Is Obama anti-business?

The Economist has two articles (one, two) on whether Obama is "anti-business." According to both, business leaders are increasingly convinced that this is the case. The Economist writers can't figure out exactly why these attitudes exist, though...and since The Economist is probably the newsweekly that is read most by the business class, if they don't know, who does? The notion of Obama as anti-business, it turns out, is not really supported by the facts:

No matter that other Western politicians have publicly played with populism more dangerously, from France’s “laissez-faire is dead” president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to Britain’s “capitalism kills competition” business secretary, Vince Cable (see article); no matter that talk on the American right about Mr Obama being a socialist is rot; no matter that Wall Street’s woes are largely of its own making...

A president who truly wanted to wage war on business would have hung onto GM, not rushed to return it to the private sector. Card check has not been pushed. The finance bill, though bureaucratic, is not a Wall Street killer. With the exception of a China-bashing tyre tariff and a retreat on Mexican trucks, Mr Obama has eschewed protectionism. A lot of government cash has flowed to businesses, not least through the stimulus package. And above all his policies have helped pull the economy out of recession.

and:

Yet does Mr Obama really have a case to answer? Certainly, some of the wilder allegations by some businesspeople should never have left the 19th hole. Mr Obama has consistently made it clear he favours a mixed capitalist economy. The big incursion of the state into finance took place on his Republican predecessor’s watch. And although he doubtless went further than a McCain administration would have done to help GM and Chrysler survive, he has stuck to his pledge to return them quickly to private ownership. He used this year’s state-of-the-union message to commit himself to helping corporate America double its exports, and has appointed a council to propose ideas for promoting more innovation...

Moreover, the main reason so many American bosses are down in the dumps is the sluggish economy. Mr Obama inherited the recession from his predecessor, and the economy has recovered, somewhat, since then. Besides, it was corporate America, in the shape of the Wall Street banks, that was largely to blame for the depth of the recession. It might have helped Mr Obama’s relationship with business if he had gone on less about “shameful bonuses” on Wall Street; but some shame was surely in order.

Even a Republican administration would have been obliged to reform financial regulation, and, though there is a lot to quibble with in the Dodd-Frank act, the administration responded to requests from Wall Street to kill some of the more alarming reform proposals from Democrats in Congress.

Furthermore, the writers of the two articles are divided on what Obama could possibly do to seem more business-friendly; one heartily endorses the idea of tapping a CEO to replace outgoing economic advisor Larry Summers, the other dismisses this as a superficial PR move. It's not surprising that the writers don't know what to recommend; if you don't know the disease, how can you know the cure? In the end, both are forced to the same conclusion: Barack Obama is perceived as being anti-business because he smells like a socialist:

[Obama] has some rhetorical form as an anti-business figure—unlike the previous Democrat in the White House, Bill Clinton, who could comfortably talk the talk of business. Mr Obama’s life story, as depicted in his autobiography and on the campaign, was one of a man once mired in the sinful private sector (at a company subsequently bought by The Economist), who redeemed himself only by becoming a community organiser; his wife had a similar trajectory. There are the endless digs at Wall Street and Big Pharma, not to mention the beating up of BP. He remains a supporter of “card check”, which would dispense with the need for secret ballots in establishing a trade union. His legislative agenda has centred on helping poorer individuals (the health-care bill, part of the stimulus bill) or reining in banks (the financial-reform bill). The only businesses he has rescued are the huge union-dominated General Motors and Chrysler.

and:

[A]s a person with first-hand experience of Mr Obama’s decision-making points out, the “atmospherics really do matter”. The mere perception that the administration is anti-business is “starting to make the bosses of Fortune 500 companies more risk-averse,” says a billionaire who used to run one of America’s leading internet firms...

As for Mr Obama, when he meets businesspeople at fund-raisers and the like, he too often shakes hands and moves on, leaving them feeling he was more interested in a photo-op than a conversation. He caused offence and disbelief a while back by turning up for a meeting with a group of prominent chief executives and then reading to them from a teleprompter.

