Blogs and Stories
The Audacity of Nope
Ron Edmonds / AP Photo
One feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Obama’s grand plan. But it is far from clear that spending oceanic sums of money is the right corrective.
That was, as Tom Lehrer would say, the week that was. President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union speech. Governor Bobby Jindal gave his first and possibly last Republican response. The president presented a $3.6 trillion budget, and announced that we are getting out of Iraq but not really. And Rush Limbaugh gave—as he put it, fun intended—his first nationally televised address to the nation.
Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
Hold on—there’s a typo in that paragraph. “$3.6 trillion budget” can’t be right.The entire national debt is—what—about $11 trillion? He can’t actually be proposing to spend nearly one-third of that in one year, surely. Let me check. Hmm. He did. The Wall Street Journal notes that federal outlays in fiscal 2009 will rise to almost 30 percent of the gross national product. In language that even an innumerate English major such as myself can understand: The US government is now spending annually about one-third of what the entire US economy produces. As George Will would say, “Well.”
Now let me say: Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I want President Obama to succeed. I honestly do. We are all in this leaky boat together—did I say “leaky”? I meant “sieve-like”—and it would be counterproductive, if not downright suicidal, to want it to go down just to prove a conservative critique of Keynesian economics.
But let’s all be honest about this: No one knows how all this is going to turn out in the end. Do you, really? If we learned one thing during the runup to this rancid enchilada, it is that most of the smartest people in the room were wrong, and the other ones were crooked.
Even today, smart people are still holding spittle-flying debates about what really ended the Great Depression. (That’s reassuring, isn’t it?) Personally, I’m in the camp that maintains it was Pearl Harbor, not FDR’s policies, that actually brought it to an end. Which, I suppose, leaves me to wonder if the best we can hope for is another sneak attack by Japan. Bring it on, as our former president would say. Let’s just pray Japan hasn’t quietly produced The Bomb since 1945. All those centrifuges they said they needed for “flat-screen plasma TVs”? Uh oh….
I’m all for audacity and all for hope. “L’audace, l’audace—toujours l’audace!” is an inspiring motto. It worked for Patton. Whatever you think of this leviathan budget, President Obama cannot be accused of being a trimmer, or reticent. And with the New York Times running heart-breaking front-page stories about out-of-work executives now working as $11-an-hour janitors, I’m all for hope, too. Governor Jindal and El Rushbo may not be happy campers, but even Senator John McCain has been sounding positive notes about President Obama’s leadership—while at the same time focusing the nation’s attention on the president’s (ahem) proposed new $11 billion fleet of helicopters. It would be presidential for him to say, as he almost has, that he’ll keep the old model for a few more years.
The strange thing is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining negative thoughts about Mr. Obama’s grand plan, as if one were indulging in—call it—the audacity of nope. It is on the one hand clear that something must be done about our economic woes. But that is very different from saying that spending these vast, oceanic sums of money is the right corrective to a decade of fiscal incontinence.
One thing is certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger. Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.And remember what de Tocqueville told us about a bureaucracy that grows so profuse that not even the most original mind can penetrate it.
If this is what the American people want, so be it, but they ought to have no illusions about the perils of this approach. Mr. Obama is proposing among everything else $1 trillion in new entitlements, and entitlement programs never go away, or in the oddly poetic bureaucratic jargon, “sunset.” He is proposing $1.4 trillion in new taxes, an appetite for which was largely was whetted by the shameful excesses of American CEO corporate culture. And finally, he has proposed $5 trillion in new debt, one-half the total accumulated national debt in all US history. All in one fell swoop.
He tells us that all this is going to work because the economy is going to be growing by 3.2 percent a year from now. Do you believe that? Would you take out a loan based on that? And in the three years following, he predicts that our economy will grow by 4 percent a year.
This is nothing if not audacious hope. If he’s right, then looking back, March 2009 will be the dawn of the Age of Stimulation, or whatever elegant phrase Niall Ferguson comes up with. If he turns out to be wrong, then it will look very different, the entrance ramp to the Road to Serfdom, perhaps, and he will reap the whirlwind that follows, along with the rest of us.
Christopher Buckley’s books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Forbes FYI.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
What's Joe's Problem?
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Lessons from Another War
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
It's Time for Us to Go
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
A Prize Too Far
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
I'll always have to preface my comments on Christopher Buckley's articles by saying I really do value his input.
That said, Obama explained the large budget was because he was now realistically representing the cost of war, not just pretending the budget for Maintaining a tank was the same as using or losing it.
