On a chilly morning in March 1788, Louis XVI’s finance minister sat down and drew up what was the first entirely truthful budget of the French monarchy — which almost turned out to be its last. It revealed that some 500 millions of revenue were offset by 629 millions in expenses, of which more than 50 percent went for service on the royal debt — a debt largely racked up, ironically enough, by Louis’s support for the American war for independence. For the first time, it was apparent that the system created to rule France since the days of Louis XIV could no longer continue. It was on that day, not the fall of the Bastille more than a year later, that the ancien régime ended.
Something similar is happening with the current debt-limit imbroglio. Some people compare our current political turn, including the growth of the Tea Party, to the American Revolution. A far better comparison is with the French Revolution. Our ancien régime is tax-and-spend Washington, which Franklin D Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and a host of lesser Sun Kings built and which the current dauphin Barack Obama wants to sustain. A corrupt bloated French monarchy sustained itself on the lie of divine right of kings, which made the king’s will law. Our Versailles sustains itself on a lie called baseline budgeting.
Created in 1974 by the same Democratic congressional majority that handed over South Vietnam to the Communists and gave us the CAFE standards that ruined the American auto industry, baseline budgeting forced the Office of Management Budget for the first time to consider growing government as the fiscal norm, and reduced spending as an aberration. Even reducing the rate of spending was redefined as subtracting money, not adding money by a slightly lower amount. This has created a system which today’s Congressional Budget Office would score a freeze on all government spending as a $9 trillion cut, even though there’s no reduction in spending at all.
The root of the dilemma we face is not political or fiscal, but moral. Until Congress overturns an accounting system that deliberately distorts empirical reality, we will never escape the corruption it entails — or the catastrophe that’s coming.
— Arthur Herman is a visiting scholar at AEI.
I've been calling Tea Party supporters Jacobins all week. Who knew they'd be so excited to take the title?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's where the comparison breaks down: the Jacobins weren't Burkeans, to put it mildly.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Baseline budgeting" - had no idea. And this completely re-frames whatever I heard about "cuts in spending" before. Does anyone else feel like Rumpelstiltskin awakening after a lifelong snooze only to find a time bomb ticking off its last seconds sitting in your lap?
Thanks, Art, I guess...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt was Rip Van Winkle who slept for 20 years. Rumpelstiltskin was able to spin straw into gold.
I fear the latter may be our only hope, at this point.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThanks for the overview. Prospective is needed here.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't know how conservative some one is who runs down the Bourbons and not the Jacobins. I do think that the publication of that true budget was an attempt to adress the problem responsibly. The new regime solved the problem by looting the rest of Europe.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Created in 1974 by the same Democratic congressional majority that handed over South Vietnam to the Communists and gave us the CAFE standards that ruined the American auto industry, baseline budgeting forced the Office of Management Budget for the first time to consider growing government as the fiscal norm, and reduced spending as an aberration. Even reducing the rate of spending was redefined as subtracting money, not adding money by a slightly lower amount. This has created a system which today’s Congressional Budget Office would score a freeze on all government spending as a $9 trillion cut, even though there’s no reduction in spending at all."
Gee. It's the fault of the "Democrats". If only there had been a Republican President from, say, 1974-77, 1981-93 and 2001-2009, a Republican Senate from 1981-87, 1993-2001 and 2002-2007 and a Republican House from 1993-2007, then perhaps something could have been done.
If you want to say that our "budget system" (or CAFE standards or the fact that Vietnam is communist) are bad things and ought to be changed, that's fine - but when you pretend that a bad and long-standing system or situation is the fault of one party you end up keeping in power people who aren't any better than the ones you're complaining about and losing the allies you could get from the group that you're complaining about.
Having a "D" or an "R" after your name is often but not always a mild-indication of some of your political views. And in a particular moment in time, you can rationally draw distinctive conclusions about what each party is generally doing.
But to believe that this-or-that problem (especially when we're talking about 37 years) is the fault of one or the other party is an indication of partisan hackery and political incompetence.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think he's referring to the Congressional Budget Office, emphasis on Congressional. The president has no say over what they do, only the Congress, hence - Congressional Budget Office.
It's true that until very recently both parties were total hacks and to some extent the GOP still is, particularly in the senate, but to equate the devastation that the Dems have wrought on this country with the GOP is just willful blindness - or the unfortunate consequence of a public school education.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"[T]o equate the devastation that the Dems have wrought on this country with the GOP is just willful blindness - or the unfortunate consequence of a public school education."
I didn't equate anything with anyone.
I'll try it more slowly: Regardless of who implemented the system, it's been in place for 37 years and Republicans have steadfastly refused to change it. After awhile, it's a facile to blame one party for the problem. For example, while President Obama can, initially, blame former President Bush for problems he inherited, the longer he stays in office the less plausible the blame.
BTW: Americans who attend public schools are attending schools that teach what you tell them to teach. If you think you're intellectually superior to those who attended such schools, that's your prerogative but it says more about you than about them. I'm more in accord with William F. Buckley's negative view aboout the notion that because a school is "private", its product is superior.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNixon vetoed the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. His veto was overridden by a Democrat majority Congress.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFine. And then what happened after 1974? Was there a "no repeal" clause in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSeems to me Democrats are proud of the Congressional Budget Act ... they've never wanted to repeal it, now have they? They've certainly had opportunities - as recently as the last Congress, in fact.
