Messaging Fantasies, Grand Bargain Edition
Matt is absolutely correct about the sloppy thinking of congressional Democrats about how to deal with the expanding of the Bush tax cuts, which is sort of the centrist equivalent of Doug Henwood’s belief that unions should just let the Republicans take over and dismantle collective bargaining rights and waste resources trying to make single-payer more popular instead:
The mainstream position of the Democratic Party is that over the medium term taxes should be higher than they are now but lower than full expiration of the Bush tax cuts would make them. Achieving this policy objective requires the following steps:
1. Barack Obama is re-elected.
2. Barack Obama vetoes full extension of Bush tax cuts.
3. Bush tax cuts expire.
4. Since now Republicans and Democrats both agree that taxes are too high, the White House proposes the “Obama tax cut” package.
This is not a foolproof plan since obviously Obama might lose the election. But if Obama loses, then Republicans will just do whatever they want on taxes one way or another.
The strange thing about my plan is that even though almost every single Democratic member of Congress agrees that taxes should be higher than they are now but lower than full expiration would make them, this plan is not the consensus Democratic approach. Instead on Friday morning I found myself sitting through a baffling discussion of tax strategy with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and some folks from the new labor-backed group Americans for Tax Fairness, in which this sequencing strategy seemed off the table. Instead the focus was entirely around the idea that liberal messaging would be so effective as to mobilize the public into coercing Republicans to take a pre-expiration vote to partially repeal the Bush tax cuts. Messaging is, obviously, an important part of politics and any strategy needs an element of that. But in this particular case, the merits or demerits of any particular message pale in comparison to the difference in the tactical situation before the Bush tax cuts expire (when one party says taxes are too low and the other says they’re too high) and after expiration (when both parties will agree that taxes are too high).
This kind of thing is precisely why I spend so much time talking about the fact that assertions about the power of the BULLY PULPIT are, to whatever extent they aren’t meaninglessly tautological, false. Excessive focus on the power of rhetoric isn’t just pointless but counterproductive, not only because it overestimates the ease of major changes but leads to an inability to focus on concrete questions of power. I think Whitehouse et al. are probably overestimating the power of messaging to make Democratic tax priorities more popular, but even if they’re right it doesn’t matter. Increased taxes on the wealthy are already popular. It doesn’t matter, because Republican legislators 1)are ideologically opposed to them 2)have far more to fear from primary challenges backed by powerful monied interests than from voters who will change their votes based on votes on fiscal policy (which is in fact a very small number.) What Obama and Democratic legislators need to be focusing on is that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts mean in concrete terms. Maybe Obama made the right choice by getting stimulus in exchange for a temporary extension of the tax cuts. But if he wins re-election, the play is obvious — let the Bush tax cuts expire and get a new deal that produces more revenue than extending them would. You can use the expiring tax cuts as bargaining leverage — although I don’t think you can get anything worth getting this time — but the idea that you’re somehow going to get Republicans to explicitly vote to raise taxes because of the power of messaging is crazy.
Speaking of the Bush tax cuts, I never stop being amazed that people use the passage of the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War as illustrations of the awesome power of the BULLY PULPIT, when getting Republicans and a few conservative Democrats to support upper-class tax cuts, or getting Congress and the public to initially defer to presidential war powers, are both about as challenging as a mediocre high school team would be to the Yankees. Both of these policies certainly reflect presidential power — agenda-setting and war-making powers, respectively — but in terms of the question of whether presidents can compel Congress to do things that majorities don’t want to do by going they’re entirely beside the point. Bush didn’t make upper-class tax cuts popular, and his pre-war propaganda campaign didn’t make the Iraq War any more popular. What made Bush relatively effective in his first term as that he and his team seemed to understand that it doesn’t matter — you have the votes or you don’t, and public opinion has only a very attenuated effect on votes by members of Congress. If the Democrats actually want to increase revenues, they need to act like this Bush, not the one who thought he could ram Social Security privatization right down Congress’s throat by going public.
Obama won’t end the Bush tax cuts. Just like last time, and just like on every other major issue, Obama will bend over backwards to give the Republicans everything they want.
Set yourself up for the “No True Scotsman” counterargument, I see. Clever!
I think you mean bend over forward — that being Obama’s latest campaign slogan.
Awesome analysis: Oil production in the US at 14 year high, but gas prices don’t go down
Why let facts get in the way of a headline?
This is true. The true problem lies in the fact that despite this 45% of the public is CONVINCED he is “most radical president ever”
Houston we have (ephistemilogical) problem!
Yglesias is missing step 5:
5. Since the Republicans will never, ever vote for something proposed by the Obama White House – especially if it can be given a name like “Obama Tax Cuts” – they block it and blame the higher taxes on the Democrats during the next election season to try to expand their majorities.
I like how Matt thinks that because Republicans and Democrats will both “agree” that the new rates are “too high” that agreement will mean anything at all as far as getting legislation passed.
