Matt Bai, the New York Times Magazine's political reporter, illustrates the essential formula for "objective" journalism: all criticisms must be balanced with praise, no matter how strained or implausible. That gives rise to incoherence like this:
Unlike most of his Democratic detractors, Bush has shown the vision to rethink time-honored orthodoxy, even at his own political peril; no matter what his critics may say, it took no small amount of courage to ask if Social Security could be stronger than it is or if the tax code could be simpler and less punitive. He recognizes that government should be more flexible and more consumer-oriented. But in every specific case, it seems, Bush has quickly settled on solutions that aim to dismantle government rather than to improve it and that leave the average family more insecure rather than more enabled. In Bush's version of the "ownership society," those who already own nice homes and stock portfolios get to make more choices about their health care and retirement, while everyone else gets to take his chances.
This is just nonsense. It certainly took political courage for Bush to try to alter Social Security, but Bai's framing of what happened is all wrong. The President did not "ask if Social Security could be stronger than it is," nor did he "quickly settle" on a solution that "aim[s] to dismantle government." Instead, since 2000, Bush had backed individual accounts, which would inherently weaken the program's finances by diverting payroll tax dollars away from the trust fund. Everyone knew it. And so it should not have been surprising that the overall package that he ultimately advanced would have moved the program's date of insolvency forward to 2030. It's not like the president went into the debate with an open mind.
Similarly, the account of Bush's tax cuts is bizarre. It took no courage to push through the 2001 tax cut at a time when the surplus seemed huge and permanent. Indeed, the courageous politicians tried to warn against trusting overly optimistic revenue projections, to little avail. And President Bush's 2003 tax cut was courageous only in the sense that it takes chutzpah to suggest that the way to stimulate the economy is by reducing taxes on dividends. Bush had just swept the 2002 elections, and Democrats were demoralized.
More importantly, as before, President Bush did not "quickly settle" on the 2001 plan; it was the central plank of his 2000 campaign. And rather than adjust to changing circumstances as the economy stalled, he simply reframed the plan, which was originally supposed to return the surplus to taxpayers, as a recession-fighter.
In short, President Bush may have gone into both debates seeking to dismantle government by phasing out Social Security and driving the government into deficit. These are openly stated goals of many of his allies. Bai ignores this possibility, asserting that Bush's intentions were pure, but that he just happened to choose policies that advanced the conservative goal of dismantling the federal government.
As happens all too often, "objective" journalism is getting in the way of the facts.
It's not "incoherence" Brendan. The only words that describe it cannot be printed in a family weblog...
:-)
Posted by: Brad DeLong | January 29, 2006 at 07:03 PM