Can't Do Conservatism

Paul Krugman describes "the core" of Bush's philosophy:

Now, why should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead to a further “federalization” of health care, even though nothing like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan? It’s not because he thinks the plans wouldn’t work. It’s because he’s afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can’t do the same for adults.

The subject, of course, is the proposed addition of funding for S-CHIP so that the program can, in practice, expand coverage to all the currently eligible children. As Brian Beutler explains, "the SCHIP extension will be paid for with revenue from increased tobacco taxes. The fear for conservatives is that it'll work so well that people will begin to realize that it might be worth paying for broader reforms with broader taxes." Unfortunately, the public opinion data does tend to suggest that Bush's staggering achievements in the field of maladministration have, in fact, boosted public skepticism of government capacity to do anything at all to some extent.

One way of thinking about what the country's experienced since the fall of 2001 is just large-scale consequences of perverse incentives. We have a president whose ideological goals on the domestic front are, on some level, advanced every time he screws up, with his own failures, his own corruption, providing evidence for the correctness of his ideology. Meanwhile, on the security front, his own inability to tackle the al-Qaeda problem -- and, indeed, the fact that his policies are making the problem worse -- serve to heighten a climate of fear that his advisers regard as political useful.

Comments

You think that W is screwing up on purpose in order to advance his cause? You're thinking too hard and not hard enough. It's not so complicated. He's screwing up because he's a screw-up. And if he really wanted to screw up to advance his cause, it would be far too complex a strategy for him (or anyone else short of God, for that matter) to pull off without screwing it up.

Posted by ostap | July 30, 2007 11:35 AM

This argument (about GOP incompetency actually helping their cause) has been made before, and there's some truth to it, but I think it's too clever by half.

The conclusion is true only if one envisions a situation where the Democrats are essentially silent and public opinion is driven entirely by watching the GOP. There is a tidy logic to the premise that Bush's failures will cause the public to lose faith in government. But public attitudes rarely follow these kinds of tidy logic. This seems to be another of these bad ideas that liberals become enamored with, like the notion that people will naturally put pocketbook issues over emotional ones.

About the only thing I'll complement the GOP on is that they don't worry about these kind of clever ideas, they just decide on what they want to achieve, then set out to win enough support to do it. Republican thinking has been very libertarian, and often isolationist, for the past 25 years. Yet the GOP had no problem turning around and arguing their case for war despite this. (Nevermind that it was a lousy argument regardless!) If the war had been a stunning success would people have decided that maybe the Dems were right about all the other things government can do? I doubt it.

The best way for Dems to win is to not go wringing their hands about Bush's "can't lose" conundrum but to argue forcefully that we simply cannot afford to let Republicans have power. Nail them on this, and all these libertarian ideological issues are secondary.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that conservatives always seem to grasp better than liberals.

Posted by Kurt | July 30, 2007 11:37 AM

At least in the first term, there was a perverse incentive where claiming additional powers for himself and making civil libertarians scream enhanced his poll numbers regardless of the success of these measures. Rather than being a tradeoff between liberty and security, taking away liberty became an end in and of itself.

Not sure if that still applies.

Posted by Consumatopia | July 30, 2007 11:40 AM

Your "one way of thinking" would seem to hold to the status quo.

I don't think that's where most Americans are, either.

Posted by bird | July 30, 2007 11:42 AM

Come again? You can make more money with a flop than a hit!

Posted by MSB | July 30, 2007 11:42 AM

There is a tidy logic to the premise that Bush's failures will cause the public to lose faith in government. But public attitudes rarely follow these kinds of tidy logic.

It's not quite as simple a cause/effect thing as "Bush's failures will cause the public to lose faith in government", but it also can't be dismissed quite as thoroughly as you do. The reality is that Republican corruption and incompetence do have some impact on how some people see government in general (the clearest illustration of that was the aftermath of Watergate, when 'limited government' gained widespread public support).

The implications of this for Democrats is not that we should whine about it, but that we have to work that much harder to make the affirmative case for the value of government.

Posted by Tom Hilton | July 30, 2007 12:11 PM

P.J. O'Rourke observed -- and back in the Reagan years, yet! -- that Republicans insist that government doesn't work and then get elected and prove it.

Posted by Gregory | July 30, 2007 12:29 PM

I'm sure there's "some sense" in which this is true, but in the big picture it's totally false. Bush's incompetence has prevented him from getting much of his domestic agenda done (Social Security privatization, immigration, etc.).