I thought of that too, but I think they’d pass a tax cut. I wonder if we’re entering an era where the only time a president isn’t a lame duck, unless he has the luxury of a huge majority in both houses, is the first half of his second term.
Filibustering a tax cut would be probably be a little much for enough Republicans to ensure passage. And anyway they can always make a ton of noise about the president’s unwillingness to compromise and then claim in election ads that Republicans forced the final agreement. That carries the added bonus of people like VP becoming disillusioned with his own side.
Filibustering a tax cut would be probably be a little much for enough Republicans to ensure passage.
You’re assuming Democrats take back the House and keep the Senate. If the Democrats don’t take back the House but keep the Senate, then the tax bill will start in the House, where the Republicans will list out their demands, go to the Senate where (if still Democratically controlled) it will be stripped and replaced by a Democratic version (which will already be a significantly compromised version of anything that Obama would propose in the first place, just to get the conservative Dems on board), and THAT will be the one that the Republicans filibuster. And it will be a righteous filibuster because the people have spoken and they demand an upperdown vote on the version sent over from the House.
And if they don’t filibuster or eventually cave or Democrats actually revise the rules to change how the filibuster operates, it will be sent back to the House where it will be voted down because of socialist Democratic overreach and the games will begin again.
The Republicans have reached the point now where “winning” no longer means “getting most of the legislation we want” it means “preventing Democrats from getting anything they want”. Having something pass that can be called “Obama Tax Cuts” or worse “Democratic Tax Cuts” is not “winning”.
The only way that I see Yglesias’s plan actually working is if the Democrats actually keep the Senate and take the House. And even then step 4 STILL becomes a negotiation among factions of the Democratic Party and the final result would be somewhat to the right of whatever Obama actually proposes (which will probably be somewhat to the right of what many people would like him to propose).
Well, if the Republicans refuse to pass tass cuts because they can be credited to OBama — which I doubt — even better!
Well, if the Republicans refuse to pass tass cuts because they can be credited to OBama — which I doubt…
Really? You doubt that Republicans would refuse to pass middle class tax cuts that come out of Obama’s office that don’t include an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the richest segments of the population? I’d like to believe you’re right, but that doesn’t fit the world I’ve been observing for the last few years. Republicans claim to be for tax cuts on general principle, but when the rubber meets the road they will hold tax cuts for the majority of the population hostage if they can’t get them for the upper percentage. I don’t see that changing just because they lose another presidential election (in fact, I see it getting worse because if Romney loses the narrative will be that they lost because Romney wasn’t conservative enough).
…even better!
Well, not really. Because of this:
4. Since now Republicans and Democrats both agree that taxes are too high…
Democrats in the Senate will not just want to let the tax cuts expire. So they will seek common ground with the Republicans. And since “common ground” these days amounts to “do everything we want and nothing you want” the “compromise” will be extend the Bush tax cuts as is or nothing. I don’t see “nothing” being the option that the Dems in the Senate pick.
Republicans will continue to have no incentive to “play ball” in the legislative process. They will continue to have every incentive to stonewall and make life as miserable as possible for everyone until “their guy” is back in the Oval Office and/or their party controls both houses of government.
Agreed. Republicans will submit their “tax reform” package with closed loopholes and deep cuts for the “job creators.” They will then block the Dem bill in favor of their “true tax reform.” That way they can accuse Democrats of proposing “higher taxes” even while the Dems are proposing a tax cut. Then they will settle for the tax cut for the wealthy. Compromise!
Passing the Obama tax cuts won’t require support from “the Republicans.” It would require the types of majorities that passed the Recovery Act and DADT repeal – virtually all Democrats, and a single-digit number of Republicans breaking ranks.
“but in terms of the question of whether presidents can compel Congress to do things that majorities don’t want to do”
That’s fine but I would continue to say that the “bully pulpit” means various things, including using it to promote things they don’t really have deeply strong feelings about or influencing important groups along the margins.
At TPM, Brian Beutler posted a response to Yglesias. Not really a counter-argument, just a view of the political considerations that Dem leaders might have in mind. Really really worth a read.
I found this article very enlightening, and hope it’s true! The strategy makes sense, though is very risky.
Unfortunately, I doubt America would especially care if it was made “apparent” that the Republicans were holding the whole country hostage to try to get rid of social programs. The only people who care about that kind of thing already KNOW they’re doing that, as has been obvious for a while.
Or to put it less politely, both Beutler and the pols he talked to are on crack.
It might make sense in theory to try and get Republicans to “own” tax increases and thus the social programs they fund through outright voting in Congress, as opposed to the more backdoor approach of letting them off the hook by simply allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. However, it’s not at all clear to me that Republicans would feel morally bound to any kind of tax/revenue increase simply because they (might hypothetically) vote for one. Plenty of Republicans who backed Reagan’s tax increases in the ’80s all of a sudden discovered their inner anti-tax jihadi by the 1990 budget agreement and beyond.
