The Free Market Low Tax Fairy Tale

I agree with Mike's points regarding the Arthur C. Brooks article but would like to extend with my own viewpoint regarding what I think is the main theme of the article.  As I read it Brooks is basically calling for conservatives to go back to their "roots" of advocating low tax free market capitalism and reducing the debt.  My main issue with this argument is that this conservative mantra has never been a reality.

As Mike's line graph so beautifully demonstrates, in peacetime republican presidents have actually increased the debt much more than any of the tax and spend liberal presidents of the past.  The reason is simple.  Republican presidents such as Bushx2 and Reagan are able to pass through their tax cuts but then when it comes to the "cut spending" part of the equation things inevitably fall apart.   Both Reagan and Bush significantly increased defense spending on projects such as star wars and were never able to significantly reduce other spending programs.  Tax revenues then fall or stay the same while spending continues to increase and as a result we see the increased debts.

Now the typical conservative response is "well it was the democratic Congress that kept spending all that money" but the truth of the matter is that Republican presidents never REALLY advocated any spending cuts.  Sure they propose minor cuts of "pork barrel" spending which are popular but when it comes to cuts that would be real and painful such as social security or medicare no measures are really taken.  It was a democratic congress which forced Reagan to pay for social security with some increased taxes and even with a republican congress Bush #2 never made any significant spending cuts.

Brooks also appeals to poll after poll which he says supports the fact that people want more capitalism and free market policies.  My response would simply be that the polls really mean very little because the terms "capitalism" and "free market" really have no meat behind them. Ask people if they would chose capitalism over socialism and they absolutely would prefer capitalism but ask them if they want government to provide universal health care and 66% will say yes.  Now government providing health care is undoubtedly a "socialist" policy especially if you consult conservative TV ads and yet Americans favor it.  Republicans and conservatives, along with an entire cold war era, convinced most Americans that socialism equals a Soviet style command and control economy and it is therefore understandable why most would chose capitalism.  In reality though many Americans favor "socialist" type policy like the progressive tax, social security, and universal health care most likely because they don't associate those policies as being truly "socialist" even though they really are.

In the end I just wish we could truly debate the debt with some sort of realism.  At least Obama admits he will have a tremendous deficit and proposes to start doing something unpopular in the future (raising taxes) to try to fix it.  Conservatives come with the same fairy tale of "we can lower taxes and cut spending and lower the debt" but history has shown that never really works out.  The taxes do get lowered but the spending stays the same and the debt goes through the roof.  If a republican came with a real plan such as cutting social security or medicare I would respect that plan more because at least it would be realistic; even with me being a strong supporter of social security and government provided health care.

Sequels are always worse than the originals

Since things aren't looking so good for conservatives these days in Culture War I, it was only a matter of time before it was necessary to open up another front. Arthur C. Brooks makes the case in the Wall Street Journal that "The Real Culture War is Over Capitalism." Unfortunately, and predictably, CWII is just as phony and shallow as CWI.

Let's count the distortions in just this one paragraph:

Despite President Barack Obama's early personal popularity, we can see the beginnings of this schism in the "tea parties" that have sprung up around the country. In these grass-roots protests, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans have joined together to make public their opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that the government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud.

We constantly hear about how these things were grass-roots, and I think the term is tragically misapplied. Its like how for about 5 years in a row, Gonzaga was almost universally an "upset" pick to win in the first round of the NCAAs, yet still referred to as an underdog. You can't be an underdog if you are nearly universally favored. This is what the tea parties are like for me. How can events which benefit from weeks of constant, free promotion on both FOX News and conservative talk radio, in addition to material support from mainstream, establishment conservative groups, be considered grass-roots? This is not to say that the whole thing was fake, or staged -- my parents very enthusiastically took part in the St. Louis tea party -- but to make it sound like it was the Underground Railroad is more than a little embellishment.

Secondly, Brooks makes the case (and is repeatedly backed up by the Becks and Hannitys of the world) that these rallies were not about Obama, or the Democrats, but about "...opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud."

I call B.S. on that. Here's my evidence:


We're a country that has basically been in debt since our founding. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always in debt. In recent decades, we've had quite a few years of exploding deficits and expanding debt, but only now do we hear about conservatives' principled opposition to it. Now, it's important to clarify: I have no doubt that many conservatives are against deficit spending in general. I have no doubt that many conservatives hate the size of the federal government and want to see both its power and influenced reduced. I cede those points. But I would offer that no one goes out to rallies on the basis of these causes. I don't buy the line that only now have conservatives reached a tipping point with regard to deficits and bureaucratic power. Mostly because they've been silent, by and large, throughout the last three Republican presidents' profligate spending, but also because their complaints about government power are so contradictorily juxtaposed against their support for near-dictatorial powers for the president when it comes to national security. So you'll forgive me for rolling my eyes when I hear complaints about either, because they generally seem like political opportunism to me.

When it comes down to it, there are very few outright capitalists in our society, and there are very few outright socialists. The vast, vast majority of Americans lie somewhere in between: recognizing the need and value of government services and regulations, while also realizing how imperative the free market and competition are to development and ingenuity. What Brooks does in this article is to dumb down the conversation. Instead of a sensible discussion about where we should place limits on government power, he instead reduces it to essentially Evil Socialists Who Want the Government to Control Everything vs. Patriotic Americans Who Hate Government and Want To Eliminate It. In the process, he does the discourse a great disservice.