Going Galt: Reflections on Bill Kristol's Optimism
On Friday night, I had the privilege to hear Bill Kristol speak as the dinner keynote speaker at the 2009 Leadership Program of the Rockies Annual Retreat.
In brief, Mr. Kristol’s argument (as I understood it…he might say I misunderstood him) was that while he did not want to play down the bad situation the nation and the political prospects for conservatives are in today, he is fairly optimistic that both, but particularly the latter will recover in a reasonable time frame, and that the Republican Party will adopt good ideas which percolate up from grassroots political activists and thinkers outside the usual conservative channels.
A well-known conservative blogger (who will remain nameless) asked me what I thought of Mr. Kristol’s remarks. And after a brief time considering the question (which, strangely, I hadn’t spent time considering before the person asked), I have reached a several-part answer:
First, I’m less optimistic than Mr. Kristol that the national situation will improve in any important way for at least 6 more months, but more likely 12-18 months. In other words, I think this will shatter all records for post-WWII recessions.
Second, I’m somewhat less optimistic that even a slightly longer-than average economic downturn will help Republican prospects as much as one might expect unless the Republicans stay as united as fiscal conservatives as the House GOP did on the “stimulus” bill…and I don’t expect that to happen, particularly not in the Senate.
Third, I am highly skeptical that Republican leadership, which includes so many of the old guard, are capable of getting through their thick skulls that my prior point is correct. If they did get it, they would have massively arm-twisted their caucus members to remove their earmarks from the budget bill now being debated, so they could claim something like “over 90% of the earmarks in the proposed budget are from Democrats” instead of the current case which is roughly 60% from Democrats and 40% from Republicans. I doubt they will be open (especially on the Senate side, again) to ground-breaking new ideas which come from outside the beltway.
Finally, thinking back on all this, I occurs to me – and keep in mind that I’m a person whose son’s middle name is Rand – that I’m not certain I want things in the nation to suddenly start improving, i.e. to improve in a way that could let progressives argue that Obama’s reprehensible generational theft in the form of Keynsian spending and stimulus bills actually caused a beneficial economic outcome.
It would be like the Democrats who argue that Clinton’s tax hike was a good thing, economically speaking, because the economy improved afterward, despite that being so obviously a falsehood, an impossibility, that only a “progressive” could believe it. ("Progressive” is Latin for “I never studied economics, but I’m pretty certain I’m smarter than you are".) Instead, there are other factors in the economy which can (and did) in concert overwhelm the income tax rate hike. (It bears mentioning that Clinton passed a large capital gains tax cut, which few liberals ever talk about when discussing the effect of Clinton’s tax policy on the economy.)
This is not easy to say or think…but at the end of the day, I go further than Rush Limbaugh as far as wanting Obama to fail.
I don’t want the nation to fail. Unlike Michelle Obama and, in my view, our President, I love my country. After all, wanting to remake something completely is hardly a sign of deep love and appreciation for it. But if having things be a little worse for a little longer, or even substantially worse for substantially longer, might be the difference between people believing in Keynsianism and people realizing that Obama’s New New Deal and its predecessor were economic disasters based on an obviously flawed theoretical foundation, I think the price is worth our paying. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, I want “progressive” economic thinking to be so thoroughly disproved that future generations won’t get hoodwinked by promises of “hope” and “change” like so many economically illiterate Americans did in November.
I will suffer through one or two worse years if it means my descendants won’t be put through a second Barack Obama (or, roughly, a third Jimmy Carter.)
It’s great to see discussions on the web of people “going Galt.” If enough productive members of society decide that it’s simply not worth the risk and effort to strive for the next dollar, it is not primarily they who will suffer economically. It is those who believe in redistribution, who believe that Obama would and should make “government” pay her rent (and we thought she was insane when she said that – turns out she was psychic.) Those so interested in being recipients of government redistribution of wealth, the “looters” and the “moochers” as Ayn Rand calls them in Atlas Shrugged, just let them try to redistribute income from people who simply quit working because we’re not willing to be looted and mooched from. Yes, we are living Atlas Shrugged, and we might as well not quit halfway through the story.
