The Dish

"I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more." Network, one of the best movies ever made, in my view.

It is becoming increasingly common to read comments like Eric’s, saying that George W. Bush is or may be the worst president ever. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said so forthrightly a few days ago. Although I am strongly tempted to agree, I know it’s not true–not because I have a higher opinion of Bush than people like Reid, but only because I’ve looked a little more carefully at some of the disasters of the past.

Before one can begin to make a judgment about this question of who is the worst president, I think one has to have some objective criteria on which to do an evaluation. Too many of the presidential ratings that have been done over the years are just popularity polls that tell us absolutely nothing of substance. For myself, I think the most important criteria ought to be how many people did a president kill unnecessarily?

Obviously, this means making a judgment about which of our wars were justified and which weren’t. Among the big ones, I would say that the Civil War and World War II were justifiable. But I have never been able to figure out what vital interest we had at stake in World War I or why we got involved. For that reason, I consider every American death in that war to have been unnecessary. At more than 100,000 deaths, this makes Woodrow Wilson our worst president in my book.

Of course, we have also had lesser wars that were motivated by nothing but imperialism–the Mexican War and Spanish-American War, for example. But very few people died in these wars and at least they were successful in the sense of accomplishing their purpose. Other wars fall somewhere in the middle–they may not have been motivated by imperialism or other base motives, but neither do they fall clearly into the "good war" category. These would include Korea and Vietnam. People can make their own judgments about those. War casualty data can be found here.

Of course, there is also the question of killing foreigners unnecessarily. This raises the difficult question of Truman’s use of the atom bomb against Japan. Today, incidentally, is the day the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Thursday will be the anniversary of the Nagasaki bomb.

My feeling is that the Hiroshima bomb was clearly justified and I think Truman was right to use it. But I have always had problems with the Nagasaki bomb, especially since it came so soon after the first bomb. I think a strong case can be made this bomb constituted unnecessary overkill. Therefore, one might reasonably say that Truman killed 74,000 Japanese unnecessarily.

Finally, there are certainly other issues on which we reasonably judge the success or failure of our presidents. The economy is an important one. In this regard, it is hard to put anyone except Herbert Hoover at the top of the list for failure. His signing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was one of the great blunders in American history and it is doubtful he will ever have any competition for incompetence in the economic area because his policies essentially brought on the Great Depression.

Thus without even considering the merely incompetent presidents who did no lasting harm, we see that George W. Bush has very heavy competition for the title of worst president. Of course, he still has time to make a bigger mess of Iraq and maybe bring on an economic crisis. But absent that, I just don’t see how he can be considered the worst when there is so much stronger competition for that title.

I’d have to say Krugman is wrong on this one. There has been plenty of substance in the Republican field. The problem is that it’s all bad substance.

The frontrunners are all campaigning on a platform of continuing and even expanding upon George W. Bush’s policies. Not one of the major candidates will state the plain and obvious truth that George W. Bush has been a horrible president — quite possibly the worst ever — and as a result we’re getting absolutely no real explanations of how they’d repair this mess. And that’s the real question people want to see answered, but it can’t be answered until we first make that crucial admission.

The only reason to say there’s no substance is that it’s an act of repression, an emotional defense mechanism against the sheer mess we’re seeing. But as you said, Bruce, anybody who knows what to look for can see what their policies would be.

I have more to say about the long-term budget situation, but I think Andrew’s right that we should move on.

So on another topic, I was reading Paul Krugman this morning and he was complaining about the lack of substance in the Republican campaign so far. He compares the situation to 2000 when the Republicans nominated George W. Bush without really knowing what he thought about the issues.

Actually, with the benefit of hindsight it was pretty clear that Bush was no Reaganite, small-government kind of guy. He gave plenty of speeches on the need to expand government for all kinds of things. My friend Ed Crane of the Cato Institute is always reminding me that he wrote an article in the New York Times back in 1999 that fingered Bush’s big government proclivities pretty accurately. It was also pretty clear that he was a foreign policy neocon. In short, it was all there for those who knew what to look for.

