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The conflict between the practical and the ideal (Ramesh Ponnuru and the Big Beautiful Bill)
Forest Whispers shows the difference between realistic photography and expressive painting in a creative way.
The current spat between Trump and Elon takes me back to a central moment in my political formation. It had to do with George W. Bush’s proposed reform of Social Security. Like most policies, he had an outline of what to do and left the specifics to Congress, but it was an outline based on reason and decency. Needless to say, I was a big fan.
He would have slightly increased the funds going to the poor and lower-middle-class elderly. He would have allowed people, if they so chose, to invest in the stock market with a portion of their Social Security savings. There would have been requirements to make sure that they invested in multiple stocks and bonds in order to minimize risk. Then he would have reduced Social Security checks to the upper-middle class and the rich. Some versions would have cut off Social Security almost entirely for the super-rich.
Additionally, these changes would have only taken effect for people below age 45 or 50 or so. (I forget the exact number, but it is not particularly important.) The idea was to not change things for people who were just about to retire.
It also would have cut Social Security by quite a lot. By most accounts it would have made Social Security financially viable for two more decades.
These reforms to Social Security were both libertarian, conservative, and progressive-leftist in all good ways. It was libertarian because it would increase individual freedom, allowing people to invest in stocks and limit government spending. It would have been conservative because it encouraged slow and responsible change. And it was leftist because it gave more money to the truly needy.
While this was going on, I was getting my degree in Political Science; I had dreams of reading all the books about politics and policy worth reading, and writing the best policy platform ever. So, as you can imagine, I loved this policy. Heck, I still do. While I have forgotten the details, I can recall the general brushstrokes immediately.
This is why initially I disagreed strongly with Ramesh Ponnuru’s article published in National Review. Ramesh said that this great policy would fail because it was unpopular and it would prevent George W. Bush from doing other good things. I thought to myself, “Who cares if it’s popular? It’s right on every account. Let Dubya lose his political capital to push through the right policy. Isn’t that the whole point of having political capital?”
Then reality happened, and it mugged me. It mugged me hard. Everything that Ramesh predicted happened. George W. Bush utterly failed to advance his Social Security reforms and wasted much of his second term.
Right now, Elon Musk is going through his idealistic phase that I got over in college. By contrast, Trump understands politics. He knows that getting things done in Washington requires shoveling money like manure on a farm field. And both activities are equally pleasant and odiferous. However, unlike farmers who take care to spread the manure evenly to maximize growth, politicians are rewarded for favoring the politically influential. As an American poet once said, “Anyone who loves the law or sausages should never watch either being made.”
I don’t know if I have an inner child, like some of the new-age types believe in, but I do have an inner idealist. I understand Elon Musk’s revulsion at the mephitic largesse of the big, beautiful bill. I get where he is coming from both intellectually and emotionally.
But he doesn’t know politics, and politics is a non-optional part of reality. Elon Musk is an autistic person of the Aspie variety. Many autistic people think that if they go through their plan or argument with cold but precise logic, other people will respond in kind. Aspies like to think that politicians and regular people will engage in policy discussions like a modern Aristotle, with a focus on rigorous accuracy.* Obviously, Elon Musk has only recently started paying attention to politics.
There is a big debate about the big, beautiful, corpulent bill on Ricochet. I think it’s a healthy debate between idealism and practicality. I merely wish to explain the positions of both men.
Going beyond this specific bill, I will note that this question is eternal. I imagine Plato and Pericles had these arguments about this or that specific bill in the Ecclesia. Whatever happens in the future, the tension between what can be done and what should be done will continue as it always has.
*Some have suggested that Aristotle was an Aspie, and I think that is quite possible. If you have not read Aristotle, think of Data from Star Trek as a Greek guy and you have a pretty good idea of what he was about. He is the founder of logic, after all.
I’m just saying that Persia has some nice libraries, Alexander.
Henry’s related book recommendation: Frederick Douglass was a fiery idealist all his life, and Abraham Lincoln was always a moderate compromiser. Brian Kilmeade is a big fan of both men, and his book, The President and the Freedom Fighter, does a good job of talking about their conflict with each other. It is well worth reading.
Published in General
Interesting, Henry. Plenty to discuss here.
Bush was vilified as wanting to destroy Social Security by the opposition. It was unfair and untrue, and things have not changed much. Trump has been accused of wanting to destroy Medicaid. Very incremental steps seem to be the best we can expect.
Great post, Henry. And I agree about Kilmeade’s book, too.
Ah yes, the old adage – perfection is the enemy of good enough. Except here, it’s the ideal being the enemy of the practical. I would argue that our Republican system of government prevents an ideal solution for anything because what is considered ideal is highly subjective, and therefore any solution is going to be a compromise.
