Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
I have a friend who played basketball in high school on the worst team in the area. It was a small, rural high school – and to get on the team, you basically had to show up in shorts and high tops. But during one terrible game, when the team was spazzing all over the court, the furious, frustrated coach called a time out. Gathered the team. And told them just to dribble and pass the ball downcourt a bit, then whoever had it, just put it down on the ground and run away.
"Just, see if you can do that," he said. "Let’s just see if you guys can do anything right. Anything basic."
So when I read this excellent, exhaustive post by Keith Hennessey on the Gang of Six plan, or this piece by the always great Jim Pethokoukis, the essential problem is this: it's impossible to trust any of these plans because it's impossible to trust the people making the plans. It's impossible to believe that future cuts in government spending will ever take place. And it's impossible to believe that the necessary, wrenching, unpopular entitlement reform that must take place for this country to thrive and grow into the next century will all somehow snap into focus by August 2nd.
We don't believe them. And that doesn't make us unreasonable. That makes us realistic.
Here's what I think the Republicans should do: dribble the ball downcourt a bit, and then put it down on the ground.
Something simple. Something basic. Cut, say, $500 billion. Cut, say, $250 billion. Cut, say $1 from the federal budget. Just that. Raise the debt ceiling -- that's got to happen; that's all about money we've already spent -- but do one simple, clear thing that says they understand that right now, it's a matter of re-earning the trust of the American people. And then get the Senate back, and the White House.
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Mar '11
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
I think this is a very good suggestion. Republicans historically agree to deals that will cut future spending and then the spending is not cut. In the Continuing Resolution debate cuts were agreed to cuts in the amount of several billion dollars that when the smoke and mirrors were removed were really only several million dollars.
We cannot fix all the problems in this fight for the debt ceiling. The best we can probably do is get no new taxes, a smaller but immediate and clear cuts. When they say we are cutting spending in the amount of $50 billion. That needs to be a hard number that actually happens. The agreement could be to cut 10 trillion dollars and it would not matter if the cuts never happen and are full of accounting tricks.
May '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Agreed.
As Steyn points out, it's not just American voters who need to be able to trust our politicians:
If you take the Gang’s figure of half-a-trillion dollars in immediate “aggressive deficit reduction” seriously, that represents about what the U.S. government borrows every four months. What’s “aggressive” about that? And what’s immediate about it? It’s all unspecified “discretionary spending caps” and “process reforms” that will collapse like soufflés ten minutes after the signing ceremony. ...
We are sending a consistent message to the world that the political structures of the United States do not allow for meaningful course correction. That does far more damage to the “full faith and credit” of America than failing to hike the debt ceiling.
And again:
The rest of the world isn’t looking for a grand bargain by August 2nd. And it knows enough about the decadent state of U.S. law-making to know that any such bargain would be voted through unread and begin to unravel by sun up on the 3rd.
Sep '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Rob Long:
Something simple. Something basic. Cut, say, $500 billion. Cut, say, $250 billion. Cut, say $1 from the federal budget. Just that. Raise the debt ceiling -- that's got to happen; that's all about money we've already spent -- but do one simple, clear thing that says they understand that right now, it's a matter of re-earning the trust of the American people. And then get the Senate back, and the White House. ·
I endorse this approach.
Anything that can be called a "grand compromise" is not only likely to be ineffective, but even worse it will allow the weasel Senators to run around waving worthless pieces of paper claiming "fiscal responsibility in our time!"
Jun '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
I have been working in this direction as well. The only imperative, the cuts have to be immediate and at least equal to the raise in the ceiling. That will keep us from being even worse off. Remember, as Peter posted yesterday, we are speaking about spending that took a one time emergency 850 Billion stimulus and proceeded to bake it into the baseline. Now we have, after two years of proflagacy beyond the original emergency and, walla walla bing bang, we have a 1.5 trillion deficit. This is total BS. And rather than coming to us on their knees, having failed anyone's idea of prudency, begging for forgiveness, these arrogant btards have the gall to call us selfish for not wanting to give them more of our hard earned cash. Phooey on them.
Dec '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Considering the history of our leadership from the ratification of the constitution until today, is there any evidence or reason to expect they can accomplish anything positive at all?
Mar '11
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
That's the reason I don't agree with Rob on a flatter income tax which, without understanding it fully, is what I think the gang of six plan is. I don't trust the gang of six - the top tax rates are reducing, deductions are removed, and the the total tax take goes up by over $1Trillion. Yeah, right.
Or, Rob's proposal for a sales tax to replace the income tax - it's obvious that the Democrats, and Rino squishes, long for the European tax system - high income tax, no deductions, AND high VAT.
Rob's proposal for a symbolic $1 spending cut has already been done by this Congress - we need a few Trillion more, and clear cutbacks in Big Government, before I will trust a Politician - I'm not holding my breath.
