Crisis of the Government Party
President Obama is in a dilemma from which there appears to be no easy or early escape.
Democrats are the Party of Government. They feed it, and it feeds them. The larger government grows, the more agencies that are created, the more bureaucrats who are hired, the more people who become beneficiaries, the more deeply entrenched in power the Party of Government becomes.
At the local, state and federal level, there are 19 million to 20 million government employees. And if one takes only Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and earned income tax credits, we are talking of scores of millions who depend on government checks for the necessities of their daily life.
These vast armies of voters—these tens of millions of government employees and scores of millions of government beneficiaries—are the big battalions of the Party of Government. They provide implacable resistance to any party that pledges to cut or curtail government. For they are fighting for their livelihood. And here is where Obama's dilemma arises.
The progressives thought that with the takeover of both houses of Congress by veto-proof Democratic majorities, and the election of the most progressive of the candidates in the Democratic primaries save Dennis Kucinich, a new Progressive Era was at hand.
Another New Deal, another Great Society. And early passage of a stimulus package of $787 billion, nearly 6 percent of the entire economy packed into a single bill, seemed to confirm that happy days were here again.
But, at the same time, the federal takeover of AIG, General Motors and Chrysler and the bailouts of Fannie, Freddie and the Wall Street banks were igniting a Perot-style prairie fire that manifested itself in Tea Party rallies in the spring and town-hall protests in August.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi denounced these folks as "evil-mongers" engaged in the "un-American" activity of shouting down Democrats—though, when college radicals do it to conservatives, it is called "heckling" and the conservatives are instructed that they "just do not understand the First Amendment."
Came November, Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey showed that the grass-roots rebellion was real and broad-based. This was confirmed by Scott Brown's astonishing upset in Massachusetts, where a state Obama won by 26 points went Republican by 6 points, with Brown capturing a Senate seat held by the Kennedy brothers since 1952. Talk about a fire bell in the night.
Obama's dilemma, evident in his State of the Union, is that the progressives, who were indispensable to his victories over Hillary, now feel betrayed, especially with apparent abandonment of health insurance reform, while conservative Democrats and independents, who were indispensable in giving Obama his November victory, are angry and alienated and disposed to vote Republican to stop what they see as America's plunge into socialism.
The non-negotiable demands of these two essential elements of Obama's coalition are in irreconcilable conflict. Obama tried to mollify both in his address to Congress by emphasizing aspects of his agenda that appeal to each. Thus the progressives were promised an end to the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military, while Tea Party and town-hall activists got a partial freeze on federal spending and promises of nuclear power, clean coal and offshore drilling.
Obama's problem: He can end up satisfying no one and angering everyone. John McCain has already denounced Obama's call for open homosexuality in the military, a position that will resonate with Middle America, while House Democrats are appalled the Pentagon will be exempt from budget caps imposed on social programs.
Arthur Laffer has pointed up the burgeoning crisis Obama and the progressives confront. Today, state, local and federal government spending consumes 38 percent of the gross domestic product. Federal spending alone is 27 percent.
"If you total what the government takes in the income tax, corporate tax, Social Security taxes, capital gains taxes," says Laffer, "all of that adds up to $2.2 trillion in tax receipts, and they spent $3.5 trillion."
In 2009, we had a deficit of $1.4 trillion, 10 percent of GDP. The most conservative estimate for this year is a deficit of $1.35 trillion, more than 9 percent of GDP.
Two questions.
With the public debt surging as a share of GDP, and talk of a debt default by the United States, how can Obama create or expand the social programs as progressives demand? And with the deficit running above 9 percent of GDP, how—even if the economy starts to grow—can you close this without raising taxes from 18 percent of GDP to 22 percent or 23 percent? That would be an added tax hike of $560 billion to $700 billion—a year.
That kind of hit on the private sector could kill a recovery, just as Herbert Hoover and FDR did in the early 1930s.
Obama has a problem—and so do we.
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Entries(RSS)
Sadly the Democrats are not the only party of government. The Republicans have done an all too good imitation; at least since the days of Hoover.
"Democrats are the Party of Government."