I think that this story is basically right. Businessmen fear Obama simply because he is not one of them. Obama comes from an academic and nonprofit background, and has in the past been sympathetic to socialist ideas. Even though his actions have been broadly pro-business, his identity is as a guy who comes from sectors whose attitudes are often inimical to industry. The fear among the business class - the "uncertainty" that one article claims is now starting to hurt the real economy - is simply the fear that, at any moment, Obama will revert to his roots and start madly swinging the wrecking ball of socialism through the American private sector.

I personally believe this fear is ungrounded. Obama is an obviously a guy who is inclined to listen to the "experts" on basically everything, and on business issues those "experts" are people who are far more sympathetic to the business class than Obama was in his youth. And I also believe that "uncertainty" over Obama's potential metamorphosis into a socialist Comrade Hyde is far down the list of things holding our economy back.

That said, however, I think it's counterproductive to allow this myth to persist at a time when other types of social strife (think: Tea Party vs. blacks and Hispanics) threatens to strain America to the breaking point. We do NOT need businessmen flooding the racist Tea Partiers with cash simply because they're scared that Obama will go all commie on 'em. And so Obama would do well to make friends with America's business class.

How can this be done? I think the second article has some good ideas about image management. Start dishing up pro-business rhetoric in speeches (and confine anti-business rhetoric to criticism of the finance industry). Have regular candid meetings with business leaders, and take their concerns to heart. Establish regular liaisons between the administration and the business community. Start trumpeting the pro-business nature of policies like export-promotion and research support that are already pro-business in substance.

Also, there are pro-business policies that are pretty obviously good for the country. Our corporate tax needs to be cut from 35% to 20% (with the revenue replaced by personal income tax or value-added tax). Cutting corporate tax is something that a series of Republican presidents has somehow managed to avoid even suggesting, so there's a big opportunity there; and, conveniently, it's something that will help poor people (low-wage workers and consumers) just as much as rich people. This could be a big winner for Obama.

But in the end, whatever happens to the Obama administration, this issue shows that America suffers from a sectoral divide that we should find a way to heal. For too long, many in academia and the nonprofit sector have viewed private business activity as inherently suspect and disreputable; profit is often denigrated and frowned upon. Listening to rhetoric I've heard from some (certainly not all!) academic and nonprofit sector workers, I'm not surprised that U.S. businessmen fear a president who comes from that walk of life. Until we recognize, as a nation, that all of our sectors are important for national prosperity, class warfare of this type will hamstring sensible policy at the highest levels.

Democrats have many good ideas. Republicans have no ideas whatsoever.

This is a partisan post. Which is not to say I'm writing this because I like Democrats better in general. I just like Democrats better right now, because they have ideas to fight our country's problems. Republicans do not.

Note that this was not always the case. In the Reagan era, Republicans had a lot of ideas, and Democrats largely promised more of the same. Voters seemed to realize this when they made their choice. but Republicans dropped the mantle of the "party of ideas" about a decade ago, and show no signs of picking it back up.

What are the main problems facing our country today? Well, there's the ongoing depression. Republicans' best idea has been to cut unemployment benefits, which reduces structural unemployment slightly but raises cyclical unemployment a lot. We are not in a recession because people have suddenly decided that they don't want to work; people are looking for jobs, and simply not finding ones that match their skills.

Then there's that long-term deficit. A simple breakdown shows that most of that deficit comes as a result of the Bush tax cuts; reversing these cuts would help stabilize our public finances (though in the long run, big cuts in Medicare are needed as well). But Republicans absolutely refuse to rescind those unsustainable tax cuts. Instead, if they are in power, they will probably just threaten to shut down the government unless Obama comes up with ideas for big spending cuts; then, if Obama capitulates (and he is kind of a capitulating sort of dude), the GOP will slam him for the very same spending cuts they forced him to make.

And then there's health care. Republicans have essentially no ideas for how to cut healthcare costs, unless they decided to support Medicare cuts, which they are afraid to do. When pressed, Republicans suggest tort reform and "allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines"; the former is a good idea but a drop in the bucket, and the latter is basically a meaningless red herring.

