In mulling over the Social Security crisis-unlike a few folks I admire, I’m convinced that there is one-it occurred to me that conservatism is deeply unpopular. This might sound odd in light of President Bush’s reelection, the endless hand wringing among liberals, and the obliteration of the Democratic Party in the white South. I can imagine liberals thinking, “That’s a kind of unpopularity I could handle.” Well, you’ll soon find out. Republicans are already overreaching, and the stench of corruption will soon lead to electoral gains for Democrats, civil wars, backbiting, and a largely talentless political bench notwithstanding.
But it goes deeper than that. It’s not just that Republican partisans are unpopular. They’re not, or at least not yet. It’s that conservatism, understood loosely as an “ideology of self-reliance,” has failed to make serious inroads since the mid-’90s. It’s still nowhere near a popular majority. This is why conservative politicians are often forced to use deception to advance conservative policy proposals. Take tax cuts, the heart and soul of President Bush’s meager domestic policy. When Bush first came to office, tax cuts were not a particularly high priority for the public. Neverthless, Bush pressed ahead, and the size and distribution of the tax cuts he proposed were, as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have argued, “radically at odds with majority views.” “Crafted language” does the work that ought to be done by argument and persuasion. I don’t agree with Hacker and Pierson on much, but I’m a partisan of majoritarian democracy (part of why I dislike activist judges of all persuasions) and I find this unsettling. Had the administration paid heed to public opinion, not out of slavish deference but out of respect, we would’ve seen a different tax cut, and, with any luck, a sustainable popular majority for conservatism. (McCain, incidentally, could’ve pulled it off, but you already knew that.)
SOCIAL SECURITY AND SELF-RELIANCE: Which leads us to Social Security. It’s not that I agree with Paul Krugman-that the Bush administration’s true intention is to destroy a successful government program precisely because it represents an ideological affront-but, well, Social Security is an affront to the “ideology of self-reliance,” and it fosters dependency. Worse yet, the system, as Laurence Kotlikoff, Kent Smetters and Jagadeesh Gokhale, and others maintain, is badly broken. Consider the following passage from Krugman’s 7 December column:
My favorite example of their three-card-monte logic goes like this: first, they insist that the Social Security system’s current surplus and the trust fund it has been accumulating with that surplus are meaningless. Social Security, they say, isn’t really an independent entity — it’s just part of the federal government.
If the trust fund is meaningless, by the way, that Greenspan-sponsored tax increase in the 1980’s was nothing but an exercise in class warfare: taxes on working-class Americans went up, taxes on the affluent went down, and the workers have nothing to show for their sacrifice.
But never mind: the same people who claim that Social Security isn’t an independent entity when it runs surpluses also insist that late next decade, when the benefit payments start to exceed the payroll tax receipts, this will represent a crisis — you see, Social Security has its own dedicated financing, and therefore must stand on its own.
There’s another way of reading this. (1) This part is true. (2) Yes, the Greenspan-sponsored tax increase was an exercise in class warfare, and that’s a bad thing. (3) No, it’s still not an independent entity. Social Security, and Medicare, will represent an ever-increasing share of the federal budget, thus stymieing efforts to address unforeseen social calamities (a zombie plague, for example) and crowding out private investment and other good stuff.
A fully funded Social Security system, like the one proposed by Edward Prescott, has tremendous conservative appeal. So does the Smetters/Gokhale proposal. Neither proposal will ever see the light of day. Kotlikoff might be best on the merits, but it’s also a longshot. Phillip Longman floated my favorite reform-which looks politically viable to boot-last month. Predictably, the Bush administration is contemplating a series of half-assed “reforms” that are likely to make matters worse. In doing so, the administration will yet again discredit the “ideology of self-reliance.” One wonders if Bush is a sleeper agent for the Socialist International.
SO WHAT NEXT?:
To set this right, we need Menashi in the White House, with Daniel Drezner as USTR. We also need a new ideological synthesis. (Call me Commissar.) Start with “demand-side conservatism” as described by Rauch. Then throw in a dash of Longmanian natalism and Douthatian social conservatism, leavened by Sullivanian–Oakeshottian sympathies, Muellerian fiscal “Reaganism,” and a healthy dose of Gerechtian pax Americana. Before you know it, you’ll have an earth-shatteringly excellent governing philosophy that would restore American greatness and make the world a better place for the children.
Never forget that Wu-Tang is for the children. R.I.P.
‘OW, FEET FEET FEET FEET’: I just wanted to mention that few things in life are more entertaining than listening to “Get Low” (Clean Version). It’s literally incomprehensible nonsense, and I mean
that in the best sense.
— Reihan