w a l l s t r e e t j o u r n a l o p i n i o n
Peter Berkowitz
•
The Debt Deal and the Progressive Crack-Up
Hoover Institution
•
Stanford University
by Peter BerkowitzAugust 6, 2011 The debtlimit crisis o 2011 brought the ederal government harrowingly close todeaulting on its nancial obligations. As the dust settles, it is more harrowing still tocontemplate the implications o what the democratically negotiated settlement revealedabout the panic o the progressive mind.One might view the debt deal as evidence that democracy in America, though otenunlovely in execution, is alive and well. Ater all, President Obama’s $800 billionplusstimulus package was passed by Congress in early 2009 on a mostly partyline vote. It wasollowed in April by his $3.5 trillion budget, enacted without a single Republican vote,that contained sizeable acrosstheboard unding increases or ederal departments andagencies. The president devoted the next 12 months to passing costly and unpopularhealthcare legislation that dramatically increased government’s responsibility orregulating approximately onesixth o the nation’s economy. Employment hovered atapproximately 9% and still does.In the congressional elections o 2010, the electorate, led by the tea party movement anddisaected independents, rendered its judgment on the president’s priorities. The peopledealt him and his party a historic midterm deeat, producing large Republican gains in theSenate and a comortable majority in the House, including 87 reshmen. The voters’ message was clear: Cut spending, compel the government to live withinits means, and put Americans back to work. In short, the president and his party badlyoverreached in 2009 and 2010; and in 2011 the Republicans, to the extent their numbersin Congress allowed, have eectively pushed back.But that’s not how progressives have tended to see things. They have erociously attackedcongressional Republicans, particularly those closely associated with the tea partymovement, with something approaching hysteria.Consider the unabashed incivility o progressive criticism, its tone dictated rom the top.During and ater the budget negotiations, we heard that tea party representatives werecontent with “blowing up our government” (Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne). Thencame accusations that “Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people”(New York Times columnist Joe Nocera), while acting like “a maniacal gang with knivesheld high” (New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd). At the height o negotiations, VicePresident Biden either said, or agreed with House Democrats with whom he was meetingwho said, that Congressional Republicans “have acted like terrorists.”A WALL STREET JOURNAL OP-ED
The Debt Deal and the Progressive Crack-Up
Peter Berkowitz
•
The Debt Deal and the Progressive Crack-Up
2 Hoover Institution
•
Stanord University
In addition, progressive legal scholars concocted a wild theory to justiy an executive power grab bymeans o which President Obama would unilaterally raise the debt ceiling to avoid having to hammerout a deal with Congress.Prominent among them was Yale Law School Proessor Jack Balkin. He called attention to Section 4o the 14th Amendment, which provides in relevant part that: “The validity o the public debt o theUnited States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned.” Mr. Balkin argued that this Constitutionalprovision gives the president authority to raise the debt ceiling on his own, even though neither adebt ceiling nor a deault calls into question the U.S’s nancial obligations under law; indeed, bothpresuppose the validity o the nation’s public debt.Progressive partisans also displayed economic illiteracy, reusing to recognize the respectability oreven the existence o alternative economic views. Instead, they steadastly insisted that a conservativeobsession with reducing debt and curbing spending ignored the real issue, which was puttingAmericans back to work.Summarizing the opinion o many progressives on the day ater the debt ceiling was raised, Houseminority leader Nancy Pelosi declared, “Enough talk about the debt. We have to talk about jobs”—as i there was no connection, in the minds o conservatives or economists, between controlling the debtand creating jobs.Yet the conservative position has been clearly stated by tea party movement activists, congressionalRepublicans, and House Speaker John Boehner, and it was armed in straightorward terms in aFebruary letter to President Obama signed by 150 American economists: Reining in spending is crucialto generating real economic growth, spurring the private sector, and thereby producing jobs. The use o crude and violent language to condemn conservatives as enemies o the state, the grossmanipulation o law to make the Constitution say whatever is politically expedient, and indierence tothe actual arguments made by their political opponents—these are alltooamiliar progressive vices. They were exercised with abandon in the ury with which progressives responded to the complexquestions raised by the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, the detention o enemy combatantsat Guantanamo Bay, and the invasion o Iraq. Tea party hatred is the successor o and stems rom thesame sources as Bush hatred.O course, a good bit o progressive vituperation can be chalked up to the ordinary passions o democratic politics, which can be high stakes and is a contact sport. But in the debtlimit crisis, thehypocrisy o progressives reached truly breathtaking proportions.How oten they have haughtily lectured the nation on the vital importance o civility in publicdiscourse, the urgency o constraining executive power under law, and the need or impartialexpertise in public aairs to pragmatically weigh competing publicpolicy options. But in the debtlimit debate the virtues they proess could hardly have been more spectacularly absent.
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The Debt Deal and the Progressive Crack-Up, by Peter Berkowitz
Appeared in WSJ on August 6, 2011
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