No, Pat, no. Look, I appreciate Mr. Buchanan opposing the Dems but he can not be serious. He knows how much the government expanded under W and a mostly GOP held Senate and House. Of course he also backed W in 2004.....
Events may have passed Pat Buchanan by. Our government servants at the Commerce Department have told us this morning that economic growth was nearly 6 percent last quarter. It may be Springtime for the economy. Barack Obama may have won his El Alamein, Stalingrad and Guadalcanal all in one glorious report. Borrowing trillions from future generations apparently works, common sense notwithstanding. We should love Big Brother, or should I write, Big Bammy.
Gents,
Cut Pat some slack. Republican politicians may bloat government with the best of Democrats, but rank and file Republican voters tend to dislike bigger government. It is easy to lump both parties' politicians together, but the characteristics of the voters are different.
Writing for a large audience, Pat shouldn't be forced to be saddled with the Republicrat- Demoblican baggage for the sole reason that he's referring to the Democrats specifically in his article. He's said that both parties are enlarging government in the past and taken them to task. Since he's referring to the Obama State of the Empire address, let's let him focus on his primary target.
All Pat is saying is that the duopoly is doomed if they do, and damned if they don't. This is not all bad. Republicans today represent more war and a little less government, while democrats represent more government and a little less war. As Pat knows very well, at the national level there is no solution for either side at this point in time. The books are cooked, the centers of command and control established, one might rearrange the deck chairs, or invite different guests to the party; the cocktails served will remain the same.
Pat, precisely which political entity do you think will deliver us from the thralls of big government? Certainly not the GOP. Under the half-witted W the federal deficit and government grew at rates never before seen in American history.
It is really quite interesting that the swing vote both sides desperateley need is that portion of middle America that is pandered to with lip service, cliches and tough talk but never represented in the halls of power or in national elections. We must always settle for either a dunce or a dupe to represent us and it is growing old. Pat was probably the last to speak directly to them and for them but he was tarred and feathered and more importantly it cost the gentlemen in grey a lot of money and organization to shut him down. Money that could have been better spent on the ordinary republican propoganda. Maybe Ron Paul can provide the tea-party entertainement in the next election.
There has never been a time in all of American history when the Republicans have not been the Party of Government. The party came into being as exactly that and has never been any other. A false dichotomy does us no good.
It may be illusory and impractical to hope for the destruction of the Republican Party---but it is illusory to expect any other hope.
Dr. Wilson,
I defer to you in these matters of republican duplicity because you are much older and wiser. I can only speak of what I have seen and watched with my own eyes since I was a very young man. To say they speak with forked tongue is an understatement, To say they have lied, cheated and stole under the disguise of less government seems to be more accurate. But as I said, I know this only from the days of my youth up to the decrepit state I find myself in today.
Saying that the Democrats are the Party of Government is a statement about the Democratic Party, not the GOP. It also happens to be true.
Dr. Wilson: I agree that the Republicans have almost always been controlled by the big shots corporate and banking. They are mostly the Eastern elite. There has always been a large small town, small government part of the party. The addition of all those southerners has also put yeast into the mix.
The Republican Party began its career by killing 600,000 Americans for the purpose of maintaining the power of the Government over the people and the States. It might do us good to keep a longer perspective on these things---unlike American politicians and media for whom history is last week.
I was sure Pat was going to say that the Dems and GOP together make up the party of big government.
Too bad he didn't.
Some of G. W. Bush's people and picks (Bernanke, Paulson, Cheney, Rumsfeld's Defense Dept neocons) ought to be facing prison terms right alongside Dem thieves like Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Bob Rubin, Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo. The current GOP leadership (like Cantor and Boehner, who voted to bankrupt us twice, for the wars and then for the bailouts) is no better. Not to mention the senior management of Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, Goldman, Citigroup, Salomon and Bear Stearns.
We've got a one party state, and it's dedicated to ripping us off and sending us to fight other people's wars.
The Republican party is as big a fan of "big gov." as the Democrats. What is a shame is that far too many people actually think there is a difference between them. Me thinks the difference is thin, indeed. Dr. Wilson's comment at #13 is chilling -- now, instead of attacking our own people, we attack other countries thanks to modern technology. What a pity.