Why not give them credit for what they created?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell for one thing, if it's a bad idea, then it makes no sense to give them "credit" for creating it.
If you're talking about "who" created the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, then it makes sense to point to the following:
1. A bipartisan coalition in the Democratic-controlled House (which passed it by a vote of 401-6 on June 18, 1974);
2. A unanimous coalition in the Democratic-controlled Senate (which passed it by a vote of 75-0 on June 21, 1974); and
3. The assent of President Richard M. Nixon (R), who signed it into law on July 12, 1974 (88 Stat. 297).
The Act exists to this day because both parties want it to exist. So if you're talking about which party has maintained and supported it for the last 37 years, I'd say both parties. Because both parties have had the power to change it and have refused to.
It may be that, from the perspective of whichever party is in the majority, the system is good. In other words, that it doesn't serve "Democratic" or "Republican" ends - but "majority party" or even "Congressional" ends.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd by the way, where did you get the idea that Richard Nixon (R) vetoed the Congressional Budget Act of 1974? Did you just make that up?
It passed the House 401-6; it passed the Senate 74-0 and Nixon signed it on July 12, 1974. Why do you think he vetoed it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI wonder if Whigs will ever grow weary of calumniating the ancien regime and the better world that existed before this present age of revolutions.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's not enough to be an anti-monarchist these days. With the would-be Messiah constantly preening for statuary you have to be an anti-pharoahnist if you would be politically and culturally American. Also, from these numbers, it seems the Sun King deficit spent at about half the current rate and that is today. There is talk about that August revenues will "exceed expectations", how you can expect to exceed expectations is somewhat mysterious but let's say it is so and it puts off meeting the debt ceiling by eight or ten days. Doesn't this mean that whenever revenues come in UNDER expectations that it moves our deadline closer? And doesn't it do that no matter what the debt ceiling is? Yes and yes. Now, all the "plans" out there, all the budgets, all the prospective projects ALL presume a pretty quick (actually, it is already late) return to the mean of around 4% growth. Does anyone seriously think this is going to happen absent a radical reduction in government spending and regulatory footprint? And does anyone think this will happen without some debt ceiling level crisis regardless of who is in office? We are reminded by John McCain that he certainly would have done most of what Obama has done on spending. Raising the debt ceiling by whatever amount only delays the inevitable which if it doesn't include radical spending and entitlement cuts can only be resolved in a currency collapse. Or a revolution that repudiates our accumulated promises in some fashion. So, in my view, the best case scenario is that the Republicans fight and fight and fight and fight, but then lose, possibly meaning Obama takes the 14th. Because then the REAL debt ceiling will shortly kick in, that is that those who buy bonds won't buy ours. With the Fed now being the largest holder of US debt there is good evidence that this has already happened.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Created in 1974 by the same Democratic congressional majority that handed over South Vietnam to the Communists..."
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1. "South" Vietnam was a fabricated political entity created by Eisenhower. The 17th Parallel was never an international boundary.
Dig out a pre-1955 world almanac. The country was called Indochina by the West and Vietnam by everybody else. Its capitol? Hanoi.
2. By 1974 the vast majority of the American public supported our exit.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe issue is not whether most Americans wanted it, but whether most Vietnamese did. North Vietnam was fabricated, too, and by 1974 they still weren't known to care much about what people wanted.
But you're right: Congress didn't hand South Vietnam to the communists.
They handed ALL of it to the communists.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe only people whose "wants" I care about are the American people. I don't care and can't imagine caring what foreigners want.
And neither the United States, the Congress or the Democratic Party handed anything over to the North Vietnamese. North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam. It happens. I live in a state in the "United States of America" and not in a province of the "Paiute Nation". History's tough.
If the American people had not wanted to end our military effort to assist the South Vietnamese (and you're entitled to say that that was a bad idea), they would have punished the Democrats in the 1974 elections - and they didn't.
If Americans had wanted to re-engage in Vietnam (and nothing prevented us from doing that - even to the present day) then Republicans would have run in 1976, 1980, etc. on a platform of using military force to change the Vietnamese government. The fact that Vietnam is now unified and communist doesn't mean that it couldn't change - East Germany didn't remain forever Communist and I'm sure Cubans hope that Cuba doesn't always remain Communist.
But no one of either party runs for office on such a platform. And that's because the side that "lost" acquiesced in the loss. That happens all the time in both directions: Republicans have largely stopped arguing that we should get rid of "no fault" divorce and there are very few Democrats who want to again allow business owners to bar persons from their premises on the basis of race.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmerica reneged on its commitment to provide air support to the government of South Vietnam. Americans may not care about foreigners but foreigners calibrate the trustworthiness of America as an ally. After the Communist unification of Vietnam American intervention would have carried a significantly higher cost than the cost of continuing its promised support to the South Vietnamese government. True, there are perhaps more important things for Americans to worry about than furiners or the reliability of America on the world scene, like McDonald's Smoothies perhaps.
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