Next, I suppose this is because I don't live in a rich area, and in fact don't know anyone who is rich as John McCain would define it, but I don't care how high taxes go on the weatlhy 50% or 60%? Hit me.
On American news all I hear is rich men whining about class warfare, while we have lower tax rates for rich people than any other world power. And these idiots didn't get rich in China, it was American Labor that made them rich.
Obama in my view is opening up the books and not using buzzwords. A tax cut means a minus in the funds. I don't think it makes Democrats villains to say they don't want to live in a country where Donald Trump never has to worry about health care but sick children do. I measure progress in poor Trumps and healthy kids.
Well-said! And to add a few lines from G.K. Chesterton (roughly, from memory), "A rich man is an anarchist. He has no stake in a country. He can always sail off in his yacht."
As my mother said of her neighbors in a wealthy suburb, "they have so much money [after these tax cuts] they don't know what to do with it."
Or a third quote, from the movie Chinatown: "What can you buy that you can't already buy?"
Either tax the rich or eat them.
xbainx,
I would have to agree with "btraven" and say "well-said!" Unfortunately, the tone and content of your response lead me to say that not because I agree with you- no, no, no far from it- but rather because you have managed to boil every attitude and misinformed notion that threatens to dismantle the country our forefathers spent so much time building into one short response to an article (by the way, what on earth are you doing reading Christopher Buckley?). Anyways, your assertion that the wealthy ought to be taxed "50% or 60%" is a little mind-boggling to me. The left's hatred of the rich is grossly ironic considering how many Wall Street votes and campaign $ got Obama into office. Why is it that irresponsible CEO's are being thrown into the conservative corner? We sure don't want them. That said, 50% or 60%? Let me paint a picture for you...A couple, let's call them Stan and Martha, work their entire lives at really tough jobs that happen to be valued by society (cough* capitalism* cough). Society's need for their services is parlayed into a sizable income. By claiming that Stan and Martha "owe" the government half (HALF??!!) of what they earn, that is essentially saying that the only reason one of these hard-working adults, let's say Martha (I know how much liberals love working women), gets up in the morning is to pay taxes. The sole purpose of Martha's professional career is to write checks to the IRS. I wonder how Martha feels about that. By the way, the rich you claim to hate are the ones paying for your children to go to public school and college, your safety on American public transportation, the list goes on. And "rich men whining about class welfare"? Isn't it annoying when hard-working self-made Americans resent having to hand over the money they have worked for to people they have never met who refuse to work for their own living? And don't even have to get drug tested to receive federal aid? Gosh, selfish jerks, huh? (And if you disagree that many rich Americans are self-made, look up the stats. The number of millionaires-by-inheritance is astonishingly low.) By the way, there are of course people who receive federal aid who have an important (and temporary) need for it. My only point is the screening process is a joke. My friend's sister (who lives at home with her parents) receives cash every month because she got fired from her job as a party planner. Do you know what she did with that money? Fed her child? Payed her rent? Guess again. She has no child or rent to pay. She went to Miami to visit her friends. One margarita on the beach, coming right up. Don't worry! Get another! It's on Martha and Stan! Am I the only one who sees a problem here? And your calling the great capitalists of this country "idiots" presents another problem. They are in the working class. They work, don't they? The only difference between them and you is that their services are valued more highly. Idiots? They did something right. And the part about Donald Trump? My personal favorite. Of course Democrats are not villians to want that (Republicans are the villains remember? They beat baby seals for sport?). Donald Trump is a capitalist. You know why he built an empire, created hundreds of thousands of jobs for ungrateful people who claim the "rich should be eaten," and bolstered the economy in more ways I can count? Because he was rewarded. He made alot of money. And by the way, Donald Trump pays for more sick kid's healthcare than those kids parents, guaranteed. Another point, kids are the responsibility of the parents, not the government. If you have a limited-income, only have one kid! Or none! Do not bring a child into this world that you cannot take care of, simple as that. You measure progress in "poor Trumps and healthy kids?" That really frightens me. I agree, a kid with cancer is AWFUL. Really, truly, god-awful. But if you don't want to live in this country, then move. Move to Canada and have those children die during their year-long wait for chemotherapy. I believe in market-based solutions for social problems. Insurance, insurance, insurance. It IS possible, but not the way Obama is going about it. By the way, with less taxes more money would be donated to charity. I have faith in people, apparently more faith than most. I believe that human beings are fundamentally good. I believe if they have more power over their own money and situations, they will do good things with it. Whether that is starting a company that provides millions of jobs, running a self-sustaining, profitable vegetable stand, donating everything to charity, that's fine. Do whatever makes you feel good. But do not, I repeat do not, reproach hard-working Americans for being successful, and do not be generous with their money, money that you didn't earn.