Which brings us to the real question: who do we believe to give us the most accurate description of what this bill actually does? Damned if I know. Maybe we have to . . . (hehe) . . . pass it to find out what’s in it?
[Stad falls to the floor, rolling around while laughing hysterically.]
I wrote a post about how Al Green convinced me to bring back literacy tests to make it harder for stupid people to vote.
Constantly on the left (and sometimes on the right) demagogues destroy the chance to cut back on any government spending. George W. Bush went out of his way to say that he wouldn’t cut anything going to the poorest American. Trump is accused constantly of wanting to end Entitlements even though he has made absolutely not move to do so and he has said constantly for over 9 years that he would not do it.
Entitlements are the worst thing to have happened to American Democracy since slavery. Worse than Roe v Wade in my estimation.
I take that as a ‘no’ vote on the BBB. And a very principled no vote at that.
Compromise is required to move forward. Bush didn’t get any so he failed.
I’ve always been impressed by just how much Aristotle got absolutely wrong.
He had both houses of Congress in a pre-woke era. Some arm twisting would have allowed his laudable ideas to become law.
I seem to remember “The Maverick” McCain initially supporting these reforms with Bush but then backing away like a scalded dog after seeing their political unpopularity and not supporting them thus helping to sink the effort.
Explain to me how spending many trillions of dollars we don’t have is practical. Practical as in feasible, viable, realistic.
What you mean is that it’s easy. It’s the path of least resistance.
Politically Impossible by W.H. Hutt
https://mises.org/library/book/politically-impossible
Exactly.
Compromise is required to move the ball. Whether the move is forward or backward is irrelevant.
I wouldn’t have minded if the Democrats asked for more money for poor people and more stringent restrictions on investment and so forth. But it was an entirely a denial of the government debt.
(1) Social Security has its own dedicated funding source AND is off-budget. It does NOT contribute to either the debt or the deficit in any way. While the program is in deep trouble and changes are inevitable, it isn’t at all useful to include Social Security in the discussion of our current spending reduction.
Except to the extent that new money – or debt – is required to “redeem” the “IOUs” in the “trust fund” (the IOUs representing money that was already spent on other things).
If the “trust fund” actually had MONEY in it, that would be a different story.
I think it was a mistake to allow people without property to vote.
I’m a fan. If I had to choose between Jesus and Aristotle dominating Western Civilization I would choose Aristotle. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Plato?
And for people without penises to vote. Or at least people not subject to military service, which should probably be the same thing.
It’s available to read, for those who dare. Not easy to follow because so much of it is in the form of alterations to some base text or other. I asked Perplexity for an analysis of the key provisions, which should be available at this link.
That’s interesting. If I could summon the energy to learn how, I would ask Perplexity how the bill affects the Department of Education.
But now, you would still need to read it yourself – or have someone you trust read it – to find out if Perplexity was correct.
ibid.
This is patently ridiculous. When you absolutely positively can’t risk losing principal you buy US Treasuries. That’s what the Soc Sec Trust fund does and is required to do by law. It has always been so. If your argument was true in any way it would invalidate every US Treasury mutual fund in existence. Is the Fidelity US Government Securities fund stocked with worthless “IOU’s”? What about Vanguard or PIMCO? Whenever I see this worthless IOU, money spent on other things argument I know for a fact that the poster hasn’t a clue and is regurgitating some trope they got from some talking head. To quote from Cher’s character in Moonstruck … “ Snap out of it!!!”
This is accurate and President Trump understands that America possesses the greatest productive capacity of any nation on this earth and he is in the business of restoring that production.
The point is that those IOUs have to be redeemed in order to send out Social Security funds. The money used to buy them has already been spent.
The Social Security Trust Fund does not invest in the same type of US Treasuries as are held in Fidelity, Vanguard, PIMCO, et al government obligation funds. They are special issue non-marketable and redeemable debt obligations. When the Trust Fund needs to raise cash for pensioner payments, it redeems principal from the ~$2.8 trillion reserve that it holds. Since the special issue are non-marketable, the Treasury is the sole “buyer” and sends funds for issuance. If the Treasury General Account maintained at the Federal Reserve does not hold sufficient funds for redemption, it has to raise the funds by general debt issuance through open-market operations.
So while Social Security, being off-budget, does not contribute to the deficit, it certainly could contribute to the debt – redemption of the trust fund reserves can create future liabilities for the Treasury. The trustee’s report projects the greatest operational deficit occurring in 2033 (using the intermediate estimate) of $311 billion against a TGA balance of about $700 billion (as of 2024, the Treasury does not routinely issue forward projections), so there would not necessarily be a forced public debt offering but who knows what future cash balance guidance for the Treasury might be two administrations from now?