Edited on Jul 21, 2011 at 10:42amMar '11
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Trusting a politician is a bad idea. However if they are to gain any level of trust, it has to be earned in steps. The first step is not swearing to change the whole world order and then filling a few pages with accounting tricks.
If they say they are making a smaller but meaningful change and then do this without tricks or gimmicks then maybe they have more credibility on the next issue.
Nov '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
I'm continually amazed at how anyone can take these 10 year plans seriously. Any plan agreed to should be 2 years, 3 years tops.
From what I can make out some sort of cuts are being discussed and Obama wants to raise taxes (make that raise taxes even more, given health care) starting in 2013. Why not just say we'll take any cuts you offer now, agree to raise the debt ceiling, and then fight it out over taxes in 2012. After all, isn't that what elections are for?
Aug '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Which is exactly why I could not bring myself to vote for John McCain in 2008, he of Gang of 14 fame.
Let's set some rules for attention-hunting politicians:
Aug '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Using your metaphor, the republican team has three players, all fairly spazzed out. The other team has the equivalent of six, with razor blades protruding from the rocket shoes and brass knuckles. The local sportswriter is on the top bleacher and he is shooting at the republicans with an air rifle when he's not pretending to be writing ( heck he already wrote the piece yesterday and the score was 10-0 democrats).
The republican cheerleaders are all beautiful and cheering their hearts out, but the democrats cheerleaders are nowhere to seen, as they're in the locker room with the referees showing them their "best moves".
Outside the republican team bus is sitting in the parking lot, all four tires have been flattened.
Jun '11
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Never trust. Always verify. I always assume that the federal government is staffed by mendacious incompetents, and I'm frequently right. If the President were the CEO of a publicly traded company and hadn't produced a budget in two years meanwhile laying on enormous debt with no return on investment, he'd have been canned immediately after Obamacare passed.
I'd agree to debt ceiling increases in three month increments so long as verifiable spending cuts in the next twelve months were at least 500% of the increase. No revenue increases even considered until GDP growth exceeds 5% and unemployment falls below 5%.
Oct '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
The follow up post from Keith Hennessey entitiled "Why I oppose the Gang of Six Plan" is here. It is well worth reading. I would not trust any plan agreeable to any Democrat Senator.
Apr '11
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Rob has put his hands on a fundamental problem with politics today. The right does not trust their own politicians to do what they say they will do. As I recall, the problem on the left is the opposite. The president will take a position on something, say gay marriage, and then the left is asked to trust that he does not mean it, and that the actual policies he enacts will advance a position different from his public position. Where we on the right and they on the right have some common ground in that we would like a little honesty on the part of our anointed leaders.
Dec '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Rob Long: So when I read this excellent, exhaustive post by Keith Hennessey on the Gang of Six plan, or this piece by the always great Jim Pethokoukis, the essential problem is this: it's impossible to trust any of these plans because it's impossible to trust the people making the plans. It's impossible to believe that future cuts in government spending will ever take place. And it's impossible to believe that the necessary, wrenching, unpopular entitlement reform that must take place for this country to thrive and grow into the next century will all somehow snap into focus by August 2nd.
We don't believe them. And that doesn't make us unreasonable. That makes us realistic.
This dovetails with Claire's bewilderment at why so few of the Seattlites she's encountering seem to have any opinion on the debt ceiling debate. There's little point in expressing an opinion if you believe there is nothing you can do to influence the outcome.
Aug '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
And while we're at it - Can we all agree that not raising the budget is not the same as cutting the budget?
For years, Congress has gotten away with defining a cut as anything that isn't a raise.
A cut is an actual reduction in the budget as of right now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. And not ten years from now.
Mar '11
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
Democrats with the help of the media have been able to define a "cut" in spending as a reduction from their wish list. If the democrats want a 5% increase and the republicans will only accept a 2% increase, then the republican is vilified for "cutting" spending for whichever needy special interest group even while actual government spending continues to increase.
A cut for the purposes of these discussions needs to result in total government spending that is less that the spending was before, not just a smaller increase than proposed.
Dec '10
Re: Voters to the Politicians: Trust, But Verify
The only written plans on the table are the Houses' CCandB and McConnell's punt. Despite Obama's claims, Chambliss says there is not anything in writing in the Gang of Six plan that addresses a word about the Debt Ceiling increase; he said it only covers the existing debt, plus the annual deficits.Somebody is lying and I addressed whom and maybe why, in Diane's thread. Nothing else really matters, anymore than any comments made by Democrats or media matter, because there is nothing else that exists, in writing. The rest is all talk.CCandB is the only piece of actual, CBO-scoreable proposed legislation on the table, other than the McConnell punt to Obama. Unless Chambliss lied through his teeth on national radio.If this is accurate, the only two plans that are in writing, both came from Republicans and they are negotiating against themselves.