t made up the difference yet. Second, there is reason to believe that Bush would approach economic policy from two other directions in his second term: by cutting the major cost items in the Federal budget (Social Security and Medicare) and by reforming (not just slashing) the tax code. Admittedly this is mostly my own speculation and wishful thinking, but there are signs. For one thing, Social Security reform is inherently a second-term activity due to the political risks involved – and it’s been part of the Bush economic platform (particularly means testing and partial privatization) at least since 2000. Moreover, Bush would have the great advantage of being able to frame Social Security reform as a deficit reduction package. As for tax code simplification, that’s not so politically risky, but it’s not an obvious winner either – yet Bush made a point of mentioning it in his convention speech, as if to lay the groundwork for a second-term mandate. Together, these two factors (structural reform of the tax code and the intent to attack spending at the most important front) make the Bush tax cuts look less like “political hackery” and more like a genuine effort to make our economic system both more efficient and more fair. Caveat: this is putting a lot of faith in the Bush Administration, which obviously a lot of people do not have. I’m not sure I do either. While I think Bush himself is sincere (the question of whether he is a dope is discrete) I deeply distrust the Republican leadership in Congress. Much of what they’ve done in Bush’s first term (that thuggish and dishonest Medicare bill, the thickly-larded corporate tax cut) can safely be filed under “political hackery.” If I had to vote for Bush or Kerry on purely economic grounds, I’m not sure where I’d come out. But I don’t think his signature first-term economic reform – the tax cuts – is a complete departure from the conservative worldview. Yet.