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Among the Intellectualoids
Mr. Fix It and the Whiz Kids
They didn’t come here to cut spending.
President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package was the sort of centrally planned project that the progressive left loves: a grab bag of brainy new policies, from green investments to targeted tax credits. Pass the stimulus, the administration’s top economists said, and unemployment would fall to 7.25% by the end of 2010; reject it and that number could be 8.8%. Paul Krugman briefly doffed his robes and descended from the halls of Olympus to laud the administration for providing “comprehensible, honest reports.”
They were utterly and completely wrong. The president signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law in February 2009. By April, unemployment had hit 9%. It wouldn’t fall below 8% for another three-and-a-half years. And while the Congressional Budget Office says the stimulus created jobs, those jobs cost an exorbitant $228,000 a piece.
And what of the Washington policy wonks who miscalled one of the most expensive pieces of legislation in history? The principal authors of the stimulus report, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, are doing just fine; Romer is a professor of economics at the University of California-Berkeley, and Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and an MSNBC contributor.
Their leering inaccuracies were never a major scandal. By the time it became evident just how wrong they’d been, everyone had moved on to Dodd-Frank. Then by the time Dodd-Frank’s enormous unintended consequences surfaced, everyone had moved on to Obamacare. And by the time Obamacare started to rain down damage on small businesses, everyone had…
This is the overcaffeinated game of leapfrog that’s characterized Washington for years. Policy wonks and whiz kid pundits fly to a problem, waving calculators and smacking each other with rolled-up charts in attempts to get there first. Legislation is passed that supposedly ameliorates the problem. Everyone trips over each other and gets a convenient case of amnesia. Then it’s on to the next problem. And for God’s sake, don’t look back at the previous one…or at least not for another few years when everyone can return and try to solve it all over again.
All this is relevant in light of news from Stephen Moore’s interview with Speaker John Boehner last week:
“At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’”…
The president’s insistence that Washington doesn’t have a spending problem, Mr. Boehner says, is predicated on the belief that massive federal deficits stem from what Mr. Obama called “a health-care problem.” Mr. Boehner says that after he recovered from his astonishment—“They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system”—he replied: “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with ObamaCare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.” He repeated this message so often, he says, that toward the end of the negotiations, the president became irritated and said: “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”
We do indeed have a health care problem, starting with Medicare Part A’s impending bankruptcy. But the notion that we don’t also have a spending problem is absurd, as plenty of commentators pointed out. The president of the United States, elected during a debt crisis, is refusing to acknowledge the root of that crisis.
Why? Because he doesn’t want to downsize; that’s not what he came here to do. Obama never lost his conviction, fundamental to progressive grass roots and intellectuals alike, that government exists to regulate, tinker, spend, and solve society’s problems. For all the conspiracy theories about Obama’s exoticism, he’s really just another technocrat playing the game of leapfrog. So he applied the progressive method, bringing in the Romers and Bernsteins, the experts and whiz kids, believing that, with a creative new policy here and a quixotic new agency there, he could fix things. But the problems he “solves” only get worse and the economy continues to stagnate around him.
This mindset isn’t just limited to Obama. An intellectual pipeline exists in Washington, with economists and think tanks conjuring up ideas, wonks and journalists discussing them, and legislators passing the final results. It pays the bills for a lot of people, but it’s also very out of place. Politicians like to think of themselves as addressing the challenges of their time. But the challenge at the moment, inherent in our massive debt, is to do the one thing that Washington big thinkers can’t fathom: stop.
This is why House Republicans are repeatedly accused of not having any ideas. House Republicans actually have plenty of ideas, but most of them involve big spending cuts, and in most corners of wonky Washington, that doesn’t count. A subsidy to left-handed small business owners who promise to invest in voice recognition technology to cut back on carpal tunnel cases accompanied by a chart showing a corresponding reduction in health care spending: that’s an idea. But cutting back? Surrendering control? Forget it.
It also explains the post-election deification of Nate Silver. After botched projections on the stimulus, Dodd-Frank, Obamacare, unemployment…here was a whiz kid in our midst who had calculated something accurately! In an election between two presidential candidates, Silver had picked the correct one. This triumph of the intellect launched him on a victory lap on which he explained how everyone, from Politico to political pundits, wasn’t nearly as useful as Nate Silver. Salon.com heartily agreed: “Help us, Nate Silver!” they cried, in an excerpt from a book rightly examining the role of risk calculations in crashing the economy. The lesson learned was not “Calculations can’t chart our future,” but rather, “Calculations can chart our future, but we have to put smart people in charge of them.”
And so, just like the “experts” who fiddled with lending standards to increase home ownership, or the technocrats who inflated an education bubble by gobbling up the student loan industry, or the Wall Street whiz kids who thought they could eliminate risk, Obama and company will continue to believe they can think their way through this crisis. All they need are the smart people; virtuosos and eggheads capable of managing an entire economy without producing any unintended consequences.
They already have Nate Silver. There have to be more out there somewhere.
About the Author
Matt Purple is The American Spectator’s assistant managing editor.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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JAWilson| 1.16.13 @ 7:55AM
I visited DC to party with my old college grads years ago and came away with the distinct impression that DC was an excellent post grad program where you could hide out from the real world. And the public pool in Fairfax county was Olympic quality.
Until it isn't so comfortable financially to work for the DC industry, the problem will never be solved. Why should they police themselves?
Seapuss| 1.16.13 @ 8:03AM
Obama is a fiscal alcoholic. We can't start to recover until he admits we have a spending problem.
Von Mises Jr| 1.16.13 @ 8:20AM
Matt must have listened to Rush yesterday who used the same analysis of how for the last four years we have had one shell game crisis after another with the CR's, debt ceiling, taxmageddon in a never ending succession.