My own excuse for not predicting the disaster that Bush’s presidency has been is that I simply didn’t believe a word he said during the 2000 campaign. I assumed that every word out of his mouth had been put there by Karl Rove and it was all based on polling and focus groups. I knew that Bush is a bit of a dim bulb, so it never occurred to me that he actually had any ideas of his own. I just assumed that he would be a rerun of his father. I was never a big fan of George H.W., even though I worked for him at the Treasury Department, but looking back I can appreciate that he had his virtues. Bush 41 was at least a serious, responsible person–exactly the opposite of his oldest son.

My point is that it is very easy to get cynical about politics and think it is all a game. That was the mistake I made in 2000, along with lots of other people. If we don’t want to make the same mistake again, all of us who comment on politics need to pay closer attention to what these guys are saying and make some allowance for the possibility that they actually believe it.

Very early this morning, indeed, Stephen posted on gay marriage.  Generally, I agree with the points that he’s made (that the judiciary deciding and attempting to settle contentious cultural issues is not ideal, that issues such as gay marriage would be much better handled by legislatures).

However, I did want to make a point on this subject, which ties into the usual "judicial activism" claims made by conservatives, many of whom object to the manner in which a variety of decisions have been reached (i.e., by very loose readings of the constitution or law in question), but some of whom also seem to object to the decisions themselves, more than the process.

For as much as we may all agree that issues like whether or not to make gay marriage (or civil unions, or even legally-recognized and enforceable partnership agreements) available to gay couples would be best handled by the elected representatives of the people, the fact is that unlike the position before Roe, we have not seen much movement towards allowing gay partnerships in some form in the states, without judges leading (or "leading," depending on your view).  Where states have wording in their constitution in, say, an equal protection clause to the effect that "All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness," like Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, and a state via legislative inaction has maintained a ban on the constituent members of a formalized (gay) partnership having access to certain benefits that would automatically be accorded to those in a (heterosexual) marriage, it is fairly clear to me that the court remains the principal vehicle for resolving what on the face of it looks like a set-up that is probably unconstitutional (this is assuming, of course, that the electorate is not so outraged about inaction on the issue that they will vote on that single issue in the next election, to deliver a legislature that will resolve it).

www.lizmair.com

There was a lot of outcry after the New Jersey decision was handed down last year, mainly because people didn’t like the court dictating action to the legislature (from what I saw, anyway).  Unfortunately, if we are to have checks and balances in our system, I’m afraid that to some extent, such "dictating" is necessary– otherwise the court would be toothless, and would essentially serve the same function as a well-regarded professor at a top-tier law school (i.e., essentially just saying where he thinks legislative– or executive, for that matter– action fails to gel with the constitution, unable to promote any actual reconciliation of the constitution and the legislative body’s action, or inaction).  Personally, while I was not wild about the aspect of the decision that imposed a time frame for the legislature acting, ultimately, I felt that the decision was the right one because a) it gave recognition to the wording of the constitution and what that must mean in practice and b) it did not dictate a precise course of action to the legislature (i.e., it did not mandate gay marriage, but rather said that non-accordance of certain benefits to same-sex couples in committed relationships violated the constitution– and then told the legislature to come up with a way of fixing that).

I think it is worth mentioning, when looking back on what happened in New Jersey, also, that despite the fact that the court’s decision was issued as one evidencing "dissent," from what I understood, the issue at stake in the dissent was not whether New Jersey law had to be amended such that members of committed same-sex relationships would be accorded the same basic benefits under state law as were members of heterosexual marriages.  It was in fact whether it was possible to do this, or not, without allowing "gay marriage" per se.  Thus, in terms of the court’s basic decision (that the law needed to be amended to reflect that committed gay couples were not being protected by Article I, Paragraph 1), there was unanimity– laws preventing gay partners from receiving the same benefits as spouses were unconstitutional.

This suggests that with regard to New Jersey, this decision was a lot less controversial than was, say, Roe– the whole court agreed on the basic point.  Another salient point with regard to the New Jersey decision is that polling from before the rendering of the judgment indicated that in fact,  allowing gay partnerships in some form had popular appeal– e.g., a Rutgers-Eagleton poll from June 2006 showed that 49% favored allowing actual gay marriage, whereas 44% opposed it; and a February 2006 Zogby poll showed that 56% supported gay marriage, while 39% opposed it.  If those polls are to be believed, it would appear that on a straight democratic basis (i.e., majority rule), civil unions at least should have been made available to gay couples anyway.