Dr. Wilson:
Like many others I appreciate your long view...........and memory. However, generations are passing and have you ever thought of writing a history of the American Experiment from your point of view before those like ourselves who were taught by men with one foot in the 19th century are all gone? I hesitate to say a history of the American Republic (which I believe died a violent death at the hands of the GOP in the 1860's as you have said previously)?
"Saying that the Democrats are the Party of Government is a statement about the Democratic Party, not the GOP. It also happens to be true."
Mr. Piatak this is only a half truth which the penny catechism teaches is usually a whole lie. Are you saying the GOP is not a party of government or are you saying when it was the party of government it was much better at governing? It seems to me after a building has been burning for weeks or years
,your bias that it is better to walk (with the GOP I presume)instead of run (with the Party of Government) to the nearest exit etc. would no longer apply. Or am I wrong?
I thought it was pretty clear. In our duopoly, one party has one script, the other another. In addition, the Democrats do have the support of the federal and state non-necessity (police & fire) civil service. The insight missing is that in a democracy, the "right wing" party is not only useless, its dangerous when it gets power, and the "right wing" party in a democracy is better suited for a minority role as a means of slowing down revolution. When it assumes power, it has no choice but to continue the revolution.
Absent republican virtue in the people, as Dr. Fleming likes to say, only a dictator could give these people freedom (hope that is close.) Even after the War of Railroad Lawyer Aggression, it was the permanent status of the civil service, the agents, that made the gov permanent and forced any rival "right wing" party or impulse of reform to cater to it--or face consequences.
Dr.Wilson writes:"The Republican Party began its career by killing 600,000 Americans for the purpose of maintaining the power of the Government over the people and the States."
This is no doubt true but there are not a dozen democrats left in the whole country who would know it. I don't mind attending the funeral of the GOP but why on earth would any thinking man want to then hurry over to witness the civil union of the remaining democrats? It seems more honest to say that at the national level both parties have morphed into the same bird of prey and inhabit the same nasty nest, even if they were hatched from different eggs.
So, it was seem that the only hope is some form of devolution or secession that will break down the power of the Parties of Government. To do anything that supports either is thus counter-productive.
Blinded by his loyalty to the party to which he owes his career, Pat constantly points at the Marxist speck in the Democratic Party's eye while looking away from the neocon corporatist plank in the GOP's eye. They are two sides of the same evil coin. Both parties are parties of government, differing only in how they use the government to their advantage and/or to exert ever more imperialist power over their subjects. God bless the wisest of the wise contributors to this magazine and its discussion board, Dr. Wilson, for reiterating this point. For it cannot be said, indeed, shouted out on a megaphone, enough until it sinks in.
Robert II:
Unlike some, I actually read the column and am commenting on what it actually says. Calling the Democrats the "Party of Government" is a comment on the Democrats, and does not imply the Republicans are virtuous or wise or much of anything else, other than the fact that the Democrats tend to draw their votes from those who work for the government or are dependent on it and Republicans tend to draw their votes from those who do not work for the government and are not dependent on it. These are tendencies, not hard and fast rules, and there are many exceptions--those in the military tend to vote Republican, for example--but no reasonable person doubts that the Democrats draw the lion's share of the support of government employees and those financially dependent on "government checks for the necessities of life," just as Buchanan said.
Mr. Piatak: I agree with you. The Republicans, as repulsive as is most of their leadership, still represents those who pay the bills and try to support their families by honest work. I think Dr. Wilson would like the Democrats to be like the party of Grover Clevland, the last good Democratic President. Those days are long gone. If we are to have any hope it will have to be from a reformed Republican party. The best solution would be to start over with a new party. There is just too much bad history with the Republicans and the Democrats are hopeless.
Mr. Marino, #22: "I think Dr. Wilson would like the Democrats to be like the party of Grover Clevland, the last good Democratic President."
Actually, Grover the Good was the last good president. Period.
Mr.Piatak @21 "Unlike some, I actually read the column and am commenting on what it actually says."
Ah,I understand. So for example if the text says," At the local, state and federal level, there are 19 million to 20 million government employees," (who mostly vote for democrats) we should focus on this fact while ignoring the unspoken fact there are 26 million veterans of military service,enjoying or entitled to government benefits of some form or another, who tend to vote republican? Very interesting.