Financial reform? Republicans recognize the moral hazard problem - the idea that implicit government promises of bailouts encourage banks to take crazy risks - but they have no solution to this other than to have the government say, very sternly, "We won't bail you out the next time!" Which is a laugh, because yes you will, and you know it.

And finally, there's energy. Republicans have nothing on this. "Drill here drill now"? Not a solution, since that oil can and will be sold anywhere. What else? Deafening silence.

Compare this to the Democrats.

On the depression: Democrats are split on additional stimulus spending, but they definitely favor rebuilding our infrastructure, which is important in the short-term (because it adds to demand) and the long-term (because it improves our competitiveness). They favor having the Fed do more quantitative easing (printing money and buying stuff), although legislators cannot tell the Fed what to do. These ideas are good, although the other thing I think we need to do - pressure China to immediately revalue its currency - is unlikely to happen.

On the deficit: Democrats favor rescinding the Bush tax cuts. This is the right thing to do, since those tax cuts were unsustainable. In the short and medium terms that will make a huge difference, but in the long term we'll need to contain health care costs and cut health care spending a lot. This, sadly, is something Democrats are not yet talking about much.

On health care, Democrats finally switched us to a universal coverage nation. That was an important first step - it removed the division of the country into health-care "haves" and "have-nots," which should make future cost-cutting measures more politically possible. It implemented various small cost-control measures, any of which could be ramped up hugely in a few years if it is found to work. This is almost certainly the best health care fix that we could expect in the short term; it remains to be seen if the Dems will come through with serious cost-control ideas in the future.

On financial reform, the Democrats have had a bunch of good ideas, many of which - a resolution authority to reduce the moral hazard problem, a consumer protection agency to reduce lending scams, rules on derivative trading to cut unnecessary complexity from the system - are in the process of being put into law, thanks to Dems and no thanks to the GOP. And on energy, Democrats are correctly investing in alternative energy technology.

Now, I am not saying that I agree with all of the Democrats' ideas. A cap-and-trade system, for example, seems pretty pointless to me (especially since U.S. emissions are falling anyway). And on some issues (China trade, health cost control) they need to go much farther. Nor is having a lot of ideas automatically good; Chairman Mao had a whole little red book full of bad ideas.

But the point is that the Democrats' ideas are mostly good ones. They are a clear improvement over the status quo - ballooning deficits, a collapsing health care system, a bloated unproductive financial sector, vulnerability to peak oil. The Republicans offer no such improvement. They have no ideas whatsoever.

For this reason, stumping for the Democrats in the fall elections is not partisan, and it is not ideological. It is simply patriotic. A vote for a Republican is, at this juncture, a vote for sclerosis and decline.

Oh yeah? Well I cut spending by 25%! :P

Chris Edwards at the Cato Institute has a blog post called "I cut spending 10%". Here's how he does it:

The savings listed here are rough and rounded 2010 outlay amounts from the president’s budget.

1. Community Development Subsidies. The Department of Housing and Urban Development should not be funding local activities such as street repairs and parking lots. Save $10 billion.

2. Homeowner Subsidies. Federal subsidies for home ownership helped to cause the financial meltdown and recession by putting people into homes they could not afford. Save $10 billion

3. Energy Subsidies. Federal energy subsidies have a long record of waste and boondoggle. Private markets will invest in energy technologies when there is a reasonable chance for a return. Save $20 billion.

4. Higher Education Subsidies. Federal student aid contributes to college tuition inflation, and it can be replaced by private borrowing, family savings, and private charity. Save $20 billion.

5. Overpaid Federal Workers. Federal workers earn an average $120,000 a year in wages and benefits—twice what the average American earns. Federal wages should be cut 10 percent. Save $20 billion.

6. Farm Subsidies. More than 70 percent of aid goes to the largest 10 percent of farm businesses. With an average income 28 percent higher than the U.S. average, farm households don’t need federal welfare. Save $30 billion.

7. Public Housing and Rental Subsidies. Federal housing policies have damaged cities and created concentrations of poverty. They are based on a myth that markets can’t provide low-income housing. Save $35 billion.

