JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 2, 2011
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Michelle Bachmann thinks the national debt is like the Holocaust:
Rep. Michele Bachmann invoked the Holocaust Saturday morning as she described the tax burden that America's next generation will face unless action is taken to reduce federal spending and the national debt.
The Minnesota Republican told more than 200 Republicans gathered at a meeting of conservatives that she recalled learning about the Holocaust as a young girl and being horrified that many Americans didn't learn until after World War II that millions of Jews were killed.
Bachmann, careful to note that there was no direct analogy in today's times to the Holocaust, still tied the loss of "economic liberty" that Americans face today to the systematic killing of six million European Jews.
"We are seeing eclipsed in front of our eyes a similar death and a similar taking away," Bachmann said. "It is this disenfranchisement that I think we have to answer to."
It's worth noting that, when republicans invoke the horrors of the national debt, they don't actually mean the national debt. They mean big government.
Here's one way to think about this. Among Democrats, you have a split between moderates who consider the deficit a huge problem, and liberals who consider it a less urgent problem. The moderates generally believe the threat of the deficit is so severe that it's worth cutting a deal to reduce it, even if that means making a lot of spending cuts they'd rather not make. Liberals may favor doing something about the deficit, but they tend to be less willing to sacrifice their priorities to make a deal.
On the Republican side, everyone is hysterical about the deficit. But the most concerned Republicans -- the ones most likely to copare the deficit to, say, the Holocaust, or some other extremely dire, non-fiscal crisis -- tend to be the least interested in cutting a deal to reduce it. Indeed, it's the Bachmanns and the Paul Ryans who most feverishly insistent on hewing to the party's anti-tax orthodoxy. They are left arguing that the debt threatens to destroy American civilization, but they would rather leave it unaddressed than agree to even a dime of higher taxes.
In my Newsweek column from a few weeks ago, I argued that Ryan sees the coming fiscal crisis not as the gap between revenue and outlay but as the prophecy of Atlas Shrugged come to life -- an overbearing government punishing the productive to aid the unproductive and precipitating a total collapse:
When Ryan warns of the specter of collapse, he is not merely referring to the alarming gap between government outlays and receipts, as his admirers in the media assume. (Every policy change of the last decade that increased the deficit—the Bush tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—Ryan voted for.) He is also invoking Rand’s almost theological certainty that when a government punishes the strong to reward the weak, it must invariably collapse. That is the crisis his Path to Prosperity seeks to avert.
If you try to take figures like Bachmann, Ryan and and the rest at their word when they claim to fear the rise of debt, almost nothing they have ever done in public life makes any sense. But if you view them as using the debt to stand in for their beliefs about the propoer size of government, then it all makes sense.
17 comments
It is tax cuts that cause a loss of liberty. In the face of diminished revenues, Government has to ramp up collection efforts to compensate and the federal courts are inclined to go along, which means less civil liberties when those liberties conflict with revenue collection. After 8 years of Bush tax cuts, in 2009 and for the first time, tax foreclosures made the top ten list of litigated issues in the federal courts. And there is much more evidence of that sort of thing beyond the space permitted.
- Nusholtz
May 2, 2011 at 9:57am
"Rand’s almost theological certainty that when a government punishes the strong to reward the weak, it must invariably collapse. " Actually, I think Rand's theological certainty is more "any government 'taking' constitutes punishing the strong, probably for no better reason than to reward the undeserving and weak." That it leads inevitably to collapse is the necessary "so what" that justifies what is at core a visceral dislike of any constraints on wealth and power.
- IowaBeauty
May 2, 2011 at 10:09am
In Germany, a politician who used that analogy in public debate would be an ex-politician by the end of the week.
- ironyroad
May 2, 2011 at 11:01am
Wait, Michelle Bachman's utterances are intended to convey meaning? Are we sure about that?
- miceelf
May 2, 2011 at 11:44am
I think Chait actually gives this crowd far too much credit by accepting that they have some ideology other than plunder. They don't. They lie incessantly in order to line the pockets, and enhance the power, of themselves and their class. That is all.
- roidubouloi
May 2, 2011 at 12:29pm
Obviously, any Republican ideological opposition to taxes trumps ideological opposition to deficits. On the one hand, they should about nation-endangering fiscal armageddon requiring drastic action. But then they refuse to ask a single thing of those who have the most to avert this looming catastrophe. And their only justification is supply-side theory which is unsupported by actual data. Unlike roid, I think at least some people really believe this stuff. Today's NY Times reports on a New York "town hall" where Representative Michael Grimm touted the old line about how across-the-board tax cuts would increase revenue. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/opinion/02mon4.html And where's my unicorn? So yes, some Republicans are seriously worried about the deficit. But not as worried as they are about any tax hike, on anyone, anywhere.
- dsimon
May 2, 2011 at 1:37pm
Again the ideologues don't disappoint. R. is almost a crackerjack Marxist in his "their class" talk. He apparently missed the fact that the really wealthy ($10 million and up) went for Barack Obama by about two-thirds. What happened to their class consciousness? It was the "little Napoleons" (as my longtime friend, Michael G., from my college days, calls them), those whose wealth ranged from $1 to $10 million who went lopsidedly for John McCain. And there are all kinds of conservatives and Tea Partiers who are not wealthy but who support tax cuts for the wealthy. R.'s cardboard stereotypes collapse of their own weight.
