Look On The Bright Side
It seems to me that implicit in a lot of conservative criticism of the stimulus bill, the mortgage plan, and Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme, among other things, must be the odd notion that things would have been very different had McCain won the election. While we can be sure that McCain the crazed earmark-hunter would still be with us (no doubt keeping us safe from volcano monitoring and gang tatoo removal), let us recall that McCain supported cap-and-trade (even if he didn’t necessarily understand what he was talking about when he said so), proposed an insane mortgage bailout plan that pretty much everyone hated, backed TARP and differed from Obama on taxes largely in that he refused to raise any rates. In the end, the main difference turns out to be a disagreement about whether to return the top rate to its Clinton-era level or not. I guess that is a bit more than a dime’s worth of difference, but it isn’t much. Of course, this is why so many Republicans were relieved that McCain lost, because had he won they would have ended up backing a whole host of policies that they are currently denouncing as disastrous. At the same time, we would have had an old, irritable President prone to fits of bellicosity in international affairs and moral grandstanding about any issue he doesn’t understand, and behind him would have been an unqualified VP. However bad things are, remember that they could have been far, far worse.
It’s difficult to speculate what a McCain presidency might have looked like. He was so unpredictable during the campaign, especially with respect to the economic crisis, that I can see him doing any range or things – better than or much worse than Obama. But there’s no doubt that he would have brought greater foreign policy bellicosity to the job. And quite frankly, we’ve had enough of that for a while. Thanks for that reminder.
I voted for Obama, mainly for foreign policy reasons, and I don’t regret it. But I very much doubt that McCain would propose that the federal government spend more than a quarter of the national income.
That’s possible. He might have adopted the equally crazy spending freeze notion. However, as others have observed, he is unpredictable, doesn’t know anything about economics and plays up to whatever he thinks will win him points with the media. If we cannot predict what he would have done, we can’t be sure that he wouldn’t have proposed spending 30%+ of GDP, so long as it wasn’t in earmark form.
Daniel Larison:
. . . we can’t be sure that he wouldn’t have proposed spending 30%+ of GDP, so long as it wasn’t in earmark form.
Good point.
. . . the equally crazy spending freeze notion.
What’s wrong with a spending freeze?
A spending freeze combined with current inflationary monetary policy would mean that overall federal spending would shrink and would do so pretty significantly. Perhaps there is someone who thinks this makes sense in a recession as severe as this one, but I haven’t seen anyone make the argument.
I should add that McCain did propose just such a spending freeze during the election, and this was more or less universally mocked.
The Free Exchange blog sums up the problem with the spending freeze idea this way: “It’s also just about the worst possible time, economically and politically, to be staking out this position.”
I also feel that a spending freeze handcuffs the government in a time where handcuffing the government may be a bad thing. In a recession, where there is no precedent in how to act (“uncharted waters”), I wouldn’t want to put some draconian limit on government like “no more spending.” It would also appear to be politically unfeasible.
This is kind of off topic, but hard line stances helped exacerbate the recent California Crisis. The CA Republicans took a “no new taxes” pledge and rejected a deal in August 2008 for a 3 year sales tax increase of 1.5%. By taking a hard line stance, the Republicans ended up getting Californians possible twice that much in new taxes. I know the situations are not completely analogous, but I think it illustrates my point.
I’m not against spending per se, but I am against spending in this amount, and at this rate. In times of crisis, it is important to have (almost) all options on the table because circumstances change so rapidly. You just have to hope that the people in power will be prudent enough not to abuse the more “dangerous” options (like mass spending).
‘But I very much doubt that McCain would propose that the federal government spend more than a quarter of the national income.’
What’s wrong with spending? It ain’t new. The Bush administration spent freely. The only difference with Obama is he’s planning to fund the spending.
It’s about taxes and taxes only. And I don’t feel the least bit bad that people who have not had to pay up while we are fighting two wars now have to pay. I’ve been paying my share the whole time.
I second that. McCain got along rather well with an administration whose economic policy had two components:
1) Shovel as much money into the hands of cronies as possible.
2) Apres moi, le deluge.