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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

“Limited But Energetic”

The fact is, the American story is not just the story of limited governments; it is the story of limited but energetic governments that used aggressive federal power to promote growth and social mobility. George Washington used industrial policy, trade policy and federal research dollars to build a manufacturing economy alongside the agricultural one. The […]

The fact is, the American story is not just the story of limited governments; it is the story of limited but energetic governments that used aggressive federal power to promote growth and social mobility. George Washington used industrial policy, trade policy and federal research dollars to build a manufacturing economy alongside the agricultural one. The Whig Party used federal dollars to promote a development project called the American System. ~David Brooks

Of course, at the time that Whigs were promoting “internal improvements” they encountered constant resistance from many Democratic Republicans/Democrats who believed that the federal government had no authority to use federal revenues that way. Once the war was over and Republicans dominated national politics, the schemes for “internal improvements” became larger and more ambitious, but they always had many opponents. What Whigs would have considered “limited but energetic” government would strike Brooks as far worse than anything Paul Ryan and Arthur Brooks are proposing, and Brooks’ idea of “limited but energetic” government would have horrified most Americans before 1900 and probably all Americans before 1850, not least because there are never actually any limits to what Brooks thinks the government can or should do.

Invoking the Whigs to score a point against two other Republicans who are almost as centralist as Brooks is unintentionally gives some support to the people he is trying to dismiss. After all, the Whigs believed the federal government had very limited powers and was quite constrained by the Constitution. What would have probably been more effective in challenging easy sloganeering about government-cutting is to take his opponents at their word. If they say that they want to reduce the federal government’s size and scope to the level it was at some point in the past, Brooks should have made them defend that position.

Had he done that, Brooks would have probably discovered that most people on the right today say “limited government” rather than “small government” or “constitutional government” because most of them also favor a fairly “energetic” government, but they object to some of the current activities of the federal government. They therefore choose to draw a line that they think the federal government is crossing, but one that it “shouldn’t” be crossing, and they want to make that line the outer limit of what they are willing to tolerate. The phrase “limited government” conceals a multitude of government programs, which is how so many Republicans who have no intention of scaling back the federal government to anything remotely like its enumerated powers can use the phrase without being too misleading.

My point isn’t that there haven’t always been American impulses towards a more activist, consolidated and centralized government, which in practice is what Brooks means by “energetic,” but that that there have been equally significant impulses opposing all of that. The former have won most of the contests over the last two centuries, which Brooks takes as proof that advocates of ever-more “energetic” government should keep prevailing over those who favor rather less activity. Brooks wants to claim that he can draw inspiration from the winners of those contests, while his opponents should be dismissed if they seek inspiration in the example of the losers.

One of the main problems with Brooks’ “energetic” government position is that he has repeatedly favored government activity when either none was necessary or when the specific measure he was supporting was badly misguided. For example, Brooks was a vocal supporter of the TARP. Matt Welch reminds us that Brooks dismissed opponents of the TARP bill as “nihilists,” mainly on the grounds that in a crisis government must “do something” and be seen doing something. There was never an argument for the TARP on its merits, because the merits of the legislation on offer were sorely lacking, but there was simply a call for government to take charge.

It’s worth noting that the TARP has become one of those things credited with success that is mostly the result of other policy decisions. For instance, the easing of the mark-to-market rule that was imposed in 2007 did not resolve the toxic asset problem, but it significantly aided in limiting firms’ losses. As I keep saying, the money Congress appropriated for the original purpose and sole justification for the TARP, which was to purchase toxic assets and clear the balance sheets of financial institutions to prevent a cessation of lending, was never once used for that purpose. As officials in the Obama administration admitted almost as soon as they came in, and just as many critics of the measure said before it passed, there was never going to be a way to price those assets, and there was no notion of how the program was ever going to work in practice. As it turned out, the TARP funds were never put to use for their original purpose, and yet somehow the world did not end. The TARP is a good example of what happens when the impulse towards government action overwhelms thought and deliberation. But don’t listen to me–I’m just some nihilist.

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