I’ve done this once already…I moved out of the US for nearly 2 years after Bill Clinton raised tax rates, and moved back just in time for the capital gains tax cut. Let me be clear: I gave up two years of at least $200,000 (but probably a fair bit more) per year, just so I didn’t have to pay taxes to Bill Clinton’s government. My money is where my mouth is in a way that few people can claim. And Clinton was a piker and a conservative in comparison to Obama.
So, in case I haven’t been clear enough: As long as we’re already going to have a fairly bad recession, I’m saying let it be worse and longer. Let more people be persistently unemployed, let the economy drag along the sludge-laden bottom of the progressive sewer, let businesses close down or move overseas, let tens or hundreds of thousands of capable people publicly declare how excessive taxation and regulation is causing them to work less, take less risk, and employ fewer Americans, and finally let people recognize that capitalists are not a “necessary evil” but rather that they are a necessary good.
Most people don’t learn truly important lessons unless they are taught in an expensive or painful way. A once-and-for-all repudiation of Keynsianism is a lesson that is too important not to be learned in such a way.
Many people who have survived cancer say that the chemotherapy was so bad, they almost wish the cancer had just killed them. But any treatment that didn’t make them nearly wish for death would not cure the disease, which would often recur with a greater chance of killing the patient the second time around. And so it is with the recurrent national cancers that are Keynsianism and the politicians who impose it. The New Deal sickened the nation. Obama’s New New Deal could kill it, but the chemotherapy of a recession severe enough to cause voters to say “never again” might just save the patient – even if the patient might wish to die during the treatment.
Therefore, I proudly proclaim I want Obama to fail, even if it means temporary substantial hardship for the nation. The Keynsian cancer must be cured, once and for all.
Let us all be John Galt.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Rossputin on 03/09/09 at 01:39:36 am . Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. |
Yours truly
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03/09/09 @ 07:57:02 am
Ross,
You are being too optimistic and I mean that seriously without a hint of sarcasm.
I am more convinced every day that we are witnessing the death of the republic.
Capitalism is already gone.
03/09/09 @ 08:02:58 am
Mike,
I'm leaning more your way every day...and so is the stock market most days.
03/09/09 @ 12:06:22 pm
45 days into his presidency and you're blaming Obama for everything? Give me a break. Forgive me for being what appears to be the only reader who doesn't praise your thick minded line of thinking. You're so convinced that Obama is determined to make Government the big force in our nation for now and for ever. You keep saying that his Keynsian ways are a cancer. But Obama himself has said that he is not in favor of bigger government. He simply understands that before the economy went under, there was too little government regulation where there needed to be some...and look what happened. The administration doesn't want to hold onto these banks! They want them off their books as soon as possible. But letting them fail entirely would be so unbearably awful for so many people in this country, so the government had to intervene for now. But you don't care about those people...you want Obama to fail...because you're a true patriot.
Yes government will grow modestly over the next few years...a whopping 1.8% according to E.J. Dionne of the Washington. With Obama's stimulus that you so despise, " federal spending will account for 22.8 percent of the economy between 2010 and 2014, up from 21 percent in 2008."
So relax on your Keynsian paranoia. This country is in enough trouble without you and your boy Limbough causing further separation between political parties and the people of this country.
03/09/09 @ 12:43:44 pm
Andrew: You're wrong about everything.
First, I didn't blame Obama for everything. I said he's wrong about everything, but not that Bush or anyone else prior to him was perfect. In fact, I've excoriated Bush on these pages.
Second, who cares what Obama says? Look at what he DOES! Is there ANY major policy position of his which does not massively increase the size and scope of government? Would you believe the testimony of a criminal which is contradicted by eye-witness evidence, DNA evidence, and a videotape of the crime?
Third, why do you believe the government doesn't want to control the banks? Clearly they influenced the banks greatly, essentially controlling their lending policies, through the CRA and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. And now they want to put student loan companies out of business to let the government run that banking function. So, again, why do you believe what you claim?
Fourth, how much do you want to bet that government will grow more than E.J. Dionne says? Furthermore, how much do you want to bet that government spending will be more than 22.8% of the economy during that time frame? By the way, you might find this article interesting:
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/06/unemployment-and-spending
Fifth, further separation between the political parties is exactly what this country needs.