I think Matt and some others are treating as two distinct positions something that is really the same position. The Democrats think that taxes will be too high after expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the lower and middle brackets (the Republicans, in contrast, think post-expiration taxes will be too high, in theory for everyone, but in practice, their focus is on the upper brackets). That Democratic position is essentially the same position as calling for pre-expiration partial repeal of the Bush tax cuts–taxes now are too low for the upper brackets.
The government needs more revenue, but that revenue ought to come from the upper brackets, for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks.
rea,
Thank you – I am SOOOOOOOO stealing that last line!
For the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, all Obama and a majority Dem Congress had to do was… nothing. No Bully Pulpit-ing was involved, nor was there any need for Bully Pulpit-ing or Green Lanternism – the fucking cuts would have expired but for Obama and the Dems making another lame deal with Repubs on, what was it again exactly? Oh yeah, another 6 months of extended Unemployment Benefits -which, correct me if I’m wrong, could have been passed as a bare majority on a budget reconciliation measure. And which said benefits have expired since then.
And if you think Dem strategy on tax cuts is confusing, let’s throw in another strawman argument about the fucking “Bully Pulpit” to explain why none of us can get a pony.
The fact of the matter is, Scott, all of us folks who are hurting don’t care one shit about the inside baseball aspects of politics. This isn’t a Masters level PoliSci course, and even if most of the positioning by the professional politicians, their staffs, and the lobbyists who own them, seem to more and more resemble an episode of VEEP -we don’t care about that either. What we the people want to see is results, and absent that, we want to see an appearance of someone attempting to give a fuck about why we’re getting screwed, and what they’re gonna try to do about it. And we haven’t seen any evidence of that from either Party in a long time.
I’m pretty sure you copied most of that last paragraph straight from Mitch McConnell’s 2008 post-election strategy memo.
what was it again exactly? Oh yeah, another 6 months of extended Unemployment Benefits -which, correct me if I’m wrong, could have been passed as a bare majority on a budget reconciliation measure.
You’re wrong–it could not have passed on reconciliation. Go look up how reconcilation works.
And also, of course, it was not just extension of unemployment benefits (easy for you to scoff at, if you’re not unemployed, and it wa for 11 months, not 6), but also other tax cuts for the lower brackets, including a payroll tax cut that Obama wanted and the republicans opposed–not to mention repeal of DADT, and an arms treaty with Russia.
Not to mention the general consensus that raising taxes at that particular time would’ve been poor economic policy.
But that’s all just Inside Baseball! Just DO SOMETHING!!!
And also that, at the time, there was an incoming Republican majority in the House, so even with the reconciliation option there’s no way you could have gotten a majority vote for extending UI benefits.
Your first and third paragraphs don’t seem to belong in the same comment. It may be the case that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010 was the right play all things considered, but that wouldn’t have done anything to alleviate short term economic pain either. By the standard of evaluation described in your third paragraph, your assessment of Obama should be, if anything, harsher had he not made the deal (since it did contain some relief, albeit minor and insufficient, for short term economic pain).
that wouldn’t have done anything to alleviate short term economic pain either.
Indeed, it would have acted as an austerity measure. Expiration of the Bush tax cuts is good long-term policy but would have been bad short-term policy, and had the austerity crashed the economy to the extent that it put Romney in the White House (which may still happen anyway,) it also wouldn’t do anything for long-term tax policy since something like the Bush tax cuts would be passed in 2013.
Oh yeah, another 6 months of extended Unemployment Benefits -which, correct me if I’m wrong, could have been passed as a bare majority on a budget reconciliation measure.
No. Reconciliation can only be used once a year.
In addition to the other things mentioned by rea, it would almost certainly have been impossible to get DADT repeal had the tax cuts been allowed to expire.
In addition to the other things mentioned by rea, it would almost certainly have been impossible to get DADT repeal
Well, yeah, I concede, I exprsssly stated I was not mentioning that . . .
Praeterito is apparently not an internet tradition.
Whoops, missed that! So, to conclude, what rea said.
Who the hell elected you “we the people?”
The Democrats painted themselves into a box by saying they only want to repeal the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. The Republicans have been more than willing to let all the tax cuts expire rather than just allowing those for the wealthy expire. They hold the upper hand in these debates and so long as the Democrats are willing to cave to preserve the rest of the tax cuts, the Republicans will always win this fight.
I’m not sure I see what the problem is supposed to be on the merits here.
Piss-poor use of communications, amybe? A complete failure to understand basic concepts of advertising, propaganda, and mangaement of opinion, maybe?
Because “let’s raise taxes on the middle and working classes” is effective messaging now?
Also I said “on the merits,” which would sort of seem to imply the opposite of “OMGZ MESSAGING!!!2q111!1!!” blather.
Ah, is that why the Democrats’ position on the Bush tax cuts is overwhelmingly popular with the public?
Maybe?