McCain and Policy

Tyler Cowen ponders John McCain's health care proposals for a bit and then muses:

Trade aside, so far I've yet to see many actual policy proposals from the McCain camp. Mostly I've seen attempts to signal that they won't do anything too offensive to the party's right wing. Very few of these trial balloons seem to be ideas that McCain had expressed much previous loyalty to. I don't even think we should be analyzing these statements as policy proposals. We should be wondering why the Republican Party has given up on the idea of policy proposals.

I'm a little unclear on how this happened myself -- the GOP seems to have decided to blow a not-very-appealing idiosyncratic element of George W. Bush's personality into some kind of principled objection to policy proposals. Meanwhile, I understand that free traders are not very impressed with Democratic rhetoric these days but I think it'd be generous to describe this as a policy proposal:

John McCain Will Lower Barriers To Trade. Ninety-five percent of the world's customers lie outside our borders and we need to be at the table when the rules for access to those markets are written. To do so, the U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules. These steps would also strengthen the U.S. dollar and help to control the rising cost of living that hurts our families.

There doesn't seem to be a recognition here that the multilateral WTO trade process has basically run aground. But it's run aground. A president who wants to lower barriers to trade in a way that's economically significant (as opposed to, say, the Colombia deal) needs some bright ideas about how to do this. In McCain's defense, such ideas are hard to come by, but if you want to tell people that lowering trade barriers is an important part of your economic strategy then you need some.

Comments

Matt, you're right.

I'm a free-trader myself, and not just a little chagrined at the Democrats' positions on trade (I like most everything else). But the last DOHA-round died for a number of reasons, only one of which was French intrasigence. And Sarko, for all his change rhetoric, simply cannot afford to open up the French agricultural industry. There are other matters I will not go into here.

But yes, the next big wave of deals will be bilateral or perhaps regional bloc multi-laterals. And these will weaken the incentives for full international-wide agreements. However, we are in a race with other countries to mutually lower tariff barriers. We need to win that race, and the protectionism the Democrats offer is inadequate.

But, Matt is right, McCain's rhetoric about pursuing further WTO talks is empty and pretty unfeasible at this point.

Posted by Kuros | April 30, 2008 1:27 PM

the GOP seems to have decided to blow a not-very-appealing idiosyncratic element of George W. Bush's personality into some kind of principled objection to policy proposals.

But even Bush had policy proposals when he ran for President: tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, Social Security privatization, and so on. Even after election time he came up with an immigration policy proposal, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, etc. Bush may have not been very interested in policy the way that, say, Bill Clinton was, but he surely had them.

Posted by right | April 30, 2008 1:28 PM

Bush explicitly denied that he had any interest in SS privatization, at least in 2004.

Posted by Tyro | April 30, 2008 1:39 PM

You don't need policy proposals to win the presidency. You just need to mumble some platitudes about what you favor and what you oppose. That's one reason why dems always have an uphill battle. They actually try to convince the voting populace of the merits of their ideas. That's why I always sum up the contemporary problem for Dems when it comes to the presidency (as opposed to local elections): Dems want to win on the merits of their policy. Republicans just want to win.

Posted by DH in DC | April 30, 2008 1:44 PM

If you read my recent column, you learn that voters choose in the Democratic primary based on who has the lengthiest policy proposals, but that this rule is not followed in the general election. That's why Hillary beat Obama in Pennsylvania, and not for any other reasons at all, but also why I straight-facedly claim that McCain will beat Obama in the general election: because the same demographic of white, working-class voters who choose based on detailed policy proposals now will not do so in the future. Unless Hillary is running, in which case they will.

I think I should win another award for discovering that.

Posted by Paul Krugman | April 30, 2008 1:53 PM

What are these people talking about?

There are health care policy proposals all over McCain's website. The amount of detail is not different than the amount of detail Barack Obama provides.

Apparently Matthew and Tyler Cowen are too clueless to go looking for the policy proposals.

Posted by Al | April 30, 2008 1:57 PM

One of the things you noted in your book, Matt is that the Democrats in the 80s and on seemed to have conceded that foreign policy was a strength of the GOP and moved away from it. Seems now that the GOP has conceded that domestic policy is the Democrats' domain and they're receding on that stage prefering to push foriegn policy (ie Iraq).

Of course, I think we can see the obvious disadvatages in this strategy.

Posted by teethwriter | April 30, 2008 2:11 PM

There doesn't seem to be a recognition here that the multilateral WTO trade process has basically run aground. But it's run aground. A president who wants to lower barriers to trade in a way that's economically significant (as opposed to, say, the Colombia deal) needs some bright ideas about how to do this

I don't see what the issue is here. Trade deals don't need any special wonkery to negotiate, just favorable political circumstances. Given that McCain is advocating working outside of the WTO framework as well as within it (which we should continue to do even if it is stalled) and is making a rhetorical defense of trade, there's not much else he can do beyond agitate for restoring fast track (which is essentially dead as long as the Democrats control congress) or propose dropping barriers unilaterally (which is politically unviable). And his position of more or less the status quo regarding trade deals is a sharp contrast to the protectionism coming from the Dems these days.

Posted by MattXIV | April 30, 2008 2:16 PM

For examplem McCain's health care proposal yesterday: let people who can't choose choose their own kind of health care.

Marie Antoinette could have done no more.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 30, 2008 2:27 PM

This is almost certainly because those specific policy proposals would be wildly unpopular.

Posted by mickslam | April 30, 2008 2:40 PM

Doha is broke because of Ag subsidies and fishing. Neither the US or the EU will budge on either. The French are the perpetrators on Ag and the Spanish and Portuguese are the perpetrators on fishing.

Posted by Bubba | April 30, 2008 4:43 PM

I might just add, there is a difference Matt between the WTO and bilateral FTA's. And, there is an argument in the trade world that is being proferred that the WTO as a body is dead, primarily because the US and EU do not want to live up to the findings of the Dispute Settlement Body. There is a move towards regional integration, except in the America's. Where north and south regional integration will only be allowed on the US's terms. So for instance, one of the significant reasons that the Colombia FTA is important is why the Peru FTA was important, and that was to break up the Andean Region (which was rather weak anyways). So now, Ecuador and Bolivia are isolated and would be in poor negotiating positions were they to undertake bilateral trade negotiations themselves. It is a basic strategy of divide and conquer. With the U.S. having FTA's with Chile, Peru, and Colombia, Ecuador (a dollarized economy would have to fall in line), Bolivia could probably hold out for a longer period. Then the US will likely move to negotiate with Uruguay, who is being mistreated in MERCOSUR by the Argentines and Brazilians. So the only S. Americans left will be the commies and intrasigents. Which would then force the FTAA negotiations back to the table. It is not really sinister, moreso strategery.

Posted by Bubba | April 30, 2008 4:56 PM

Anyone who thinks that McCain's healthcare website: (http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm) contains policy... should read it again.

It contains one policy, specific tax credits for buying health insurance... perhaps two, if you consider "encourage and expand... health savings accounts" an actual policy.

All the rest are merely platitudes that try and look like policy ideas, "make sure they get the high-quality coverage they need"... "Proposes Making Insurance More Portable" and so on, without saying how he'll actually do any of those things.

McCain has no health care policy... he and his colleagues don't want one.

Posted by Jim G | May 1, 2008 8:24 AM