03/09/09 @ 03:04:37 pm
If one considers 1.8% government growth modest in the midst of this economic meltdown....well, Keynes would be proud. It's not just the GDP that we have to worry ourselves about, "it's the money supply stupid" as Carville might have said if he had an economic clue. People aren't realizing that the fed is nearly doubling the money supply...again. Inflation anyone? It's coming to your local economy soon...stay tuned.
03/09/09 @ 03:33:11 pm
1. How can you know he's wrong about everything? No one knows if what he's proposing will work. On both sides of this, there are numbers and figures the support both arguments.
2. I see what Obama is doing. But I'm saying that he admitedly wishes that he did not have to intervene. But what is his alternative? Letting AIG, Citi, Fannie, Freddie, all fail? Unfortunately, our lack of regulation in past let those companies get too big and now, if they fail, too many people will be completely f*cked. Is the best way to solve a recession to let failing companies fail? Probaly yes, but as a leader of a nation, you can't let something like that happen that will be unreconcilably detrimental to so many of your country's citizens.
3. What makes YOU so certain that the government DOES want to control the banks in the long term? It is my understanding that their plan is simply to intervene in the short term and essentially clean it up, before handing it back. As I said in my second point...what choice do they have? If you think this is the first move towards a socialist government, then I think you are absurdley over-reacting.
4. I would not be surprised if the government throws more money at the problem either.
5. Why would further separation of political parties be what this country needs? To me, what our country needs is to meet a lot more in the middle. Why is it so damn hard for people to give up a little bit and look at what the other side is proposing? Narrow minded thinking. What can possibly get done that is productive for our country as a whole if we are all divided?
6. Thank you for allowing this dialogue on your blog.
03/09/09 @ 03:52:15 pm
Andrew:
In response to your questions above, with the same numbering:
1) I "know" because we've seen the results before during the New Deal, when FDR made the Depression much worse than it would have been...and worse than in other countries which didn't implement similar policies. I also know because Keynsianism simply doesn't make sense. It assumes that the public essentially doesn't realize that it's borrowing money from itself. I have seen arguments you mention for this sort of "stimulus" and I think they're not just wrong, but obviously wrong. Still, I admit that "know" is a strong word since I haven't been to the future. So if it makes you happier for me to say "I believe", then that's fine...I believe, based on my study of economics and history, that Obama is wrong about everything (in terms of economics.)
2. I completely disagree. I think the Democrats LOVE that they have to intervene and they thank their lucky stars that President Bush, who truly did intervene reluctantly (and was wrong to do so), gave them some leeway to take control of whole industries while being able to say "Hey, Bush did it first." Now, you're also starting to mix separate issues. The financial "rescues" are a difficult call, and I did support the way the government organized a takeover of Bear, Stearns with some gov't guarantees of debt. But the stimulus, the budget, and the bailout of auto makers are different things entirely. And both "cap and trade" and "card check" are high-caliber weapons aimed at the heart of the American economy.
3. Because that's what fascists want, and fascists, in the economic sense, are essentially what Obama and many of his economic advisors are. Namely, they believe that industries can remain private but must serve the interests of the state. Except for student loans of course, which shouldn't even be private. And that's the next step, right? What's the threshold for someone like Obama to decide a company should be private but doing what he wants, or whether the government should just push private companies out of business entirely and have government perform those functions? I am NOT over-reacting. Look at every "temporary" program. Look at how much stuff we're stuck with today that was supposed to be temporary, right down to farm subsidies.
4. Government WILL throw more money at the problem. Especially banks. It will be VERY interesting to see what they do with the Big Three automakers.
5. Because all that "bipartisanship" means now is Republicans moving toward Democrat positions. "The middle" is a place without principles, but principles matter. "Conservative" economic views are much more likely to give better standards of living to Americans...and especially to the middle class. Why would you want to move to "the middle" from there? If I told you that you could be really healthy or deathly ill, would there be any inherent moral superiority to saying "I'd like to be in the middle of those", i.e. to be slightly ill? I always look at what the other side is proposing. It's not my fault that all their economic proposals in recent months have been utter disasters! It is far better to be divided and get nothing done than to be unified and destroy the country.
6. My pleasure. Thanks for taking the time to participate.
03/09/09 @ 08:28:17 pm
So you think the benefits of a complete rejection of Keynesian economics exceeds the costs of a deep and prolonged recession.
