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Back when liberals were out of power, there was a great debate over "new ideas" -- are they required for political success? Do liberals just need better politicians/ads/campaign tactics instead? One common answer at the time was that the most important liberal ideas were enacted in the great Democratic era of FDR to LBJ, and that the basic platform was tweaking the evolving welfare state and figuring out fixes in the margins for things like trade. A number of "new" issues galvanized liberals, from climate change to the post-Soviet/post-9/11 shifts in foreign policy thinking, but the liberal platform didn't change too much. I recall the debate because today Patrick Ruffini at Next Right continues a conservative iteration of the same discussion:
One of the biggest reasons for the Right's decline in the Bush era is that we had long since completed most of the items on our to-do list. Low marginal tax rates? Check. The Soviet Union gone? Check. Welfare reform? Check. ...This empty cupboard of ideas had led to progressively more minimalist Republican governing agendas and campaign platforms....If nothing else, the first 70 days of Obama -- with an assist from the last 4 months of Bush -- has left government economic policy so off-kilter that it may take a decade or more to fix. Remember that exhausted to-do list? Not a problem any more.For the first time in decades, Republicans could run on a platform of cutting government by a third and not seem wild-eyed or mean-spirited. When we talk about the dangers of governments running private businesses, we will have contemporary object lessons to teach with, not bogeymen that are decades old or oceans away. When we talk about getting the government out of our lives, more people will nod their head knowing exactly what we mean, having just footed the bill for bailout after bailout, instead of yawning or dismissing it as a non-issue as they did in the prosperous, laissez-faire post-Reagan America.The whole post is interesting and worth reading, but boy do I disagree with it. That particular section about "cutting government by a third" really seems to miss the national mood right now, and in particular the way people are reacting to the most toxic political legacy of the last six months, the ad hoc bailouts of financial firms. It's axiomatic that no one likes to see their taxes go to fat cats, even if they appreciate the greater macro-economic effect.But the last thing that people -- especially the people affected by the recession -- are saying is that the government is spending too much time in their lives. Government right now is about jobs (the stimulus), health care and protecting consumers from contaminated products from abroad, it's about coming home from Iraq and preventing the next Katrina. There is, of course, plenty of time to for the new administration to screw it up, but they have done a very good job thus far of ensuring that the average person doesn't feel that they are being held back the government (recall the tax cut for 95 percent of people that doesn't warrant a mention in Ruffini's post?). A number of conservatives have been up in arms about the ouster of Rick Wagoner, as though it indicated that the government could come into any business and start shaking things up. But of course, GM is taking loans from the government and that's one of the strings attached -- At Ford, the auto company that declined government help, the CEO remains in place. A helpful analogy from my colleague Adam recalls welfare-to-work requirements: Under the logic of the conservative response to Wagoner, we would persumably allow welfare recipients to have free reign with government money. We require welfare recipients to work, and we require companies on the government dole to do things as well. Though Ruffini refuses to believe it, the administration and Democrats in general did not and do not want to nationalize anything; it's dangerous politically and financially and, seriously, the private sector does do it better. Only the macroeconomic consequences of Reaganesque deregulation -- the too big to fail problem -- created the need for this kind of aggressive intervention. But more importantly to Ruffini's point: Do Americans think that Wagoner shouldn't have been fired? Are they unhappy about it? I haven't seen any polls yet, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that most people are pleased to see Wagoner on his way out.
-- Tim Fernholz
