[Vision2020] Magical Unrealism

[Art Deco]

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August 12, 2011
Magical Unrealism
There was nothing particularly surprising about the shrill skirmishing at the ideological edges of Thursday night's Republican presidential debate in Iowa. What was shocking were the antics in the center. 

In full public view, the party's mainstream jumped the tracks of reality on issues of spending and taxes, brightly illustrating the ruinous magical thinking that has led to a downgrade of the nation's credit and invited a double-dip recession. When asked if they would reject a deal to cut the deficit that had 10 times the amount of spending cuts as it had tax increases, the hands of all eight candidates went up. Even a tincture of new revenue, though mixed with huge cuts in government spending, would be too much for the modern Republican Party. 

The raised hands included those of Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney, two former governors who have proved that they know better. Mr. Huntsman was the only one on the stage who said he would have accepted last week's budget deal and the only one to point out that Washington should never even consider defaulting. 

Saying as much is already Tea Party heresy, so why not take the next logical step and admit that the nation's finances are unsustainable in the long term without some tax increases? Even Mr. Huntsman was unwilling to take the slightest risk of offending the rigid and unforgiving Republican Party primary electorate. 

Mr. Romney derided the budget deal as "Mr. Obama's dog food" and said he would not eat it, perhaps hoping the public has already forgotten that it was really the deal demanded by the Congressional leaders of his party. (Speaker John Boehner said last week the deal was "98 percent of what I wanted." We'd love to know what the remaining 2 percent is.) 

Rejecting compromise was not the way Mr. Romney governed. He balanced the Massachusetts budget with new income from $269 million in closed tax loopholes, and $271 million in increased fees. He has claimed unconvincingly that those were not taxes, but it turns out that his administration boasted about them to the bond rating agencies in 2004 and 2005, and his state won an upgrade by demonstrating fiscal prudence. Now he is repudiating that approach at the federal level. 

That has been the nature of every Republican debate this cycle: deny the truth or tell an outrageous lie with such bellicosity that no one dares to challenge it. 

Representative Michele Bachmann, for example, said the credit downgrade was because the government could not pay its debt. Standard and Poor's actually said it was because lawmakers like her did not take a default seriously. Representative Ron Paul ridiculously claimed that the United States is bankrupt. Tim Pawlenty said President Obama had no plan to reduce social insurance spending, conveniently forgetting that Mr. Boehner walked away from the president's overly generous offer to reduce that spending in exchange for revenue increases. 

The Republican Party has been led into its current cul-de-sac by manipulative officials who would not tell voters the truth about the government's finances. It will remain there if even its "moderate" leaders refuse to break the pattern. 

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Wayne A. Fox
wayne.a.fox at gmail.com
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