I understand your point of view.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that the left can divorce itself from such already tested and disproven theories. They take it as an article of faith; it's almost religious for these people. In fact, some elements of left wing politics, like exterme environmentalism, take on many real characteristics of religion.
But I digress...I am just trying to say that I don't think these people will dump their collectivist dreams just because of economic reality.
03/09/09 @ 09:13:10 pm
tripwire,
you could very easily be right. I am not actually predicting as much as hoping that a bad recession might straighten out some thinking.
I love my country and it's painful for me to wish the economy to be worse than it otherwise might be, but your first sentence describing my position is accurate.
03/10/09 @ 12:16:35 pm
People actually went to hear Bill Kristol speak at a seminary devoted to "leadership"?
I guess Scott McConnell was right. Kristol & Co. really are the undead:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2006/dec/18/00010/
03/10/09 @ 12:23:09 pm
Just to be clear, Snaggle-tooth, we were at something like a seminar, but certainly not a seminary!
And, to be clear, not every speaker was speaking about leadership. Some were, such as Maurice McTigue. Others spoke about Islamic terrorism, new media, etc. Kristol was not tasked with speaking about leadership in particular, though some of his comments were relevant to that area, such as the idea that the best hope for conservatives is for getting new people involved, especially young people. (Clearly that's not an easy sell today...)
03/10/09 @ 05:33:24 pm
If you are dumb enough to move out of the country and give up "more" than $200,000 due to Bill Clinton's tax policy, you are both a fool and a slave to greed.
Read this. Then get an abacus, because you sure as hell can't count:
And here's Newsweek's Daniel Gross, with a lesson in kitchen table economics for the "We're All Socialists Now!" brigade:
Say you're a CNBC anchor, or a Washington Post columnist with a seat at the Council on Foreign Relations, or a dentist, and you managed to cobble together $350,000 a year in income. You're doing quite well. If you subtract deductions for state and property taxes, mortgage interest and charitable deductions, and other deductions, the amount on which tax rates are calculated might total $300,000. What would happen if the marginal rate on the portion of your income above $250,000 were to rise from 33 percent to 36 percent? Under the old regime, you'd pay $16,500 in federal taxes on that amount. Under the new one, you'd pay $18,000. The difference is $1,500 per year, or $4.10 per day. Obviously, the numbers rise as you make more. But is $4.10 a day bleeding the rich, a war on the wealthy, a killer of innovation and enterprise? That dentist eager to slash her income from $320,000 to $250,000 would avoid the pain of paying an extra $2,100 in federal taxes. But she'd also deprive herself of an additional $70,000 in income!
03/10/09 @ 06:05:08 pm
Johnny,
Typically for a liberal, you miss the point.
I was not a "slave to greed". I did not leave simply because I was angry at the extra few grand in tax. And I made far less money overseas than I would have made here.
I left because the money was going to expand government even further into areas where it has no constitutional or moral authority. I left because I was unwilling ton contribute to that expansion, not because of its specific cost.
You also miss another point: You talk about the tax rising from 33% to 36% (which I presume you know isn't the proposal on the table) but you neglect to mention that at some income level the tax went from 15% to 20% then to 28% then to 33%.
A graduated income tax is, in the words of Mart Laar, "the grand idea of Karl Marx" and a key cobblestone on the road to socialism.
Yes, an extra $4.10 a day is "bleeding the rich" if nobody else is also paying more.
03/10/09 @ 10:19:55 pm
Most people don’t learn truly important lessons unless they are taught in an expensive or painful way. A once-and-for-all repudiation of Keynsianism is a lesson that is too important not to be learned in such a way.
Great article and it's nice to see that you're not pussyfooting around about wanting Obama and the American economy to fail like that RINO Gingrich. I agree that the worst thing that could possibly happen to our ideology is for the economy to recover and people's lives to get better during the Obama administration. What would I like to see? Hardship. Unimaginable hardship that would teach some hard lessons. Dreams shattered, the young generation scarred for life. I want starvation or close to it for the 53% of the population who voted for the socialist fascist Obama. Their children should at least have distended bellies and be surrounded by flies begging for market forces to rescue them. The children begging that is, not the flies. The flies will do just fine under Obama. Heh.