8. K-12 Education Subsidies. Rising federal funding of the public schools has not improved test scores. It has only created large bureaucracies and stifled local control and innovation. Save $60 billion.

9. Transportation Subsidies. State governments and the private sector can more efficiently fund highways, airports, rail, urban transit, and air traffic control without federal subsidies and regulations. Save $85 billion.

10. Food Subsidies (Food Stamps and School Lunch). Low-income families often suffer from poor food choices and obesity, not a shortage of calories. Food aid for the needy should be left to private charities. Save $90 billion.

Not bad, Chris, but I'll do you one better. I will cut 25% of the budget. I will do this by eliminating the entire Department of Defense and all spending for the Global War on Terror.

But wait! you say. We need an army, a navy, an air force, etc. to guard our liberty! Oh no, sir. Private individuals can easily provide security, by pooling their money to hire companies like Blackwater to carry out anti-terrorism missions around the globe. And security at home can be provided by private security companies and by the militias mentioned in the 2nd Amendment. There is absolutely no need for a government-funded military. Cut this waste out of the budget.

Now, of course, I'm kidding, and everyone immediately and instinctively knows why: defense is a public good, something that will not be provided by private individuals in efficient quantities. That is why it cannot be privatized (though I must say, that doesn't stop Blackwater and its GOP backers from trying!).

But if you look at Chris Edwards' list of proposed cuts, you will find that much of it comes from other public goods, specifically infrastructure, research, and education. These are things that will not be provided in sufficient quantity by the private sector, as both economic theory and centuries of history clearly demonstrate. Edwards only manages to look like he's cutting waste because large numbers of his Republican readers have been fooled into thinking that infrastructure and education are not public goods (on the issue of roads, Edwards recognizes the problem and attempts to weasel out of it by claiming that states will provide roads more efficiently, something that is obviously untrue for interstate roads, and which in any case is just shifting most of the highway tax burden from federal to state taxes).

Even things like food stamps and housing subsidies contain elements of public good-ness. Without this life support, many people would be thrown into absolute poverty. The result? Riots and crime, which hurt everyone. Libertarians don't like to admit this, but food stamps and housing subsidies are the price we pay for the right to bear arms, since absolute-poor people with guns are wont to go on rampages.

The point here is that refusing to recognize the existence of public goods (or, technically, nonrival goods in general) does not equal fiscal austerity. Conservatives have managed to get away with this hackery too long, and it is time to start calling them on this. Econ 101 must triumph over whatever class the Cato people are taking - Econ 0, let's call it.

(PS - It's worth mentioning that I do agree with some of these cuts. #2 I definitely agree with; biasing people away from renting is bad. #5 has some merit, but the specifics are what's important. #6 is absolutely right. So it's not the case that 100% of Edwards' ideas come from ignoring the existence of public goods...just 80 or 90% of them.)

Reagan's true legacy

If any publication was the official pamphlet of the Reagan Revolution back in the 1980s and before, that publication would have to be The National Review. So it's pretty epic that The National Review recently printed a four-page article lambasting the Reagan economic approach and smashing the conventional wisdom that it was good for our country. Williamson writes:

There are two schools of thought about the Reagan tax cuts. The conventional conservative view: They spurred investment, entrepreneurship, and real economic growth, helping to resuscitate the post-Carter economy, and, by doing so, they paid for themselves. The conventional liberal view: They were an ill-considered product of starve-the-beast ideology and produced crippling deficits, inaugurating a new era of fiscal irresponsibility only briefly transcended during the golden years of the Clinton presidency.

Here’s a different take: They never happened.

Properly understood, there were no Reagan tax cuts. In 1980 federal spending was $590 billion and in 1989 it was $1.14 trillion...Looked at from the proper perspective, we haven’t really had any tax cuts to speak of — we’ve had tax deferrals.

This is the concept of "Ricardian Equivalence" (actually invented in its modern form not by David Ricardo, but by Robert Barro). The idea is that cutting taxes without cutting spending makes it necessary to raise taxes (or default on your debt or produce inflation) in the future; and since people, being rational, realize this, they act as if the tax cuts never happened.

