CoyoteBlog has another interesting observation on the motivations of politicians (and, by inference, one of the fundamental reasons why democracy is broken).
Every time I get started down this particular line of thinking, I end up concluding that only a revolution (whether at the ballot box or otherwise) is going to get us off the path of doom. I was hoping for a ballot box revolution earlier this month, but obviously that didn't happen. Will there be one in 2016? Or is it too late already? I see three very broad possibilities:
1. Most likely: The Obama administration muddles through, kicks the fiscal can down the road yet again, and some sort of slow economic recovery occurs. The Republicans keep their House majority. The 2016 election will then be another close, toughly-fought battle between two parties with little daylight between their probable governing styles.
2. Possible: The Obama administration screws things up in ways that are impossible for even the most blinkered partisans to see. The Republicans lose their House majority. There are many opportunities for this: fiscal management, Afghanistan, regulatory weight, etc. The 2016 election will then be a referendum on how to recover from whatever the Obama-provoked disaster was. The Republicans will have the natural advantage of not being in Obama's party, and there's always the interesting possibility that the Tea Party will emerge as the champions of the most popular fix. If the disaster was particularly profound (less likely), then there's even the possibility for that ballot box revolution I hoped for this time. Not a particularly savory option, but one of the few that looks like it has the chance of a good outcome that doesn't involve violence.
3. Least likely: The Obama administration presides over a spectacular economic recovery. Democrats take the House majority. Businesses grow strongly, the stock market soars, the war in Afghanistan ends in some satisfying way, no new wars start, and even hyper-partisan commentators start saying positive things about Obama. The 2016 election will then be the Democrats to lose; all they have to do is field a plausibly “Obama II” candidate.
I don't much like those options...
The worst possible thing to happen would be an economic boom. I've said this many times, it happened with the dot com and the housing booms. It masked the fundemental problems, embolded politian spending and set us up for worse collapse. The so called "Clinton surplus" was an illusion at best. He got lucky. An unprecendented ecomomic boom that the polititians couldn't outspend immediately. And even with that, the buget wasn't really a surplus because they didn't count social security etc. So clinton was hailed as some great leader when he really got lucky and the economy did well despite his and the congresses best efforts. But the result was an even worse downturn. Even in this terrible economy noone in washington it talking spending cuts. They are only talking about cutting the planned rate of growth in spending. A plan they made to start with. How hard is it to cut spending from your wish list if you double your wishlist to start with? If we have another magic bubble, you can bet the next collapse will be worse.
ReplyDelete