Matthew Yglesias Proves My Point

Why has nobody asked this question:

There is a claim afoot (see first comment, and a repeat of the assertion in the second comment on this post at Catallarchy) that Republicans and libertarians (apparently Ron Paul has a lot more influence than I thought) have been starving federal programs in order to make them less effective and make them easy to kill. (Personally, I think Hanlon's Razor is the appropriate framework for thinking about the Brownie/FEMA situation.) Besides the fact that I can't think of any program whose demise has been brought about in this way, and there's also that little problem with the fact that George Bush hasn't vetoed a single spending bill, and the spending on everything from Education to TSA has been increased during his term, I've never actually heard anyone explicitly propose this as an actual strategy. Not that it's impossible that they have, just that I haven't heard of it if they have. I have heard people suggest that taxes be cut (revenues, not just marginal rates) in order to force legislators to make harder decisions, but it doesn't tend to work that way. In fact, spending seems to always rise to match or exceed revenues, so the tax-cutting strategy appears to only result in balanced budgets (at best) or deficits (more likely), not actual spending control. That's been the result with a Democratic Congress and President (Johnson, Carter, and Clinton 93-94), Democratic Congress and Republican President (Nixon, Reagan, Bush I), and Republican Congress and President (Bush II), but not a Republican Congress and Democratic President (Clinton 95-2000). Hmmm, ... split government with Pres. Hillary, anybody?

But on the other hand we now have some evidence that Democrats like to see inflated programs that even they admit result in overly expensive government projects. Matthew Yglesias suggests that Davis-Bacon serves the interests of unions, who favor Democrats, so the fact that fewer things get built in any one period is balanced by the possibility of Democrats getting elected in the future and delivering more (overly expensive) building projects. Interesting. Cynical, sure. Pure power politics, certainly. But interesting.

He makes two bad assumptions. One is that this results in more overall building projects, and the other is that voters benefit from more government buildings. His admission that fewer buildings are built in any one election cycle with D-B implies that fewer buildings are built in all election cycles if "number of projects funded" is independent of "number of Democrats elected". That would seem to be the case if you look at the pork in the recent energy and transportation packages delivered by the Republican Congress. Moreover, unions, like corporations, will always shift their contributions toward the party in power. According to OpenSecrets, building trades unions have shifted their Democratic contributions from 92-95% of their giving back to 83% to Democrats. They apparently agree that pork is not the sole domain of Democrats (sorry, Matt), but of the majority party.

Republicans: that means you. You are now the party of pork. Proud?

His other assumption, that voters benefit from government building projects, is also a mixed bag. The trend in public housing has been away from government-built dens of entrenched poverty (and the associated crime, thanks to misguided antidrug laws) and toward assistance in affording existing, privately built housing. Federal highways reduce the cost of living in suburbs and commuting long distances; Smart Growth people would probably quibble with whether or not that benefits the nation as a whole. Matthew dismisses such intramural arguments by saying that the Public Good is an unobtainable abstraction, so let's just send money to our allies and hope they keep us in power long enough to ... um, send money to our ... allies ... well, you get the point.

Isn't that pretty much what the Bush Administration is accused of when they give no-bid contracts to Halliburton? It's always refreshing to get someone representing a major party to admit that there is no difference between the two major parties' tactics, just in their identities. Y'know, right before they return to claiming their own innocence while claiming that only the other guy does it.

Therefore, if you stipulate to the "cut funding to make a program fail so it can be killed" accusation, I propose that the two simply balance out: Republicans try to starve something the Democrats have already bloated. Thus, the programs are all funded more or less at the "right" level.

Well, "right" if you're a Republican or Democrat.

davis bacon