Voodoo

The New York Times thought this was, er, fit to print:

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.
Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion. 

That's David Stockman.   Let's see...first, who was in charge of preparing that "hastily prepared blueprint"?  Hey, I know that one -- it's David Stockman (Reagan's OMB director). 

And those nefarious enemies of Reagan's budget?  "The welfare state and the warfare state"?  Well, actually, the real enemy of Reagan's budget was a little thing called arithmetic: the numbers didn't add up.  Which is what, actually, Stockman confessed, long ago.  Here's a taste:

Stockman thought he had taken care of embarrassing questions about future deficits with a device he referred to as the "magic asterisk." (Senator Howard Baker had dubbed it that in strategy sessions, Stockman said.) The "magic asterisk" would blithely denote all of the future deficit problems that were to be taken care of with additional budget reductions, to be announced by the President at a later date. Thus, everyone could finesse the hard questions, for now.

The bottom line in 1981 was that, in budget terms, the Reagan administration got exactly what it wanted from Congress, and whatever private doubts Stockman may have had, he was responsible for submitting budget estimates that were, largely, phony.  It's disingenuous, too, for Stockman to complain that "soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward."  That implies that Pentagon increases came after (and therefore undermined) previous "responsible" budget choices.  In fact, Ronald Reagan had of course run on a major increase in military spending; the commitment to a large military basically preceded the commitment to tax cuts, and at any rate both were long in place by the time Stockman arrived at OMB. 

Indeed, the main criticism of Reagan and Stockman in 1979-1981 was precisely that they were promising the impossible: one could not actually cut taxes, increase military spending, and balance the budget.  The implicit claim that it Stockman (and Reagan?) was on the right course before others jumped in is voodoo history, to go with the voodoo economics.  For better or worse, the turn of the conservative movement from faith in balanced budgets to faith in tax cuts was cemented in the first Reagan budget, and that was David Stockman's budget.

More on Conservative Hacks

As I said before, one of the key questions in my mind about American politics today is whether conservative leaders believe their own talking points -- or, to follow Julian Sanchez, whether conservative leaders are trapped in the closed information loop that they've created.  Sanchez says no; I say that I would have thought the answer was no, but now I'm not sure.

Jonathan Chait makes the case the other way in two posts today, one on the "doc fix" and the real budget impact of health care reform, and the other on David Frum realizing that Larry Kudlow doesn't know what he's talking about.  I agree with Chait that Kudlow certainly appears to be a Newt-sized fraud, at least any time I've heard him talking...but both parties presumably have frauds.  And as to the doc fix, it's possible that the Republicans can't produce an analyst capable of understanding basic budget figures, but it's also possible that there's a strong incentive for a good Republican analyst to peddle the party line regardless of whether it's plausible or not.  In other words, if Sanchez is right that Republicans want to create a closed information loop, they'll act that way whether or not their leaders are actually included in the loop or not!

No, the strong argument Chait has isn't Kudlow or budget analyst Jeffrey Anderson, it's Frum, who is apparently shocked, as Chait points out, that Larry Kudlow could be so completely wrong about basic budget facts.  I can't really figure out a motivation for Frum to be play-acting this; I think he's really surprised.

Alas, Chait neglected the very best bit of evidence.  Frum:

Does this really come as news to Larry Kudlow, a very smart man and a former deputy to David Stockman at the Office of Management and Budget?

Gosh, someone who worked for David Stockman at OMB might fudge the numbers?  No!  Really?!?

Back to the Shame Question

I recently opined that Republicans forgive their embarrassing pols, while Democrats don't.  I think there's an exception, which I mentioned in the original post (re: John Dean) but drew no conclusions from: liberals are apparently willing to forgive disgraced conservatives who now support liberal ideas.

Or: what the hell is David Stockman doing on the NYT op-ed page today?