Andrew Samwick at the Crossroads

Andrew Samwick thinks about what the Republican Party is--or, rather, what it might become:

Vox Baby: The Conservative Movement at the Crossroads: PGL from AngryBear notes that Max (of the newly and impressively redesigned MaxSpeak) linked to the Washington Post story in which I am quoted as follows:

"I'm inclined to support the Republican Party, but the question becomes, how much other stuff do I have to put up with to maintain that identification?" asked Andrew A. Samwick, a Dartmouth College economics professor who until recently was chief economist of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers.

I served on the staff at CEA from July 2003 through June 2004. The story quotes me later with:

Samwick said the disenchantment of small-government conservatives has been building since the passage of the USA Patriot Act, which some saw as infringing on individual liberties, and the Medicare drug benefit, which created future government liabilities that exceed the entire projected Social Security shortfall.

"Some of these outcomes are really starting to alienate people who might be Republican because they are for limited government," Samwick said.

The story quotes me accurately. The trigger for me has been the fiscal policy, and the unfunded expansion of Medicare in particular. I don't have big problems with the Patriot Act or the faith-based programs. However, the quotes should not be construed to suggest that I wouldn't support the President's Social Security plan relative to the status quo or that I was particularly impressed with the challengers that the Democrats managed to put on the ticket the last time around.

I was interviewed about this topic on the Arnie Arnesen radio show this afternoon. Like a lot of people, neither of the two political parties line up particularly well with all of my views. That's been true for a while with the Democrats for me. It's a newer phenomenon with the Republicans--as they have stood less and less for limited government, which best summarizes my general view.

I think this issue is well captured in Newt Gingrich's recent white paper, with the same title as this post. (The Speaker visited campus as a guest of the Rockefeller Center last month and presented these ideas in a Government course.) He's been out of elected office for long enough now that he can "campaign" as an outsider. Here's what he had to say in the paper's introduction:

For almost a half century, from the early effort of William Buckley and National Review and the publication of Conscience of a Conservativeby Barry Goldwater, the conservative movement has been a dynamic, defining force in American politics and government.

Now at the very moment that members of the movement are in control of the White House, the House and Senate, and many governorships and state legislatures, conservatives find themselves at a crossroads.

Elected officials find themselves caught between explaining and defending the institutions over which they preside and the impulse to continue to criticize and change those institutions. The longer people are in office the more likely they tend to defend the very bureaucracies and the very policies which they may once have campaigned against. The impulse to force a transformation of those institutions is gradually overwhelmed by an impulse to preside. Presiding over an existing bureaucracy is not the same as forcing the creation of a new form and style of government.

Should the conservative movement be:

1. A movement at the grassroots dedicated to insisting on transformation of government into an institution capable of meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing 21st century world within the values of smaller government, lower taxes, stronger national security, greater individual freedom and strengthening American civilization as a unique “Creator endowed” system of human liberty; or,

2. A national and state capital- focused system of defending whatever today’s compromises with the old order of liberal big government requires because after all the people presiding over the system are people we support.

To state it more directly, should we be comfortable with presiding over the bureaucracies, special interests, and spending of the liberal government we have inherited or must we insist on transforming that obsolete system into a new, more dynamic, and significantly different system of governing?

You can read more about Newt's ideas in his new book, Winning the Future.A lot of the book makes a lot of sense. He would prefer that the Republican Party focus on governmental transformation and reduced spending, but he makes an appeal to the religious constituency as well. However, we can also see dissension from those in the Republican Party who wouldn't necessarily agree with Newt's proposals any more than they would with the Administration's policies. Consider Christine Todd Whitman, and her new book, It's My Party, Too.She wants more fiscal balance and almost everything else on the party's current agenda except for the "social fundamentalist" issues.

So the question becomes, "What does the Republican Party look like when it emerges from this internal contest? Which of these politicians represents the core constituency's ideas in 2008--Bush, Gingrich, or Whitman?"

Comments

[Who Cares What He Thinks?]

Anyone who supports Bush's Social Security "Plan" against the status quo is off my list. Translation of "Small Government Conservativism" into English: "Each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost!" Alternative translation: "I've got mine, go screw yourself."

