This is the seventh installment of a series of posts on lessons we progressives should take on the election. The overview is here.
Simple economics says that if you pay more for something, you get more of that thing. If I had to choose one area where I most commonly believe my progressive brethren go wrong, it is in not seeming to understand this truth.
They understand it for some areas: Want more hybrid cars? Subsidize them. Want more foster parents? Pay more! Why are we having trouble getting good teachers? They aren’t paid enough!
But when you turn to other areas …. For instance, do we want more single mothers? We should pay for them. Do we want more people claiming poverty or disability? Do we want more poor children (or just children in general, for that matter)? Want more unemployed people? And we can verify that this happens, if that is needed – look, for instance, at the dramatic increase in disability claims after the reduction to welfare.
Of course, I would disagree with my conservative friends who would act like that last paragraph was somehow dispositive and we should have no entitlements. There are always perverse incentives anytime you help someone, and we believe as a society that we should “promote the general welfare,” so we don’t simply throw up our hands in some fatalistic “we can’t help” attitude, or act like the same disincentives don’t apply to non-government organizations like churches or charities.
But we DO need to recognize that the solution to a problem is not always to blindly throw money at it, and that is the underlying assumption of many progressive arguments. We have to recognize that we need to provide the proper incentives for the proper behavior, or at least that we are helping IN SPITE OF this economic reality and we are willing to just suck it up.
What do I mean that there is such an underlying assumption? Do you want to raise the millage for education? The proper answer should be, “It depends. How will the money help, how will it hurt, and is this the best plan?” And for certain the progressive response to someone saying that should not be, “Why do you hate kids, you self-centered jerk!?” (Now, if someone says something like, “They aren’t getting any more of MY money, and they are statist thieves,” there is both some self-centeredness and some jerkiness … but that is off topic.)
The baseline assumption should be that people should be taxed the least amount possible to achieve the amount of good we want as a society. If building a new school will not help children learn, or it will help but it would be better to spend that money on a new park or library or school breakfasts, we should always consider that. We should also consider, again, that there is a high value in individuality in our country, and part of that is spending the money we contracted to get in the ways we want, so … it’s not crazy for people to suggest NOT spending public money raised through taxes.
Again, though, don’t take this to mean that I buy into the silly idea that taxation is theft – barring extraordinarily high levels like rich-under-Ike, it isn’t by any reasonable philosophy. But just because Libertarians are myopic and try to act like our core value of individual liberty is the ONLY core value does not mean that it somehow stops being an important value. If we want to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” we need to be good stewards of the money that we all agree, by living here, we should contribute, and we should only take more when that is better than letting someone spend the money in the way they individually want. That should be a high bar.
So if you want to pass a new regulation, ask … is this worth it? The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will generally make a good-faith effort to say how much something will cost. What if we didn’t regulate that, but instead took a smaller portion of money to fix the outliers causing the issue? What if we put more money in enforcement of laws that exist?
Do we need to create a new school? Ask if we could we modify the existing structures, or change school schedules to better use the facilities. Even if we still raise taxes for education, with those changes we could do other things instead of create a new building. Maybe we look at online education options, or something else new.
By the way, I kept solely to economic values above, but we should certainly consider much more. Maybe we build the new school because we want to show children that learning is important, and we want to encourage businesses to move to our area, and we want to stop exposing our children to lead paint and asbestos siding. That is all true, and it helps me make my point, which is that we should think about (and debate) all of our values and look at what actually works to make our society better. To do that, we as social progressives need to stop short-circuiting the conversations by demonizing those that suggest that spending more money on a problem is not always the appropriate solution. Don't let them stop the conversation there, but don't try to stop it yourself.
Instead of having bad economic reasoning, progressives should use good fiscal rationales to make sure progressive values will succeed, not just progressive rhetoric.
Thoughts?
Simple economics says that if you pay more for something, you get more of that thing. If I had to choose one area where I most commonly believe my progressive brethren go wrong, it is in not seeming to understand this truth.
They understand it for some areas: Want more hybrid cars? Subsidize them. Want more foster parents? Pay more! Why are we having trouble getting good teachers? They aren’t paid enough!
But when you turn to other areas …. For instance, do we want more single mothers? We should pay for them. Do we want more people claiming poverty or disability? Do we want more poor children (or just children in general, for that matter)? Want more unemployed people? And we can verify that this happens, if that is needed – look, for instance, at the dramatic increase in disability claims after the reduction to welfare.
Of course, I would disagree with my conservative friends who would act like that last paragraph was somehow dispositive and we should have no entitlements. There are always perverse incentives anytime you help someone, and we believe as a society that we should “promote the general welfare,” so we don’t simply throw up our hands in some fatalistic “we can’t help” attitude, or act like the same disincentives don’t apply to non-government organizations like churches or charities.
But we DO need to recognize that the solution to a problem is not always to blindly throw money at it, and that is the underlying assumption of many progressive arguments. We have to recognize that we need to provide the proper incentives for the proper behavior, or at least that we are helping IN SPITE OF this economic reality and we are willing to just suck it up.
What do I mean that there is such an underlying assumption? Do you want to raise the millage for education? The proper answer should be, “It depends. How will the money help, how will it hurt, and is this the best plan?” And for certain the progressive response to someone saying that should not be, “Why do you hate kids, you self-centered jerk!?” (Now, if someone says something like, “They aren’t getting any more of MY money, and they are statist thieves,” there is both some self-centeredness and some jerkiness … but that is off topic.)
The baseline assumption should be that people should be taxed the least amount possible to achieve the amount of good we want as a society. If building a new school will not help children learn, or it will help but it would be better to spend that money on a new park or library or school breakfasts, we should always consider that. We should also consider, again, that there is a high value in individuality in our country, and part of that is spending the money we contracted to get in the ways we want, so … it’s not crazy for people to suggest NOT spending public money raised through taxes.
Again, though, don’t take this to mean that I buy into the silly idea that taxation is theft – barring extraordinarily high levels like rich-under-Ike, it isn’t by any reasonable philosophy. But just because Libertarians are myopic and try to act like our core value of individual liberty is the ONLY core value does not mean that it somehow stops being an important value. If we want to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” we need to be good stewards of the money that we all agree, by living here, we should contribute, and we should only take more when that is better than letting someone spend the money in the way they individually want. That should be a high bar.
So if you want to pass a new regulation, ask … is this worth it? The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will generally make a good-faith effort to say how much something will cost. What if we didn’t regulate that, but instead took a smaller portion of money to fix the outliers causing the issue? What if we put more money in enforcement of laws that exist?
Do we need to create a new school? Ask if we could we modify the existing structures, or change school schedules to better use the facilities. Even if we still raise taxes for education, with those changes we could do other things instead of create a new building. Maybe we look at online education options, or something else new.
By the way, I kept solely to economic values above, but we should certainly consider much more. Maybe we build the new school because we want to show children that learning is important, and we want to encourage businesses to move to our area, and we want to stop exposing our children to lead paint and asbestos siding. That is all true, and it helps me make my point, which is that we should think about (and debate) all of our values and look at what actually works to make our society better. To do that, we as social progressives need to stop short-circuiting the conversations by demonizing those that suggest that spending more money on a problem is not always the appropriate solution. Don't let them stop the conversation there, but don't try to stop it yourself.
Instead of having bad economic reasoning, progressives should use good fiscal rationales to make sure progressive values will succeed, not just progressive rhetoric.
Thoughts?
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