The Budget Will Bust

Reason assembles a group of libertarian thinkers and market watchers to speculate on the economy. Here’s Megan:

By far [the next President’s] biggest quandary will be the budget. Obama (who I assume will be the Democratic nominee) wants a big new health care entitlement; John McCain wants even more tax cuts. Both will be frustrated by adverse budget math. The economic slowdown is going to cut into tax revenues, and most economists agree that a recession is not a good time to raise taxes—nay, not even on “the rich.” Meanwhile, the baby boomers are about to start retiring, turning Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid into the sucking chest wound of the federal budget. Assurances that the trust fund won’t run out until 2042 notwithstanding, the president will have to start coping with Medicare deficits as soon as next year, and a falling Social Security surplus soon thereafter. All this will be compounded by the slowdown in GDP growth made inevitable by declining labor force participation and service-intensive elder care.

Quote For The Day

"The fear of terrorism and the rise of the "Homeland Security State" has been much remarked upon by now. But even as evidence piles on that the terror groups we huddle in fear of are actually quite small, dysfunctional and unpopular – it doesn’t change our basic policies. And while this whole phenomenon is largely a product of the right – that have decided to scare us all because that helps elect "tough guys" — the left sometimes beats a similar drum for different reasons. To argue that the Bush administration has been incompetent, it argues that we’re all much less safe than before. (Of course, the right is far more guilty of fear-mongering- remember Rudy Giuliani on the campaign trail?)" – Fareed Zakaria, a conservative out of love with today’s "conservatism" in foreign policy.

The Clinton-Bush Overlap

Another reason for neocon Bush supporters to back Clinton:

It didn’t feel reckless to Hillary to repeat this lie over and over again, and she paid no heed to those who contradicted her, because in her mind, she was telling the truth. Only when confronted with undeniable evidence of external reality — actual footage from her Bosnia trip – did she admit (possibly to herself as well as the public) that her version of events was not true.

It also explains Hillary’s reaction when exposed. She was angry because she was forced to abandon her psychic reality for external reality. For her, this was tantamount to giving up the truth in exchange for mere facts.

Obama’s Crusade?

Hampton Stephens questions Obama’s foreign policy proposals:

George Bush’s foreign policy has been too-much influenced by the Wilsonian idea that America can make the world safe for democracy. It often goes unmentioned, however, that self-described liberal internationalists also believe American foreign policy should have a "transformative agenda," as Powers puts it — whether the goal is liberty, dignity, or development. The problem with Bush’s foreign policy, according to the current liberal internationalist critique, has not been its fundamental goals, but the means used to pursue them: military force, unilateralism, etc.

To replace neoconservative democracy promotion by force, Obama seems to be proposing a different kind of crusade. He and his advisers seem to believe that American foreign policy can deliver the human race from indignity and want. Even if their strategy for achieving this goal doesn’t rely on military force, such an expansive view of the capabilities of U.S. foreign policy is dangerously unrealistic. It seems particularly overly ambitious in light of the growing evidence about what traditional forms of development aid have actually accomplished. (Not to mention that Obama’s agenda seems too hostile to a form of global development and economic uplift that often proves rather more effective than aid: trade.)

I second this worry. If the last seven years have not heightened one’s skepticism about the transformative effects of American interventionism, what would? This is not to say that some limited engagement to ameliorate pressing disasters or prudent intervention to deter evil or rescue the truly indigent have to be ruled out of bounds. But the messianic quality of Bush’s force and Obama’s "dignity"-promotion seems overweening to me.