But let's call the Stimulus what it was. It was a $787B scam that bailed out teacher’s pensions and benefits to the tune of about $250B and another $90B for crony capitalist "green energy" scams such as Soyndra, Sun Trust and Ener1. Half the money was spent as a complete fraud that did not create jobs but only saved some long-term unsustainable public sector sweet-heart deals.
The problem is that now we know that Social Security and Medicare were slush funds for the Federal government, and we still don't call the Stimulus, ObamaCare and Dodd Frank what they truly are: more government slush funds for theft and largess.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.16.13 @ 9:07AM
It is necessary to pin Mr. Purple (or more accurately, the subjects about whom he writes) down on what is being described when the term “smart people” is being tossed around. There has been no public release of Obama’s grades, test scores, transcripts or other academic achievements that might demonstrate his prowess in that field of endeavor. In fact, outside of a ruthless campaigning instinct aided by fawning press sycophants, along with an ability to read a teleprompter well, his every effort in public office either results in disaster or is chalked up as voting present.
On the other hand, visit the local probation & parole office, and gaze into the lobby at the collection of 10th grade drop out chronically unemployed felons. By the end of the week, at least half will have overcome the prohibitions and restrictions included in the gun control measures designed by Obama, Biden and the other “smart people”, with more to follow in the weeks ahead.
RFisher66| 1.16.13 @ 10:07AM
I don't know who invented the phrase "unintended consequences" but they were surely an idiot. Why is it that the genuises in Washington hide behind that phrase while us poor dumb schlubs in flyover country look at everything Washington does and say, "there will be consequences and here they are"? Why is it that we can see the consequences even before a law is passed and Washington can't? They may be smart in knowledge but they are truly idiots in common sense. I haven't been surprised in years by any consequences of Washington's actions but only surprised that the intelligensia has the chutzpah to claim "unintended consequences." Who among the great unwashed doesn't realize that Paul Krugman is an idiot.
fmm| 1.16.13 @ 12:33PM
There are no unintended consequences and the phrase is simply intended to mislead and give cover to progressive miscreants. All the programs mentioned by the author, and more, are targeted to accomplish specific progressive goals. Among these are reduction of private sector wealth, transferrance of wealth from the private to the public sector, increasing government control over both the means of production and the general citizenry, and establishing permanent voting blocks. All of this will continue until, as JAWilson suggests above, the incentives are changed to reduce the rewards for working for the DC industry..
Tumbleweed| 1.16.13 @ 10:27AM
With their real world experience, there was never a plan to improve the country. The plan was to destroy the economic engine of the country and make it an easy target for a takeover by those who would wreck our standard of living and principles!
Derek Leaberry| 1.16.13 @ 10:51AM
Sadly, most Republicans did not come to Washington to cut spending. For instance, why wasn't Obama sent a budget from the Republican House that spent as little as the last Bush budget?
Job| 1.16.13 @ 12:42PM
ok so clearly the Republicans vs. Democrats is a mismatch like the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters what else is new.
Hardcard| 1.16.13 @ 3:13PM
There's no mis-match they are both the same. They both came for the power and the money. Corruption is rampant and socialism is being weaved into our every part of our lives, we are ruled by a socialist despot, who hates America and our freedoms. We are screwed. I'll take door #1 monte barack.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.16.13 @ 3:25PM
Let's see what's behind Door #1-it's a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax, and a Death Valley weekend getaway with Janet Napolitano!
By the way, great costume.
Pecos Pete| 1.16.13 @ 3:27PM
Door #2 for me: Two weeks in Hawaii at your expense, palatial digs, good food.
Marc Jeric| 1.16.13 @ 6:16PM
Unemployment at 7.8%? Hogwash! They do not count those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits (paid for when they worked by subtractions from their paychecks). The real unemployment rate is 14%+.
Inflation at 1.7%? Their rate excludes the prices of energy and food! That's exactly what people spend most of their money for. With these included the true inflation rate is 8%+.
Marc Jeric| 1.16.13 @ 6:22PM
These are some of Obama’s “green energy” enterprises financed by taxpayers:
Solar Trust of America: bankrupt;
Bright Source: bankrupt;
Solyndra: bankrupt - ($535 Million)
LSP Energy: (Light Squared); bankrupt;
Energy Conversion Devices: bankrupt;
Abound Solar: bankrupt;
SunPower: bankrupt;
Beacon Power: bankrupt;
Ecotality: bankrupt;
A123 Solar: bankrupt;
Azure Dynamics: bankrupt
Evergreen Solar: ($5.3 Million); bankrupt;
Ener1: bankrupt;
Geothermal Power ($98.5 million); bankrupt;
Embraer of Brazil ($1 billion); gone;
Siga Technology Inc ($433 million); bankrupt;
Granite Reliable Wind Generation ($168.9 million); bankrupt;
Tonopah Solar Company - Crescent Dunes ($737 million); bankrupt;
CH2M Hill ( $2 Billion); bankrupt;
Spectra Watt ($500,000) bankrupt;
Mountain Plaza ($424,000) bankrupt;
UniSolar: bankrupt.
The list is growing daily. Why? Because there is no such energy – it is against the immutable laws of thermodynamics – first and second.
Occam's Tool| 1.16.13 @ 10:22PM
Obama's Columbia GPA was 2.6. No math, no science.
Occam's Tool| 1.16.13 @ 10:23PM
I think I will name you "The Great Mark Jeric." TGMJ has a good ring to it. Consistently awesome stuff.
Stan Redmond| 1.17.13 @ 3:51AM
Only in the liberal mind is being a total failure is promoted.