David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
My friend David Brooks keeps arguing for "energetic" government of the kind George Washington and Abraham Lincoln gave us. To which, as Ricochet readers may recall, I've replied that if David is willing to shrink federal spending to proportion of GDP it represented when Lincoln took office, I'd be willing to give him just as energetic a government as he'd like.
Now I see that Charles Murray replied to David this past autumn:
[W]here does David get the idea that the “energetic government” he lauds in the administrations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln was more or less the same thing conceptually as 'energetic government' now, on a somewhat smaller scale?
There's no need to go all the way back to Abraham Lincoln, Murray argues, to observe a federal government that remained fundamentally limited.
[C]onsider the federal budget in 1963, on the eve of President Lyndon Johnson’s ascension to power. In 2008, dollars, as are all the numbers that follow, the federal government spent $782 billion that year, almost half of which went to defense. The entire federal government spent just $259 billion on domestic non-defense items (I exclude interest payments on the national debt). In 2008, while we were still under the compassionately conservative eye of President George W. Bush instead of the spendthrift liberals, the same domestic non-defense items amounted to $1.7 trillion. Shall we remove Social Security from that calculation? Then the numbers go from $150 billion in 1963 to $1.1 trillion in 2007—a sevenfold increase.
You don’t increase spending by those amounts without changing the role of government in ways that go to the heart of the American project. That truth is reflected in the qualitative record. In 1963, 30 years after the New Deal started, the federal government still played little role in vast swathes of American life, from K-12 education to the way people went about providing goods and services to their fellow citizens. We can argue about which of the subsequent interventions were warranted and which were not, but not about this: The way that presidents and Congresses see their power to intervene in American life in 2010 is profoundly different from the way they saw it in 1963. In 1963, among mainstream Democrats as well as Republicans, it was accepted that an overarching purpose of the American Constitution was to limit the arenas in which government could act. Now, the recognition of that purpose has all but disappeared—in the executive branch, in the Supreme Court, and in Congresses controlled by Republicans as well as by Democrats.
The change in size or degree of the federal government has indeed represented a change in kind--and the change took place during the lifetime of perhaps half of Americans alive today, including David Brooks.
(Hat tip to my Powerline friend, Scott Johnson.)
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Jul '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Man, Charles Murray can write.
Makes me feel like trashing my keyboard and doing something socially-useful that's within the scope of my pathetically-limited abilities.
May '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
I share the puzzlement of Brooks' critics on this issue. So often it seems as though he doesn't even particularly care what this energetic government does so long as it can fit under the "national greatness" banner.
One counterargument I've never seen marshaled against Brooks is this one: the federal government is as subject to he law of diminishing returns as any other entity. Various energetic things it's done in the past – the Hoover dam, the interstate highway system, etc. – were undertaken first because they were glaring needs with huge payoffs. Obviously America still has infrastructure needs.
But being a tremendously prosperous nation, we've already done most of the obvious stuff. What we need now isn't a tremendously energetic government so much as a nimble, cost-efficient, functional government that does as much maintaining as it does dreaming.
Edited on Dec 7, 2010 at 1:09pmRe: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Conor Friedersdorf
One counterargument I've never seen marshaled against Brooks is this one: the federal government is as subject to he law of diminishing returns as any other entity. Various energetic things it's done in the past – the Hoover dam, the interstate highway system, etc. – were undertaken first because they were glaring needs with huge payoffs. Obviously America still has infrastructure needs.
But being a tremendously prosperous nation, we've already done most of the obvious stuff. What we need now isn't a tremendously energetic government so much as a nimble, cost-efficient, functional government that does as much maintaining as it does dreaming. · Dec 7 at 12:55pm
Extremely good point. And you're right: When pressed, the only example of "energetic government" David offers--to the best of my recollection, anyway--all involve infrastructure. That stuff has been done.
Oct '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
I understand this is typical David Brooks but I'm at a loss to understand what drives him. My dad watches him every Friday on PBS with Mark Shields and I can hardly tell the difference between them and their "analysis" of the news. I've noticed hints of an elitist sentiment in his appearances and columns. He seems to propose the diet alternative to whatever the Democrats are pursuing. But what is the essential David Brooks?
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
That's exactly what I find frightening about the "national greatness" banner.