[Brian]

If the Republican Party is being turned into some form of an economically liberterian/corporate-focused, socially authoritarian instrument, I'd guess that a lot of moderates will leave, or at the very least, be so disgusted that they will not feel the urge to actively support the party. This is probably very good news for the Democrats, as long as the party doesn't turn too far to the left.

[Bernard Yomtov]

"[Whitman] wants more fiscal balance and almost everything else on the party's current agenda except for the "social fundamentalist" issues."

Huh?

In the first place, the word "else" does not belong in that sentence. On the evidence, rather than the rhetoric, the Republican Party plainly does not give a tinker's dam for "fiscal balance."

Second, "social fundamentalists," along with big business interests, run the Republican Party. You see it in the Congressional leadership, in the judicial appointments, everywhere. To think there is such a thing as Republican Party without the social conservatives is delusional.

[Laughing Historian]

For my money there's always been an element of incoherence in contemporary conservatism.
How do you reconcile social authoritarianism with limited government?
How do you reconcile a strong national defense with limited government?
The fact is, you can't.
If social authoritarianism means monitoring essentially private behavior, then the potential for the growth of Big Government is unlimited.
If sustaining a strong national defense includes ever more sweeping Patriot Acts and ever more blatant instances of cronyism, then the potential for endless government growth is also unlimited.
There's an old saying that "if you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic". A present-day variation on that could be "if you want to govern like a Democrat, vote Republican."

[sm]

This is written by a supposedly intelligent person?

[Ralph]

Gingrich's "Contract on America" was a joke when it was announced back during Clinton's first term. Having been bounced out as House Speaker and House member soon after trying to shut down the government in 1996 he has sadly become something of a national elder statesmen on Fox News. But the real surprise is that this quintessential conservative Republican is now to the left of his party.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Gingrich's alternatives don't really make sense. If he had limited #1 to smaller government and lower taxes, and described #2 as simply continuing the existing structure of bureaucarcy and programs they might have.

Instead he sticks a lot of assumptions into his descriptions. "Stronger national security," "strengthening American civilization," "dynamic," etc. on the one hand, and "old order," "obsolete," "special interests," on the other.

Gee, Newt. That's a tough question. Do we want more freedom or less, more security or less, stronger civilzation or weaker, obsolete forms or new dynamic ones? Let me think.

Samwick took this drivel seriously?

[Unstable Isotope]

Conservatives have switched to big government conservatives because the truth is people like big government. They like the idea that if they mess up terribly, government will come in and fix it. The same people who say they want government "off their backs" are the ones who cry for money when a flood or hurricane hits their house. Libertarian principles are fine in theory, but not in practicality (just like communism). This is why the Republicans have become the party of big government, less taxes. They promise something for nothing and so far, they haven't paid a huge price for it yet.

[bakho]

Campaigning against long standing government agencies is not "conservative"- it is radical.

[otto]

"as they have stood less and less for limited government"

There is no majority for economic conservatism. The median voter is economically liberal and socially conservative. Because the Democrats will only offer social liberalism (gay marriage the latest incarnation), the Republicans can get a majority through a combination of social conservatism and tepid economic conservatism (stronger on the tax cuts than the social expenditure cuts).

Many educated people, including no doubt many readers of this blog, and perhaps Professor Samwick, might think that there is a governing majority which includes welfare cuts and tax raises, and which does not pander to religious conservatives. But you need to be an economics professor to think that. A week's internship with the Texas Republican party would convince you otherwise.

[Emma Anne]

I know the people who "impressively redesigned" MaxSpeak! Inkworks, they are called. They will be quite excited to see this positive comment, both at Voxbaby and now quoted here.

[Let me second Andrew Samwick's praise...]

[paul]

Unless conservatives are far more radical than I thought, Samwick seems wrong when he talks about the current republican regime not forcing a new style of government. Single-party legislation, spending completely uncoupled from revenue, an executive that claims the prerogative to ignore legislative and judicial constraints both on behavior and on allocation of resources -- he wants a newer style than that?

[RT]

"However, the quotes should not be construed to suggest that I wouldn't support the President's Social Security plan relative to the status quo..."

Shouldn't Samwick at least have the balls to admit that Bush doesn't HAVE a plan - that the game Bush is playing is one of evading the responsibility of presenting one?

