The sensible center outraged by the "sensible center"

by: Paul Rosenberg

Fri Jul 30, 2010 at 15:30

But what's now being done by Obama and his appointees in the name of "sensible centrism" is about to give poor Matt a heart attack.  This is yet another, highly significant data point in the argument that Obama is not only not a progressive, but not even centrist or "third way" neoliberal as they were once understood.   Of course, I would argue that the "third way" never actually had any sort of firm foundations, and so sharp rightward slippage under Obama is not really all that surprising.

But even without deep, firm intellectual foundations, it's possible to maintain some sort of pragmatic sense of direction, meaning and purpose.  It's called "muddling through" and in some ways it's a very admirable tradition.  But now--per Brad--it's at wit's end:

It Always Looked Like Alan Simpson Was a Mistake to Co-Chair a Deficit-Reduction Commission. Now It Looks Like Erskine Bowles Was an Even Bigger Mistake

Numerology is not a science. And there is no reason to think that 21% is a particularly auspicious number.

Matt Miller--like me, part of the sensible, technocratic bipartisan center--looks at what is coming out of the Obama deficit-reduction commission, and is as horrified as I am:

A spending goal too small for aging America: I don't want to overreact. I'd hate to prematurely diss President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which held its fourth public meeting Wednesday. But the commission's Democratic co-chair, Erskine Bowles, may have already blown it.... Bowles suggested that the long-term goal the commission should adopt for federal spending should be 21 percent of gross domestic product. This sounds like a bookkeeping matter. But... federal spending under Ronald Reagan averaged 22 percent of GDP. Under Bowles's view, therefore, the outer limits of the Democratic Party's 21st-century aspirations would be to run government at a size smaller than did a 20th-century conservative icon. What's more, Reagan ran government at this size at a time when 76 million baby boomers weren't about to hit their rocking chairs. In 1988, 32 million retirees received Social Security and 33 million were on Medicare, our two biggest domestic programs. By 2020, about 48 million elderly Americans will receive Social Security, and 62 million Americans will be on Medicare (then the numbers really soar).... [Total] health costs in the Reagan era were around 10 percent of GDP, while they're now 17 percent, headed toward 20. Obviously we need a national crusade to make health-care delivery more efficient. But until there's progress on this front, the 21 percent goal would be tantamount to Democrats agreeing that Uncle Sam should handle health care, pensions, defense and little else....

Bottom line: There isn't anything remotely sensible about any of this.  And even sensible centrists are starting to notice that it's not just a here-and-there problem--it's utterly central to the new "third way" project under Obama.

I repeat my claim: The aim here is for an American version of the conservative welfare state, one whose overarching objective is to serves elites.  21% is more than enough to do that, provided nothing is "wasted" on anyone else.