Posted by Ron | July 30, 2007 12:32 PM

You discount the possibility that as soon as the government starts doing something to provide health care to uninsured children, these children will become slaves to the government and we all will lose our freedoms and liberty.

Posted by gregor | July 30, 2007 12:35 PM

On the matter of children's healthcare I think you will find the public is foot-stomping in favor of expanding SCHIP, which is why many Republican state office holders (legislators and governors) are also pushing for the expansion, given that they are closer to the voters and more likely to pay a price for ignoring their wishes.

Posted by Jonf | July 30, 2007 1:37 PM

Both you and Krugman seem to believe that Bush has a consistent anti-government ideology. Given that two of Bush's major domestic initiatives were an increase in federal control of education and the creation of a new entitlement program, I think that this assumption is false-to-fact.

It's true that the Republican coalition had a libertarian component from 1964 until the 90s, but Bush and Rove seem pretty uninterested in that segment of their base. Libertarian-leaning Republicans were never wild about Bush, and were among the first to jump ship.

Posted by Cheerful Iconoclast | July 30, 2007 1:58 PM

C.I., you're right that Bush is not much of a federalist or a libertarian. His reason for opposing this measure, then, might be due to the fact that it is not a sop to his contributors. The entitlement program was a policy disaster, in terms of balancing costs and benefits, but it did enrich his contributors.

This theory admittedly doesn't do much to explain his education program. I think that's back when he tried to market himself as a compassionate conservative, and wanted to pass something, regardless of its real world impact, that he could tout as an accomplishment.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | July 30, 2007 2:18 PM

You and Krugman believe the government can run a efficient program, please check our postal system; 3 cent stamps now cost 41 cents. we all agree, is far poorer.
Please get off my president's back and show some loyalty toward our country and our fighting men and women.
As a Iwo Jima surviver,in 1 hour we lost twice the number of men as in all the Iraq. war on terrorism. You better check your figures on the Civil War.

Posted by harry grover | July 30, 2007 3:58 PM

Take your logic further, Matt. If Bush were to govern the country so poorly that the United States of America with the Constitution as its legal foundation ceased to exist, then the cost of all federal programs of a non-existent federal government would be zero. You can't shrink government any more than that.

Posted by synic | July 30, 2007 4:17 PM

"As a Iwo Jima surviver,in 1 hour we lost twice the number of men as in all the Iraq. war on terrorism. You better check your figures on the Civil War."

Posted by harry grover

Fresher bullsh*t, please.

Posted by Barry | July 30, 2007 4:31 PM

Elvis:

There's some evidence that the No Child Left Behind act was a sop to several important constituencies.

The emphasis on standardized testing would fatten the private enterprise test-prep industry, including (I seem to remember) a company co-owned by his brother and the incongruously pro-Bush Washington Post Company. What's more, the logical result of NCLB--most schools will wind up being labeled as failures over time as they can't have rising scores in every demographic segment every single year--will help support religious schools and private education companies.

Rather than incompetence being a feature of the Bush Administration, though, I think it's mostly a bug. The main problem is that they just don't care, one way or another, whether the government does anything other than make them and their cronies rich.

Posted by jlw | July 30, 2007 5:01 PM

"We have a president whose ideological goals on the domestic front are, on some level, advanced every time he screws up..."

I forget -- does counter-terrorism count as part of the domestic front? How about six years ago? I guess it must, since that screw-up certainly advanced his ideological goals.

Posted by Grumpy | July 30, 2007 5:07 PM

Tom,

My point is that public attitudes depend on a wide range of factors. Bush's failures -could- cause an overall loss of faith in govt that would hurt some Democratic goals - or that effect could get totally washed out by other considerations. The problem I have is that I think liberals are often seduced by clever or counterintuitive theories, particularly those that are somewhat fatalist about why liberals, through no fault of their own, will probably lose.

I see the logic in this point, but frankly I think that a much bigger issue in upcoming elections is how well the Dems go out and present their arguments. When the GOP wanted to go to war in Iraq they could've fretted about how ironic it was, given that they always oppose large scale govt action and nation building. One could logically have said they were not well suited to make this case. But I don't think they worried about that, they just went out and killed the left in the pre-war debate. So I think these tidy, logical threads are usually overrated in how well they predict how the politics actually plays out.

>The implications of this for Democrats is not
>that we should whine about it, but that we have
>to work that much harder to make the affirmative
>case for the value of government.