I'm aware not alot of people agree with me. The rich may just have to sail away on their yachts, as G.K. Chesterton says. Then what would the public schools do without that revenue? The hospitals who depend on that money? The rich might just go start an island based on principles of sustainability and free-market capitalism.
Yes we can.
By the way, I'm an 18 year-old girl with a summer job.
AMEN!!!!! Frankly I'm exhausted with people who want something for nothing! GET A JOB! How about going to school and making something of yourself! This is the greatest country in the world - where you can do anything you want if you work hard enough. The "Rich" have worked their asses off! And these loosers want to tax them by 50-60%?
Your points are dead on and I appreciate your comments and the simple example you gave to these dim squatters waiting for their government check. How would they feel if they worked their asses off and the government took half of their check! The New Deal started this mess, and now we have a president that wants to turn this country into a socialist nation and himself into a dictator.
Please join me and thousands of others on the 9/12 March on Washington DC!!!
STOP OBAMA! YES WE CAN!
Yes, Rush Limbaugh.The day after Bobby Jindal's now infamous speech, I listened in to Rush's show for the first
segment. Right before he went to commercial, I heard him
say 'Joe Biden' must have been wondering who Jindal got
to cover his shift at the Seven Eleven - so he could give
that speech.Ever wonder what Rush really thinks?
It's not so hard to figure out.
What would de Tocqueville say of the size of our current bureaucracy? Sacre mèrde, perhaps?
The approach by the Obama administration would appear to be from the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" department. "You can't make an omelet without first breaking a few eggs" and all of that sort of psych-up hyperbole.
This is, perhaps, unavoidable that our government should keep growing. If our industries cannot regulate themselves, then it is imperative that the federal government intervene.
The irony is not lost upon me that, the same business executives who decry what they believe to be undue government interference in their commerce are the first ones to beg the government for help when their situation turns sour.
You must know that the Dept. of Homeland Security represents the greatest increase of bureaucracy in this country.
There are two wars being fought and paid for.
What did people think was going to happen. You really thought that the price of oil wasn't going to go sky high, and then drop like a bullet out of heaven.
What did they think was going to happen to the derivative market and related risks.
Then add Enron, Madoff, and Standford, and who knows what else.
Investors were investing, they thought they were, and look what happened to all that money.
It sounds to me like we are not being told what is really going on. How much IRS appears to have gotten from these "earnings", intentionally or not, how do you trust a system like that.
Market failure is bound to happen. Obama is facing the task and is not ignoring it, as it grows out of control.
It is easy for media elite types to be against everything, they still have their jobs.
Do we really have a choice? I don't know if what Obama and his team are doing will work or not. I hope so. They're smarter than me and know much more about all this than they are probably telling. I do know this economy is sick and getting sicker. I'd like to see the bankers all go to jail for their malfeasance. They've effectively broken the world's economy with their greed.
Right now we do need money dumped into the economy to save it and if that means, getting the health care problems on the path to some type of solution, lowering our demand for oil and begin focusing on education for our children, then so be it. For all of this the deficit GDP percentage wise will not be higher than it was in WWII. We got out of that, we can get out of this.
Dude--who else is going to spend like a drunken sailor if the US government does not?
We sober bourgeosie--those who have earned more than we spent for decades--are eyeing our investment portfolios and saying Hail Marys while firing the housecleaners and the lawn service. Anything the US government gives us in the form of tax breaks will be squirrelled away in FDIC insured savings, because for decades we thumbed our noses at savings accounts as being for chumps while we funneled our excess to money market mutual funds and stock and bond funds.
The sad cold fact is SOMEBODY has to stick their neck out and consume. It sure won't be me--I cut my discretionary expenses in half and I'm sending the excess cash flow to an online bank account (hello Europe!).
Obama gets this, and he understand that the government needs to be out there buying things while we foolish grasshopers rebuild our savings.
Now to be fair, Ritarita, Rush was teasing Biden because he said, during the campaign, something to the effect that you can't go to a Seven Eleven any more without feeling like you are in India. I am not sure if that was before or after he said that Obama is a nice, clean, black man.