Otherwise put, while I generally agree that judges ruling on cultural issues is problematic, where gay marriage/civil unions are concerned, evidently in one major case, this may be an overplayed concern.  Ultimately, unlike in Roe, where first of all, a law was being made for the whole country without regard to cultural differences between, e.g., the South (which remains largely pro-life) and the West (where the first steps towards legalizing abortion were taken), and second of all, it was harder to find a majority who favored legalized abortion with virtually no limits (as indeed it is now), in New Jersey, the court was evidently on the side of the majority– and agreed unanimously on the basic point of Article I, Paragraph 1 (i.e., that you can’t give committed heterosexual partners certain rights, and committed homosexual partners others, or none).

I stand corrected on points one and two, Bruce, although points three and four are still concerns to some extent. But I’d nevertheless be more than open to establishing a mixed VAT/income-tax structure.

But I think we can both agree that when all is said and done, the overall tax burden as a percentage of GDP has to go up in order to pay for the mass of entitlement spending and military commitments that George W. Bush has subjected us to these past years. Few of us seem to care about the national debt and permanent deficits, unfortunately, even though that bill will come due sooner or later in a massive fiscal/monetary crunch if we do nothing.

And while we can quibble about the details, at the end of the day the overall tax rates will have to go up considerably. There’s just no way around it, despite the Lafferist excesses we saw at yesterday’s Republican debate.

Some of the readers are finding the conversation that Bruce and I are having to be really boring. I hear your complaints, so let’s mix things up a little with a daily wacky feature:

Re Eric’s comments:

1. It’s not really practical to have a VAT at the state level. One state, Michigan, tried it and eventually repealed it. There are some things that only work at the national level and this is one of them.

2. A tax on value-added is not a tax on profits at all. A company collects and pays the tax whether it’s making a profit or running a loss. Since the tax falls on the difference between what a company buys from producers or other companies and what it sells its own output for, a VAT mainly falls on the company’s wages; that’s what creates the value-added.

3. There is a problem with exemptions from the VAT, but my observation from other countries is that this almost never involves the kind of corporate welfare we have here. The exemptions are mainly enacted to relieve the regressivity of the tax, such as by exempting food. However, all economists recognize that any exemptions create enormous complexity that undermines the VAT’s efficiency enormously. It would be highly desirable to have one rate on the broadest possible base and relieve the regressivity by cutting other taxes, increasing welfare benefits or some means other than exempting certain goods and services.

4. I don’t like the rebate idea because it would quickly become a de facto entitlement program. But I don’t think it would be necessary in my thinking of a VAT as an add-on tax. There will still be plenty of other taxes that could be adjusted to compensate for the VAT’s regressivity. If we were talking about a wholesale replacement, which ain’t gonna happen, that would be a different matter.

On a final note, I would remind people that every other major country on Earth has a VAT–the U.S. is the sole holdout. This means that there is lots of experience we can draw upon should we go down this route. That’s a key reason why I favor a VAT over a national retail sales tax, which has been rejected by every country that ever considered it. Many countries with a VAT had socialist governments when the decision was made. Those on the left can look to these countries for guidance on how distributional problems were handled.

Our host, of course, is a leading champion of gay marriage. Indeed, reading his work on the subject, has persuaded me the law ought to recognize some form of committed partnerships between same-sex couples. Whether you call it a civil union or marriage is a matter of indifference to me, although it seems obvious that a decent respect for the opinions of others and the freedom of religion mandates that the union have solely civil implications. One would hope that as gay marriage comes to be accepted, for example, that civil rights and anti-discrimination laws could not be used to sue priests who refuse to perform religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.

Where Andrew and I may differ strongly, however, is whether this is an appropriate question for courts.

Judicial resolution of hot button cultural issues has all too often contributed to polarization and social division.