Actually I think it would be a bad strategy to get into a generic discussion about "the value of government", whether or not we "work harder" at it. This would just make the Dems look too idealistic and bring back all the standard Republican arguments. It makes a lot more sense to me to make the Republicans live up to all their failures of the past 7 years. We have real evidence of how bad the GOP is now and the Dems need to fit this into a framework that people will listen to. As for promoting new govt programs, I think it is best to focus on specific issues, like children's health insurance, where you can really hammer Republicans for opposing it.

Posted by Kurt | July 30, 2007 6:33 PM

If the schools were allowed to do their job, those nasty private tutoring schools wouldn't exist. However, they do exist just as the piss-poor public schools exist.
It's amazing that in education, private is always better quality whether it's private tutoring or private universities.
What's the difference? Well, some of it is just better students. Harvard puts out the best, in part, because they only accept the best. Even accounting for that, private education *still* is superior. This part is due to being able to fulfill their mission of education. They don't have special interest groups such as the teachers' unions influencing their decisions and they don't have other special interest groups (homosexual activists, racial identity groups, etc.) successfully using the public schools to further their agenda at the expense of the students.

More than more funding, the schools need freedom of the fear of federal lawsuits and control and power in the classroom to do their job.

Posted by Fred Jones | July 30, 2007 6:37 PM

Re: You and Krugman believe the government can run a efficient program, please check our postal system. 3 cent stamps now cost 41 cents.

Yes, and what's happened to the cost of, say housing, or, yes, healthcare since people used 3 stamps (when was that by the way? The Depression? I don't recall 3 cent postage, and I'm 40).And believe it or not I don't have any real complaint with the postal system. It certainly isn't my Worst Customer Service Experience Ever. Not even close. It's way down the line with places like fast food resturants, C-stores and Walmart holding the top slots.

Re: Please get off my president's back and show some loyalty toward our country and our fighting men and women.

The President is NOT the country, and he deserves none of the respect that our armed forces merit. I donkt knwo where you live, but I live in a democracy where leaders must earn my respect not demand it by virtue of their office. George W Bush has earned nothing from me but enough contempt to last until the 25th century dawns. I would sooner see Paris Hilton inhabit his office.

Posted by Jonf | July 30, 2007 7:35 PM

"What's the difference? Well, some of it is just better students. Harvard puts out the best, in part, because they only accept the best. Even accounting for that, private education *still* is superior. This part is due to being able to fulfill their mission of education. They don't have special interest groups such as the teachers' unions influencing their decisions and they don't have other special interest groups (homosexual activists, racial identity groups, etc.) successfully using the public schools to further their agenda at the expense of the students."

What was the reason behind the divide then before the 1960's? Teachers union strength? How strong were they? The non-existent gay lobby? The NAACP? You want better teachers, start treating teachers better so that higher-quality people with more relevant training become teachers. A strong union is just about the only thing that can allow for this.

"You and Krugman believe the government can run a efficient program, please check our postal system; 3 cent stamps now cost 41 cents. we all agree, is far poorer.
Please get off my president's back and show some loyalty toward our country and our fighting men and women.
As a Iwo Jima surviver,in 1 hour we lost twice the number of men as in all the Iraq. war on terrorism. You better check your figures on the Civil War."

You have to love how no point or idea connects here to the ones preceding or following it. It reminds me of an Onion headline along the lines of "War Veterans Who Fought for American Freedom Insist Americans Must Stop Exercising that Freedom." There is a generational divide that reflects poorly on you, not our commitment to our country nor our military.

Posted by Reality Man | July 31, 2007 4:12 AM

"It's amazing that in education, private is always better quality whether it's private tutoring or private universities."

Huh?!? Some numbers please? Outside of the Northeast, I think most private k-12 education is not that strong and in many cases is much lower quality than the public schools. Most private education institutions that stand out are the ones that have been in place longer than the public system and generally cost much more than public institutions. I would hope Harvard gives high-quality education, have you seen what tuition costs there?!?

Posted by Ricky | July 31, 2007 10:30 AM

Most people who CAN, send their kids to private schools in most parts of the country. I know this is not emperical evidence, but do your own survey amongst friends and peers and just ask them if they think public schools are quality or not. Then ask the same question of private education.

You seem to be the only person on the planet who thinks public education is on par with private education.

Posted by Fred Jones | July 31, 2007 12:11 PM