Check this out. I am an immense nerd, so to me this New York Times “budget puzzle” is one of the coolest gadgets I’ve come across on the Internet in a long time.
The puzzle gives you a graphical representation of the U.S. budget expected shortfall in both 2015 and 2030. It’s expected to be almost $1.5 trillion in the latter period! A one and a half trillion dollar deficit (we’re rounding up because it’s always smart to be pessimistic about government; besides, what’s a few hundred billion between friends?)
The gadget also allows you to try to close both gaps through various budget cuts and tax raises.
Here’s a challenge for you: eliminate both budget gaps without raising taxes (because that’s cheating.) Give it a shot.
A genuine libertarian, interested in shrinking government at all levels, should be able to do it without that much difficulty. It still requires a lot of clicking. You have to:
- Gut the federal government, (check all boxes under domestic and foreign aid.)
- Increase the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security to 70 (which I’m pretty sure is beyond where any one taken seriously in the media wants to put it.)
- Enact the Bowles/Simpson plan that would lower tax rates but eliminate tax loopholes.
These and a few other cuts will close the 2030 budget gap, but not the 2015 one. Not bad, you say? I guess. But it proves the point that eliminating both gaps without raising taxes requires at least some defense cuts. Also, on a moral level, I’m not sure why defense cuts shouldn’t be prioritized over cuts to programs that may actually keep people from starving. Just saying.
The Tea Party movement, famously, rejects tax increases. Senator Jim DeMint, a Tea Party favourite, recently gave an interview in which he pledged to stand against raising the debt ceiling unless it is combined with “some path to balancing the budget.” When pressed, DeMint could not or would not name anything specific he would like to cut, except for earmarks (you can see what little good that would do in the New York Times model.)
He also explicitly rejected cuts to Medicare and Social Security. See for yourself in the video below.
If you’ve played around with the New York Times‘ gadget at all, you’ll notice that it is impossible to not raise taxes and still close both budget gaps without cutting Social Security, Medicare, and/or defense. Impossible. Mess around with the gadget all you want, and both gaps will stubbornly remain, unless you raise taxes, or cut more than one of these three programs, all of which, presumably, Sen. DeMint won’t even touch.
Here’s the result if you check off every box in the first section, skip the defense section, check off a few of the boxes in the Medicare and Social Security sections (but not those that would reduce payments to seniors) and then ignore the tax raising section.
What's that? oh yeah, a huge gap!
Sen. DeMint, along with the Tea Party Movement, is screwed. If the Americans are going to balance the budget, they have to (a) raise taxes, (b) get their senior citizens off welfare, or (c) cut defense. Realistically, outside of libertarian land, they’ll probably have to do all three, because it’s unlikely cuts alone will be politically feasible.
Actually, it’s unlikely any of this will be politically feasible. And as my colleague Mike Brock has pointed out to me, the assumptions underlying the New York Times model are extremely optimistic. As the dollar loses value, the cost of financing the debt will rise, making it even harder to close budget gaps in the years ahead.
This all comes back to some of the reasons I repudiate the Tea Party movement. The people in the movement were silent, or even cheered, as George W. Bush spent money like a drunken sailor. Now that a black guy is in charge, they’re angry about spending, and I’m sure their belated timing is just a coincidence.
Except that when you ask them or their favourite politicians to be specific about what they would cut, defense, Medicare, and Social Security are immediately off the table, even though balancing the budget without making some cuts in these areas looks impossible.
Yet they claim to be worried about out-of-control government spending. Yeah, that’s what they say. Do you believe that’s what they’re really worried about? I don’t.
Obama may be the wrong colour for Tea Party types, but I don’t believe that they are motivated by skin colour. Rather, the problem is that he’s blue. Obama is a Democrat, and too often fiscal conservatives don’t really care about fiscal conservatism as they do about red team boosterism.
Look at our own case here. Harper has spent more than anyone, and so-called fiscal conservatives, rather than screaming bloody traitorous murder, are busy making excuses for him. Make literally everything the same (same identical policies) over the past bunch of years, but pretend the Liberals oversaw it, and you’d have a full-scale bona fide Canadian Tea Party movement.
It will take a lot of evidence to persuade me that the Tea Party movement has anything at all to do with race (over and above whatever the prevailing percentage of racists there are out there).
Oh, I’m sure the red team/blue team thing contributes, both in Canada and the U.S.
But there’s a difference, and it’s a big one. If you look at what the conservatives are actually saying in the U.S., they’re not just upset that Obama is spending money. They think he’s spending money with the intention of destroying the United States.
Why does Obama want to destroy the United States? Oh, pick a reason. He’s a Muslim, and Muslims hate America. He’s a radical socialist who wants to overthrow capitalism. Etc.
These are just some of the sentiments you find in the Tea Party, but they all come down to Obama being a wicked interloper, an enemy alien who is fundamentally opposed to America.
That’s not just fiscal conservatism. And if Michael Ignatieff had run up a deficit, as in your thought experiment, I doubt we’d see it here — despite the fact that Ignatieff is in some ways more of an “alien” than Obama is.
So how do you explain it? Mere partisanship? That can explain why conservatives were silent when Bush was in charge. It can maybe even explain why they’re yelling now. But it can’t easily explain what they’re yelling.
Terrence: could you please do yourself a favor and read what real conservatives are saying about Obama is the WSJ or other respectable sources, not just the Birchers on WorldNutDaily or the ones in your head. Reason Magazine has also repudiated the ‘racist Tea Bagger’ line
It should be noted also that, while the TP should have started earlier, it actually started under Bush’s TARP. Also, as noted in Reason, many Republicans are starting to question military spending. Sorry to step on your prejudices.
Cytotoxic: So you’re defining “real conservatives” here as those who have access to high-end mainstream media? How does that jibe with the “everyman” slant of the Tea Party as a whole?
It doesn’t. I never claimed that the TP was perfect or even non-hypocritical. It isn’t. But it’s sure as hell not racist and any suggestion it is is pure douchebaggery. Also, the TP is still the only ticket in town for those seriously interested in limiting government as opposed to endless purity tests and intellectual preening.
As an American who grew up in a state that’s red with blue polka dots on its more liberal days and now lives in a state that’s an outright sea of rouge, I know that team bias has something to do with the Tea Party. However, simple team bias has never been anything like this during my lifetime.
I can’t see any other factor that could account for the difference other the combination of Obama’s race, family’s religious background, and “furrin-soundin’” name. It’s easy to not take the impact of Birthers and similar groups seriously, but that impact has not been a small one, based on what I’ve seen. I’ve seen too many people swayed by them…and many of those people have become part of or sympathizers with the Tea Party.
As much as I don’t want to cast doubt on the hypocrisy of the average Tea Partier, I was able to balance the budget without raising medicare eligability above 68, increasing the retirement age, or cutting the military. I also didn’t have to fire any federal employees, or raise taxes (though I offset tax cuts with a carbon tax–I could have avoided this if I wanted to).
The biggest problem with the Tea Party is their hypocrisy on issues like farm subsidies, and home mortgage deductions. If I’d taken those two out (and factor out the carbon tax, which they’ll never allow), I would have had to cut social security and/or the military. In other words, you’ve actually underestimated the range of issues on which Tea Partiers are hypocrites.
Here are my results: http://t.co/dgqeqDW
Steve, ha, you’re absolutely correct.
There’s no way in hell I should have allowed farm subsidy reduction. Good point.