Glad Christopher is finally Obama's brand of hope. The federal government grabbing one third of the GNP is extreme and it will have terrible consequences for the US for decades to come. If Obama gets away with it, liberals will no longer have to worry about hating the "rich." There will be no rich anymore in America. There will be equal poverty for all and oppression for all as well.
And if this is not bad enough, now Obama is making noises of joining England in funding a GLOBAL New Deal. He has to be stopped. He is nuts.
Actually, to many Americans, opposing Obama's restructuring of the government feels very patriotic.
This is turning into the world's greatest experiment in community activism.
This user is no longer registered.
I'm not talking about Limbaugh. I don't listen to Limbaugh as much as many Democrats do, it seems. In fact, judging from all the Democrats who are mentioning Limbaugh, I'd say he is beginning to get quite a Democratic following.
And, James, you may have endorsed Obama's plan, price undisclosed, but I did not.
I'll ignore the silly democratic part.
Nobody voted for this insanity. In EVERY case, when taxes have been lowered, revenue paid to the government has INCREASED. This isn't about raising money, it is about class warfare, punishing achievers while addicting a whole new generation to the government narcotic to ensure Democrat control. You want to be rich, get off your lazy ass and get to work. There are no quotas on ambition other than the self-imposed. The proposed cap and tax hoax will run more jobs offshore. Capital is on strike. Doctors will be next. Anyone who can't see Obama is simply using the recession as an excuse isn't very smart or doesn't want to see it.
Ok Christopher, I want to know: What in the hell is a 'fell swoop'? I tried looking it up one time and found nada - or nothing, if you are language deprived. Is it a hawk swooping in to catch all of the balls Obama is juggling? Maybe it's a Chicken Hawk raiding the basket full of eggs - I mean 'dividends' - the big guys left exposed to the elements. Maybe it is an archaic term referring to the audacity of the American voters.
At any rate, it makes about as much sense as the rest of this article on the budget and economy written by an English major. Fidel did say in 1998 that any one who wasn't reading up on economics was a fool tho, so maybe Christopher is finally catching up...
I cannot believe the Bushies here who insisted we come along on their mission to destroy and country that had done nothing to us are complaining about a little old budget. Maybe you should have thought about it when you let that jerk from TX ruin the country. You can complain all you want about Obama cleaning up after your mess but your relevance is over.
We let a bunch of Political hacks run this country into the ground. Can you imagine where we would be if Gore had been president? No iraq? The amount of lives that would have been saved? Money to invest to solve these problems years ago. Real regulation. Starting the conversion to a new energy economy.
And instead we have this idiots who sold us down the river on here complain that someone is whiling to actually account for the cost of war? Complaining the someone is whiling to address the imbalances in taxes paid.The loop holes that let the elite hide their money. You people aren't patriotic your god damn tools. I hope you all at least make 500K a year so this really hurts. But I have a feeling you are just a bunch of suckers who don't get this has always been a managed economy.Just for the last 8 years the dial has been turned so that only the rich benefit. I love KR on abc today blaming everything that happened to Bush on Clinton. Please all of you move to TX. This time we will let you take your guns and go.
Even though we have a Democrat president and Democrat majority in Congress, it doesn't mean the Democrats and Republicans who oppose Obama's spending plan are traitors.
jamesreid
Where was all this "in which we the people endorsed this plan" during the Bush presidency? Or does it only work when a Democrat has the big chair?
I was going to ask if "Fiscal Incontinence" were an abscure Graduate or PHD level course, but instead .... I think I'll pass, to quote a friend.
The Problem with becoming non-dogmatic, all at once, in our Economic Policy Making is that we start to do things that defy gravity. 'Not a Penny for Banks, and not a Penny for Auto companies' is going to look alot sexier AFTER THE FACT than before. I'm afraid the Human Animal is grasping at Pork Straws simply because he has a sense that the ship is sinking. What Keynes himself later came to understand was an element of 'Animal Spirits'.
Excellent piece, Mr. Buckley, and a lot of fun to read. A Bit late to the Debate though.... (Tapping Foot here). If you really want to have Fun, let's discuss the Weath Destroying Effects this Stimulus will have on Individuals. That'll bring out the pitchforks and torches again. Or, perhaps a Reality TV Show ... 'Government Gone Wild' ... hosted by Ms. Chablis. Who better than a transvestite to explain our sudden and swift change of course?
thewoodman: LOL. They were too busy being "ashamed" and apologizing to the world for Bush's actons.
Their version of an "endorsement".