With or without that acknowledgment, Samwick's position on Bush's non-plan can be characterized as follows:

"I’ve squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmmmm"

[David A. Spitzley]

This strays into one of my main interests, which is political parties. Personally, I think the current partisan structure of US politics is laughable. There are at least four parties worth of political orientations tied up in the Democrats and Republicans right now, and most of them have third-party alternatives which would probably tear off huge chunks of the major parties if the electoral system in our country weren't structurally biased towards bipartite representation. Here's my scorecard:
* progressives: currently poorly served by the Democrats, and falling into the Green Party's gravity well
* religious conservatives: while they are for the moment in the catbird seat in the Republican party, they are continually having to fight for control with the other factions; these folks would be much more comfortable in the Constitution/US Taxpayer's Party
* libertarians: currently struggling to keep the Republicans from going fascist; they have their own namesake party, though they'd probably have to undertake a bit of a landwar to fend off the Randoids
* centrists: currently under siege in both parties from all sides, I expect they'd wind up inheriting whichever of the current duopoly parties disintegrated slowest as people fled to third parties. If the Reform party hadn't imploded, it might have been a logical point of refuge.

Anyway, it seems to me that what Newt really wants is for the Republicans to become the Libertarians. I don't see that happening. Sadly, I also don't see the Libertarians becoming much of a threat; speaking as a Green, they seem less organized than >we< are lately, and that's saying something.

[kharris]

This bit of self-justification has some problems. His description of the Right's move toward bad policy is contrary to record in a few important ways, especially regarding timing. In others, it tells the truth, but not the whole truth - leaving out the damning part.

"The longer people are in office the more likely they tend to defend the very bureaucracies and the very policies which they may once have campaigned against. The impulse to force a transformation of those institutions is gradually overwhelmed by an impulse to preside."

But that is not what happened in the Bush II White House. Bush came to office and started pumping up government spending, rather than reducing it. He was not "gradually overwhelmed." He never once vetoed a spending bill. Samwick can argue that he means the GOP in general, rather than Bush, but if so, he needs to say that. It is, after all, the Bush White House for which Samwick worked.

If Samwick means to talk about Congress, there is another way of putting the above-quoted explanation that gets us to the same outcome, but doesn't leave out the mechanism. Those out of power tend to favor limited government because they are not in power. Once they come into power, their interests change, and so do their actions. If you are an apologist for a party claiming to be for limited government while spending like there is no tomorrow, you use Samwick's argument, and ignore the unseemly mechanism. GOP rhetoric about small government tells you nothing you need to know when you vote. Has Samwick failed to realize this, or is he just a better "Brooks" than Brooks?

"Some of these outcomes are really starting to alienate people who might be Republican because they are for limited government."

Starting to alienate...? Bush II is not the first Republican in Samwick's lifetime to increase the size of government, nor the first to cause the fiscal deficit to swell massively. The biggest improvement in the US fiscal stance in Samwick's lifetime came under a Democrat president, and was an explicit goal of that president. That same president reduced the size of "welfare" transfers to single parents. If fiscal erosion is one of the "outcomes" that is "alienating people who might be Republican because they are for limited government" then it is a little late for "starting" to be alienated. To the extent Samwick prefers the Bush II approach to regulation (that's not explicit here), he ought to tell us how suppression of data (and claiming night-is-day in using science) is justified by the policy outcome.

Samwick says the GOP is at the cross-roads. Directions from this cross-road include hating gays, lying about one's opponents, denigrating the patriotism of anyone who questions your foreign policy, firing any economist who offers a reasonable estimate of the costs of occupying Iraq, calling the reversal of 200+ years of Senate practices "constitutional" when that is a blatant lie – that is a direction the GOP seems entirely willing to take. Samwick doesn't like social policy part of that direction (nothing much said about the lying, mud-slinging, data-and-discussion suppression), but find the risk acceptable. What is it about Democratics, who had a big hand in getting us where we are – rich, prosperous, less regulated than much of the world – that represented such a risk? Is Samwick no more thoughtful than to fear those who've been branded with the "L-word" by opponents who'd rather not talk about substance?

[anne]

KHarris, powerful comment :)

[Billmon]

I wouldn't know Andrew Samwick from Adam Smith, but the fact that the ex-chief economist at the CEA thinks that ANYTHING Newt Gingrich says "makes a lot of sense" tells us all we need to know about the progressive derangement of both the federal government and the Republican Party.

Ditto the fact that Samwick apparently thinks fiscal balance is on the GOP's "current agenda."