Consider the case of abortion rights. Former Democratic Congressman, Clinton Administration White House Counsel and federal judge Abner Mikva once explained that: “I support the result of Roe v. Wade. … But … in retrospect, I wish the court had stayed its hand and allowed the political process to continue, because we would have legislated the effect of Roe v. Wade in most states — not all of them, but in most states — and we wouldn’t have had to pay the political price we’ve had to pay for it being a court decision. The people who are angry at that court are angry beyond measure. As far as they are concerned the whole system is rotten because they’ve lost their opportunity to slug it out.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has likewise stated that “Roe v. Wade … halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.”

Because it is custom, tradition, and long familiar patterns that enable people to live together peaceably, social change needs to come slowly. Change and progress are necessary, of course, but sudden change disrupts social bonds, induces stress and engenders controversy as old and vested interests are upset.

Sudden change by a cabal of unelected and largely unaccountable judges is particularly likely to engender controversy. Again, I’ll let Judge Mikva explain: “I don’t think it’s an accident that our founders put the legislative branch in the first article of the Constitution. The reason is that they perceived it to be the first among equals. Most of the people who’d been in Philadelphia had been members of the colonial legislatures, had been members of the Continental Congress, of the early congresses, and they understood the legislative process. They knew how it worked, and they recognized that there was a direct tie between where the people were and where the legislative branch was. They … were nervous about the judges because the English judges had not been an unmixed blessing as far as the colonies were concerned.”

The founders knew, like Spiderman, that “with great power comes great responsibility.” They ensured that Congress and the President could be held to account. If you don’t like what Congress is doing, you can vote for legislators you like better. You can contribute to candidates all over the country who share your views (of course, your ability to do so is limited because our judges have decided that political campaign contributions deserve less First Amendment protection than, say, child porn). You can give to 527 organizations that will promote your agenda. And so on.

Unfortunately, perhaps because they could not envision the extent to which modern judges would assert control over virtually all aspects of society and culture, the Founders failed to provide adequate accountability mechanisms. If you don’t like what the Supreme Court does, tough. All you can hope is that you can elect leaders who will eventually replace enough of those nine unelected old men and women with individuals whose views are more to your liking.

Abraham Lincoln saw the problem coming. He said of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that: “If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” And so it is today.

We must hope that judges can tell the difference between cases where intervention is necessary and appropriate and cases that should remain in the political arena. The New York Court of Appeals in 2006 argued that gay marriage fell into the latter category:“We hold that the New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex. … Whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the Legislature,” the court said. Now if only we could get those nine oldsters in Washington to emulate their northern counterparts.

I have no doubt that some form of gay marriage is coming. And that will, I think, on balance be a good thing. But the way in which it arrives matters a lot. One hopes that even ardent supporters of gay marriage recognize that the decades of Kulturkampf that followed – and still follow – Roe v. Wade is not something that ought to be repeated.

I do think it would be worthwhile to shift to a pure consumption-based tax system. I would do it by exempting all saving from taxation. This could be done by consolidating all existing tax deferred savings accounts–IRA’s, Keoghs, 401k’s, etc.–into one savings vehicle. All contributions would be tax-deductible, all withdrawals would be fully taxed at ordinary income tax rates. Money inside the account compounds tax-free until withdrawn. There would be no limit on contributions, no limit on withdrawals; no age restrictions and so on. Since there are only two things that can be done with income–either save or spend it–all taxation would necessarily fall on consumption if such accounts existed.

This sounds great on paper, and some of the principles behind it might be worth incorporating into our current system.

But off the top of my head, the problem seems to be that this creates an initial incentive for people to save a lot, perhaps too much savings with frequent withdrawals. And that means that if they then anticipate a cut in the tax rates — meaning the value of their savings would go up — they would be overly averse to withdrawing money in the short term, causing a brief slowdown in withdrawals and thus in consumer spending.

The opposite would be worse. If the income-tax rate goes up, then that means the amount of money they effectively have in savings just went down. But that furthermore means that if people anticipate an increase in the tax rates, there could be a great mass of withdrawals as people cash out of the savings accounts and put their money into other investments. And that could then turn into runs on the savings accounts. And as we know, runs are definitely not fun.

What mechanisms would you put in place to stop these sorts of hazards from occurring?