Now, I don't believe the theory of Ricardian Equivalence is quite correct. But conservatives do! They use it as the main reason why stimulus spending won't boost the economy. But if stimulus doesn't work, the Reagan tax cuts didn't work either.

Williamson goes on to say that the political success of Reagan's tax cuts caused the Republicans to lose any sense of fiscal responsibility...that the seeds of 2001 were sown in 1981:

Bush and the concurrent Republican majorities in both houses of Congress didn’t manage to cut spending, either. Part of that was circumstances — 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the subprime meltdown — but part of it was the fact that a poorly applied supply-side analysis has infantilized Republicans when it comes to the budget. They love to cut taxes but cannot bring themselves to cut spending: It’s eat dessert first and leave the spinach on the table.

A good point. But in my opinion, the collapse of Republican fiscal responsibility is merely the latest instance of a problem that democracies always face sooner or later: everyone wants government services but no one wants to foot the bill, so they make the kids foot the bill. Williamson concurs:

There is some evidence that [fiscal irresponsibility] is both bad politics and bad policy...the deficit is now truly terrifying, and, fortunately for Republicans, it is owned by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

So, in order to keep the deficit-fueled electoral gravy train running, the Grand Old Party o' Deficits keeps blaring the lie that tax cuts pay for themselves:

Despite all those pro-growth tax cuts, our deficits continue to grow faster than our economy...even during periods of strong economic growth, there has been nothing to indicate that our economy is going to grow so fast that it will surmount our deficits and debt without serious spending restraint. This should be a shrieking klaxon of alarm for conservatives still falling for happy talk about pro-growth tax cuts and strategic Laffer Curve optimizing.

Some people are more sensible about that Laffer Curve talk. Laffer, for instance. Arthur Laffer, whose famous (and possibly apocryphal) back-of-the-napkin diagram launched supply-side tax policy, readily concedes that the growth effects of tax cuts are oversold in the political debate. “Does every tax cut pay for itself? No."...

[The idea that tax cuts pay for themselves is] a just-so story, a bedtime fairy tale Republicans tell themselves to shake off fear of the deficit bogeyman. It’s whistling past the fiscal graveyard.

The exaggeration of supply-side effects — the belief that tax-rate cuts pay for themselves or more than pay for themselves over some measurable period — is more an article of faith than an economic fact. But it’s a widespread faith: George W. Bush argued that tax cuts would serve to increase tax revenues. So did John McCain. Rush Limbaugh talks this way. Even Steve Forbes has stepped into this rhetorical stinker from time to time. Reagan knew better — his Treasury Department predicted significant revenue losses from his tax-rate cuts — but his epigones preach a different gospel.

In summary:

Nobody votes for Scrooge. Tax cuts give Republicans an opportunity to distribute economic benefits through the tax code the way Democrats distribute them through appropriations, and the exaggeration of the supply-side effect gives them an opportunity to pretend like those benefits are cost-free...

So, what should conservatives do [to become responsible and still win elections]? One, abjure magical thinking about tax cuts. Two, develop a rhetoric in which “spending” and “taxes” are synonyms, so a federal budget with $1 trillion in new spending means $1 trillion in new taxes — levies on Americans today or on our children tomorrow, with interest.

If conservatives did this, that would be great. But why should they? The path of infinite deficit spending is somewhat easier and far more rewarding than the kind of return to responsibility that Williamson urges. sure, it'll end up crashing the country, but the country is rich enough that the real crash won't come until after the current generation of Republican politicians is retired or dead.

In any case, what does this say about Reagan's legacy? History shows that in a democracy, balanced budgets need bipartisan consensus; you just can't stick one party with the job of being fiscally responsible and expect it to do that job. Before Reagan we had a bipartisan consensus in favor of fiscal responsibility; each party agreed not to become "Santa Claus" if the other one wouldn't. Reagan broke that pact. He changed the GOP's political strategy to a Santa Claus strategy, and it's proven impossible for the GOP to change back. And so Reagan condemned America to spiraling deficits and eventual sovereign default.

Thanks a lot, Gipper!