- liberalref
May 2, 2011 at 2:44pm
Of course starboard ideologues believe this nonsense, ds. Kudos to you for your comment.
- liberalref
May 2, 2011 at 2:52pm
Of course starboard ideologues believe this nonsense, ds. Kudos to you for your comment.
- liberalref
May 2, 2011 at 2:55pm
lib is unable to distinguish between professional politicians and rank-and-file Republicans who truly do believe all sorts of outlandish things. This consistent confusion on his part is but one of the tics that renders his remarks here so reliably pointless. He imagines we are in a world "where good people just happen to disagree" and that this suffices to explain our politics. Not hardly. Among many other things, lib is unable to observe the circulation of money that enforces party discipline in the GOP.
- roidubouloi
May 2, 2011 at 6:13pm
lib is also confused in that he thinks "class" is synonymous with tax bracket. It isn't. Sociology appears to be one of the many disciplines about which lib knows nothing at all. Someday perhaps we will discover some subject about which he does know something, if only a little bit.
- roidubouloi
May 2, 2011 at 6:15pm
roid and liberalref, I don't see that it has to be an either/or situation. There may be elements of both aspects. Rand Paul likely believes the ideological bs; Mitch McConnell, maybe not so much. Anyway, of interest might be a Slate article from 2004, "Millionaires for Bush, Billionaires for Kerry." http://www.slate.com/id/2108136/ Also, I don't know why the site ate my prior link, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/opinion/02mon4.html, to the NY Times article. Personally, I enjoy reading both roid's and liberalref's posts--at least when they're not sniping at each other personally....
- dsimon
May 2, 2011 at 11:33pm
I am deeply skeptical dsimon about whether the GOP party professionals believe all this nonsense. At best, I think they are completely indifferent to truth and falsity and interested solely in political opportunism, what they can usefully sell to the unwashed. Most of the time, I think they know better and are lying shamelessly.
- roidubouloi
May 3, 2011 at 12:29am
roid, I agree that it seems preposterous that GOP leaders really believe economic theories that not only make little sense on their own but fly in the face of repeatedly conflicting evidence. On the other hand, running and holding major elective office is such a huge pain in the ass that I think it requires some sense of public purpose, at least for most people. A lot of these folks could be making a lot more (and working less) in other jobs--though there's always the chance of a lucrative lobbying position after one leaves office. So I'm not so quick to dismiss the bona fides of the opposition. As Chait noted some time ago, when people with deeply held beliefs are faced with contradictory information, they often double down on their beliefs rather than adjust them to conform with reality. http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/78590/when-in-doubt-double-down But regardless of the motivation, I agree that the policy results are the same: a huge tilt of societal wealth to the already wealthy. It is amazing to watch Republicans decry "class warfare" when they're the ones asking sacrifice from everyone except from those who have the most, so I understand your skepticism. But if their ideology requires no new taxes on anyone, anytime, for any reason, then the wealthy are necessarily excluded from any budget debate because the only way they can help with the problem is to pay a little (or a lot) more.
- dsimon
May 3, 2011 at 9:13am
Perhaps. But I don't think you need much in the way of economic theory to realize that the Federal government cannot successfully be cut in half in order to eliminate the current operating deficit. Do Republican officeholders really believe that the budget can be balanced without tax increases? I doubt it. The truth rather is that they don't actually care whether the budget is balanced (Cheney said so) but find anti-deficit rhetoric politically opportune. If one is completely indifferent to the negative consequences of policy choices, because they aid favored groups and the costs are borne by others, how would you characterize that? Is that ideology or looting?
- roidubouloi
May 3, 2011 at 9:35am
Also, at what point does it become irrelevant whether they are so crazy they believe their own nonsense? Is it important that Hitler (yes, it is that time again) truly believed his own ideological claims? Do we really have to concern ourselves with whether these people are authentically crazy or shameless liars?
- roidubouloi
May 3, 2011 at 9:36am
roid: "Do Republican officeholders really believe that the budget can be balanced without tax increases? I doubt it." Maybe. I only claim that their anti-tax ideology evidently trumps their alleged budget concerns, whatever the reason. "Do we really have to concern ourselves with whether these people are authentically crazy or shameless liars?" Probably not. As I wrote above, the outcome is the same regardless of motivation. If their positions are based on faulty factual assumptions or bad reasoning, then there would be some hope for moderation. If they're ideologically fixated, then no amount of evidence or reasoning will change their minds. If they're shameless liars, then no facts or arguments will do any good. So in those latter two cases, the only option is to vote enough of them out. One would hope that enough of the public would see the factually false ideology and/or shameless lying for what they're worth. Unfortunately, a lot of people want to believe a good story (such as a world where lower taxes increases revenues) too.
- dsimon
May 3, 2011 at 11:27am