I was chatting with my cousin at a surprise party for my brother this weekend, and we were discussing why my blog frequency was way down. There are a number of reasons, but one of them is a feeling that specific factual or policy issues are largely incidental to people. It’s not the issue that folks care about, usually, it’s just an excuse to advance the interest of their tribe.
For example, Mike Kole has, with some justification, ridden me about my silence on the deficit. It’s hard telling for sure one’s own personal motivations. In my mind, it’s not because Democrats are the ones spending money, it’s because they aren’t – in my opinion – spending the money nearly as stupidly as the previous administrations. Spending money to pull the country out of a nose dive and winding down some of the past administrations’ mistakes seems reasonable to me. And, a lot of that (I think) will be mitigated by the increase on taxes that never should have been lowered in the first place when the portion of tax cuts for income in excess of $250k expires.
But, there is a part of it that’s tribal – jumping on the bandwagon of those who discovered a sham concern for deficits only when Obama took office seems counterproductive. I imagine that a similar calculus or other internal justification goes through the minds of, for example, those who have a burning passion for strict sexual morality and go silent when their favored politician is caught with his pants down.
So, if it’s tribal considerations that win the day, at some level it seems a bit useless to get too animated about this issue and that issue in the way that my particular style of blogging seems to approach things. Then again, there is something of a prisoner’s dilemma going on. If one side is focused on governing and the other side is focused on winning elections, the the side focused on winning elections is going to end up governing.
I’ll have to give this more thought. I doubt anything about my blogging is going to change though. I’m going to keep babbling on about whatever strikes my interest when I have the time and inclination. And, hopefully folks will continue to find it an inviting place to spend their time and discuss whatever comes up. Objective search for truth, partisan sparring, or preaching to the choir; conversations are still valuable.
buzzcut, you’re trying to have it both ways. you claim that obama’s current deficits are unjustified because we’re supposedly in “recovery” now as opposed to recession. but then you say that bush’s deficits were totally okay because that was a recession, even though you admit it wasn’t “officially” a recession!
things now are much worse than they were in 2003. if we were still in a recession in 2003, then we’re certainly still in one now.
stAllio, I don’t disagree with that. I think that most people would say that job growth distinguishes a growing economy from a recession (the official stats look at economic growth). By that measure, we are not out of the recession, and that explains a good deal of the deficit.
The problem I see is that the Democrats are throwing good money after bad, and the stimulus isn’t working. It’s time to try something else.
That something else could be austerity, and one aspect of austerity could be to repeal the Bush tax cuts along with massively cutting spending. But I would want to see ALL the tax cuts repealed, and us going back to 1999 tax rates for everyone.
Doug, we’re arguing in circles. You say that the Tea Partiers weren’t speaking out when Bush was running up deficits. I say that the Tea Partiers are people who abandoned the Republican party in ’06 and ’08 because of excessive spending and our performance in the Iraq war.
After 51 posts, I don’t think I’m going to be able to persuade you.