Edited on Dec 7, 2010 at 1:24pmSep '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Peter Robinson
Extremely good point. And you're right: When pressed, the only example of "energetic government" David offers--to the best of my recollection, anyway--all involve infrastructure. That stuff has been done. · Dec 7 at 1:09pm
In his 1997 national greatness "Manifesto" he hints at a "federal art program that would reflect glory on America." (The Weekly Standard put the piece behind a paywall, I only found it reposted on the blog I linked to.)
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
I find it troubling that Brooks uses as the basis of his argument in favor of "big government," the phrase "energetic government" as it is clearly being borrowed from Hamilton's Federalist 70. In that paper, Hamilton articulated what constitutes an energetic executive, a necessity in his opinion for good government, an argument advanced by the next few papers as well. Brooks uses Hamilton's articulation "energetic executive = good government" and turns it into "energetic government = good government."
While Hamilton argued for a strong and unitary executive (Yoo writes beautifully on this topic in general), those arguments are limited to that office and not to the government writ large. It is a requirement that the Executive act with energy, secrecy, and dispatch in order to be effective. Some things must be done quickly. In the American Republic, the tendency of the energy of the Executive (Locke's Prerogative Powers) to become absolute power are limited by the other branches of government. Congress controls the purse, the Courts protect rights -- even those not articulated in the Bill of Rights as the Federalist did not believe in enumerated rights.
The Executive should be energetic. "Government" should be almost torpid.
Jul '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Peter, with due respect, Lincoln massively expanded the Federal Debt.
The Union couldn't live off the Confederate teat during the War of Northern Aggression.
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
He's a Bobo.
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Peter Hintz
In his 1997 national greatness "Manifesto" he hints at a "federal art program that would reflect glory on America."
He betrays no awareness that in our present political culture, such programs are likely to end up featuring more urine and elephant dung than real art.
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Paul DeRocco
Peter Hintz
In his 1997 national greatness "Manifesto" he hints at a "federal art program that would reflect glory on America."
He betrays no awareness that in our present political culture, such programs are likely to end up featuring more urine and elephant dung than real art. · Dec 7 at 6:47pm
What are you talking about? The urine and elephant dung are real art.
The pretty paintings are just for philistines.
May '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Paul DeRocco
Peter Hintz
In his 1997 national greatness "Manifesto" he hints at a "federal art program that would reflect glory on America."
He betrays no awareness that in our present political culture, such programs are likely to end up featuring more urine and elephant dung than real art. · Dec 7 at 6:47pm
For people like David Brooks, the greatness of America is not measured by the presence or absence of urine and dung in our art, nor by the amount of art produced, but rather by the size of the mandarinate that guides and controls the production of art. No mandarinate, no greatness. (And, most important, no job prospects for Mr. Brooks.)
May '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
That's exactly what I find frightening about the "national greatness" banner. · Dec 7 at 1:18pm
Edited on Dec 07 at 01:24 pm
Conor is right that much of the low-haning fruit has been harvested, and that there is indeed an immutable law of diminishing returns in every area of endeavor.
But I remind that the class the oft-derided PNAC/"neocon" view so often trashed here is largely about foreign policy and freedom, not Brooks' NEA dreams. The relevant issue is what the US can do to- for lack of a better short description "clone itself"- in the world as opposed to wallowing in a narrow, self-absorbed profligate consumer culture, not about replicating "All Things Considered" out to 24 hour a day coverage or August Wilson In The Park drama groups.
Aug '10
Re: David Brooks, Rebuked (Politely)
Duane Oyen
The relevant issue is what the US can do to- for lack of a better short description "clone itself"- in the world as opposed to wallowing in a narrow, self-absorbed profligate consumer culture, not about replicating "All Things Considered" out to 24 hour a day coverage or August Wilson In The Park drama groups.
If the American people are bent on a good wallow in life's earthly pleasures, by what right does the government stop them? How does the government effectively stop them, for that matter, without taking a whole lotta the good aspects of prosperity and freedom along with?
Cultural rebuilding has to come from within people's hearts. It can't be imposed from on high -- at least, not without great suffering (see Peter the Great).
I think the best thing that government can do to facilitate cultural rebuilding is to return control of people's lives to themselves and their local communities. That is, freedom (educational freedom, for example) and federalism. Beyond that, I fear the government cannot go.
For self-government begins with governing the self, and no one else can do that for you.