Mr. Seiler, @23: Actually Warren G. Harding was our last good President. My personal favorite is William Henry Harrison.
Robert,
You certainly don't think all military members or vets vote for democrats...? Nor do all government employees vote for republicans?
With the large, disperpotionate number of minority voters, i.e. democrats, in the armed services I would venture to say you err.
I'm a political agnostic sicken by both so called parties, but from by experience in the deep south the democrats simply consume while the republicans produce. Once this balance ends anachy begins.
Dr. Wilson, your beloved democrat politician of Calhoun's erro has morphed to Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, John Edwards, etc.
Damn hangover. That's disproportionate and anarchy. Sorry.
Patrick at #15. Thanks for the suggestion. My feeling is that it would be nearly impossible to get enough distribution of such a work to make the effort worthwhile---and the tiny minority of serious readers left among the American population don't need it.
Robert II,
Yes, military veterans are entitled to some government benefits, and I noted in my post that those in the military tend to vote Republican, but I do think a distinction can be made between a veteran carrying shrapnel in his body and an employee of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Even veterans not carrying shrapnel all ran the risk of ending up doing that, or ending up dead.
But Buchanan is not praising the GOP in this column, merely commenting on the Democrats' weakness. And on January 19, he again noted, as he did when he challenged the GOP Establishment in the primaries in 1992 and 1996, and when he tried to create a viable conservative third party in 2000, the weakness of the Republicans, even while noting that the GOP will be the beneficiary of Obama's growing unpopularity:
"What it says is that, no matter the weakness of the party label or brand, independents will vote Republican if that is the only alternative to the party in power.
The GOP can thus run this fall as the only effective force left in Washington that can block the Democrats’ drive for power. The GOP problem arises when the presidential season begins in spring 2011.
For what Republican ran last time for cutting back George Bush’s big government? Who ran against expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Georgia? Who opposed war in Iraq? Who stood up and said no to No Child Left Behind or Medicare coverage of prescription drugs?
Who in the Republican Party today is calling for a Barry Goldwater-like rollback of federal power and federal programs? Except Ron Paul."
Tom,
"The GOP can thus run this fall as the only effective force left in Washington that can block the Democrats’ drive for power." or
What Republican ran last time for cutting back George Bush’s big government? Who ran against expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Georgia? Who opposed war in Iraq?"
As a veteran this is why I hope for the demise of the Republican party as the alternative Twiddle Dum, to the powerful Twiddle Dee. Love your country? Just say no to national politics.
charlemagne @26 and 27,
No problem, any mistake attributed to a hangover in these times is at least an honest mistake. It is the sober stupidity in such times that are more culpable.
Say no to the two reigning imperial political parties, evil, corrupt, and drunk with power, both of them. God willing, we can help rid our relatives of their mental disease which mandates that the GOP is the better alternative or lesser of two evils. My family get-togethers are rife with nonsensical and incoherent ramblings about the evil nature of the Democrats, no to mention assurances that we have to give the Republicans another chance. The major-party disease runs deep, indeed. But that's where the prospect of curing said ailment starts, with family and friends. Using the grassroots strategy, a revolution for independence from the Evil Empire based in D.C. is possible.
That should read "NOT" to mention.
This is a good one, yet it's cliche.
Pat is right about the Democrats being the party of government. In fact they've been that way since 1933.
But there is another party of government, one that has many, many dependents. They include subsidy addled farmers, small businessmen dependent on SBA loans, all those in the military, the FBI, the CIA and all federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Then you have all the members of the military and their dependents. And I suppose we should forget all those businesses like areospace, defense contractors, and the space industry, dependent on government contracts for their livelihood. And lets not forget the retired members of such groups and their government funded pensions. This party is known by its initials GOP and this party has designated itself as their defenders, for both policy and for funding. They incur a lot of costs too to the taxpayer.
So given that we have two parties of government, is it any wonder we have deficits and is it any wonder the taxpayers suffers under their weight? What was it that Pat said about the two parties being wings to a bid of prey? He was more right than he knew.