03/10/09 @ 11:21:02 pm
Ross, can we look forward you to moving out of the country again? Preferably to somewhere without internet access?
03/11/09 @ 02:05:37 am
Nice blog, nice article -- I found you by way of Michelle Malkin's site, so cool.
Rossputin, I like your logic and I enjoy the way you express the issues -- this whole idea of going Galt to teach the liberal left a lesson I think is pure fantasy. Like @tripwire said, these people bask in a pool of pure religion. As long as they have government to rally around it might be many years before we can regain control from these retards. Welfare checks, government jobs, bailouts and corruption go a long way in retaining votes and power.
I agree that maybe the Galt idea of pulling the plug on revenue (taxes) from the government may slow them down but in the end I think American capitalism is in big trouble. I say this because I currently live and run my business in China. As much as I hate the communists, these fools do one thing right. They encourage business, growth and capitalism. So I ask myself, if Obama and cronies are so intent on grabbing power why are they doing it by trying to kill their main source of revenue, American business? If they were smart they would adopt the current stimulus offerings being used in China right now: low corporate taxes and zero capital gains tax -- but they won't -- because in the mind of the New Liberal American, capitalism is evil.
03/11/09 @ 07:06:16 am
Randian, even I don't want to see people starving in the streets. I hope it doesn't come to that.
Curious, it's not out of the question, but with two kids it's not as easy as it was when I was single. I am considering it, but it's probably less than 50/50. Oh, and I would certainly still have internet access.
Bob, I agree. They hate capitalism and capitalists. They tolerate a few capitalists who, in the short term, help them reach their goals.
03/11/09 @ 08:21:06 am
Where did you move to? I might have to get a plane ticket out of here myself.
Some place with lower taxes, no doubt.
03/11/09 @ 08:24:44 am
actually, Zach, it was a place with higher taxes, but I didn't make much money when I was there so it didn't matter. (I was in Amsterdam.)
03/15/09 @ 01:45:19 pm
For the record...
Neither I nor "Atlas Shrugged" nor my philosophy has any connection with the so-called "Libertarian" movement. I hold that politics without a consistent philosophical base leads to disaster. The "Libertarian" movement is a random movement of emotional hippies-of-the-right who play at politics without philosophy or consistency.
--Letter to the Editor, The New York Times, August 11, 1976 (subscription only)
You have the intellectual depth of the average 10th grader. By all means though, continue - its fascinating to watch you slowly lose all grasp on reality.
05/22/09 @ 08:56:13 pm
The first step to fixing our political system is to stop paying the "politician tax"....
Politicians are not like the rest of us.... they are keenly obsessed with "getting elected" as a measure of success, but although this would seem to suggest that they should care about representing the views of the electors -- the people -- it doesn't work out that way. With extremely rare exceptions, politicians preserve their interests by serving their party (whichever one it is) over the people, and by serving corporate interests and other special interests next to that, also over the people.... so where do we fit in?
They see us as votes and money, and many of us are suckers.... how many of you donated money to a politician or a party last year? The sad truth is that whatever you did donate was actually a tax imposed by the system through blackmail, one that you didn't have to pay at all, but volunteered.... I have to admit, I'm in that crowd, even though I only gave to Libertarian candidates (who all lost) and the amount I donated amounted to pocket change even in their meager coffers.... but I'd take it back if I could....
Look at it this way: imagine there are two bullies on your block, and both want to take your lunch money.... each says that if you "voluntarily" pay him, he'll protect you from the other one, and each one talks up how dangerous the other one is in order to convince you to buy protection... but the truth is, if you learn to defend yourself you don't have to give a penny to either of them.
That's what the Republicrats do -- each side uses the other as a threat to pry your dollars away in the form of campaign donations, and the first and biggest thing WE can do to eliminate donation-driven corruption from the system is to turn off that voluntary faucet of cash flowing out of our pockets.
In short: DO NOT GIVE ANY MONEY TO POLITICIANS!! not to a candidate, not to a campaign, not to a party, and if you can help it, not to an organization or company that will pass it on to any of those (even a company that will hedge its bets by giving to both sides; in fact, especially such a company).... clean up our politics, do NOT pay the politician tax!!