Let's put this Road to Serfdom thing to rest: Hayek was wrong. He was brave enough to lay down a compelling theory that threw off predictions, but none of those has come to pass. This is important because a lot of conservative argument and theory emanates from the Road to Serfdom premise.
We have 50 years of relatively high-tax, high-regulation western democracies to examine, and not one has slid into authoritarianism, much less poverty. Sure they all have their problems, but incrementally adding entitlements is not (even remotely) an existential threat to the Constitution or our way of life. Those who would make wild-eyed predictions like these must provide persuasive historical evidence. Those who have a soft spot for Hayek ought to feel chastened by reality and at least come up with an RTS argument that's updated for modern times and accounts for reality.
Another moronic Buckley...
"Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away."
I do not understand how it is that even after all this time, after having your own elected goverment for well over 200 years, there still persists this general distrust of it in the american public.
Maybe its because the two party system just doesnt represent the myriad of different political opinions well enough, I dont know, but what I do know is this.
What most americans would consider to be excessive goverment support or intervention has led to the worlds best living standards for the last 30 years or so in nordic countries, not to mention consistantly some of the best "free" education in the world, healthcare, privacy laws,etc etc.
Dont get me wrong, Im not trying to belittle one side or make the other look better, my point is that big goverment does not instantly and unequovically mean bad. Its YOUR goverment, it should be afraid of you, not you of it.
Thomas Jefferson said:"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."
So why is it that there is constant and prevailing fear of the government in the United States?
As I sit here in Canada, painfully awaiting my surgery for bleeding intestinal ulcers (only six months wait this far; a year will probably do it) I'm just struck with horror and amazement watching the US foolishly stumble towards our broken and decayed medical system. My surgeon's website says the wait list is five and ahalf weeks. The doctor suggested I check back ok six months. But here in Vancouver we all know the ritual. Unless you are famous or dying it takes a year. There are not enough resources to cover everyone. I have been hoping we could return to the states to get real coverage and be seen... By forcing everyone to operate at the lowest common denominator many more suffer than under tv American system. We all suffer except for those in th government or sports or media. All the new syst being proposed by Obama does is privilege a new class; the goveremt leaders and their famlies, as in China and other socialist groups
Become a kind of aristocracy and receive all the special treatment. This carries over into all aspects of Canadian life and I'm sorry to see so many of our failed policies like trying to over control so many national industries appear on Obama's speech . Of course no one pays much attention to us in the states ,but considering our many weaknesses might prove instructive before you imitate our failures.
"Even though we have a Democrat president and Democrat majority in Congress, it doesn't mean the Democrats and Republicans who oppose Obama's spending plan are traitors."
*cough* Dixie Chicks *cough*
It's a credibility thing.
WHY did the CONSERVATIVES under BUSH spend like there's no tomorrow and wreck the economy, and now the US is producing less than ever. With the lowest tax rates on the wealthy in history, why did the economy collapse? CNBC's hypocritic stance by ignoring what they helped create through their supporting the GOP and BUSH's insane spending has caused a depression! Remember the 2 Fools on the Hill? Bush: It must be a budget, see there's numbers on it. - Cheney, "Deficits don't matter." Sometimes its not HOW much you spend that wrecks an economy, it's WHERE you spend it! You spend a million on a bridge in the US, the accounting is balanced. You don't have a million dollars but you have a million dollar bridge, hence balanced accounting. If you spend a half million to blow up a bridge then spend a million to rebuild it in a foreign country, you are immediately in the red!
And as far as middle-class tax cuts are concerned, Obama's cap-and-trade program will be a huge across-the-board tax increase on blue-collar workers, including unionized workers. Industrial production is plunging, but new carbon taxes will prevent production from ever recovering. While the country wants more fuel and power, cap-and-trade will deliver less.
Suddenly the GOP CNBC pundits are feigning worry about the middle class?, blue collar workers? UNIONS? They certainly have been the enemies of the middle class since Reagan, as the middle class is disappearing before our eyes, and the poverty classes growing faster than ever under CONservative failed ideologies! Industrial production is plunging, and partly due to CONservative corporations fleeing the USA to build factories where they can pollute unrestrained. These corporations under a common sense government should never be allowed to do business in or with the United States ever again! The current lame efforts diluted by the GOP have only allowed pollution to increase. The answer to industrial production and corporations is clean up your act, here and abroad, to continue doing business in the United States.
http://hiddenmysteries.net/geeklog/article.php?story=20090301131215108
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.