Meet The Republican Ralph Nader
Not that this gadfly economist is likely to cost his political party a decisive number of votes in a national election. But like Nader, Bartlett has taken on the unofficial role of scold and skewer, in this case taking conservatives to task for failing to put forward what he considers sensible ideas about how to revive the economy. Bartlett, who served under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, is no stranger to controversy. Almost four years ago, he earned the wrath of his party's right wing when he accused George W. Bush of not being a real conservative.)
Though Bartlett nowadays regularly gets cuffed by one-time ideological brethren, he still considers himself very much within the Republican mainstream. For instance, there's little light between Bartlett and say, a Jim DeMint, when it comes to a standard Republican plank like reducing the estate tax. Similarly, he does not think the Obama administration should be rushing to tackle health reform or climate change.
When it comes to fiscal responsibility, however, Bartlett does not believe the Republican Party is serious and dismisses its insistence on more tax cuts as a cure-all. And after finishing up Bartlett's latest book, "The New American Economy," I have to acknowledge that the author belongs to that rarest of fraternities: An economist who also happens to be a wickedly good polemicist. Though the book revisits arguments sounded in earlier columns it's still worth the read, if only to consider a searching critique of current Republican positions from the right.
Bartlett, who makes a compelling case, received addition fodder for his point of view, courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office, which has determined that the tax policies enacted during the second Bush presidency are responsible for a big chunk of the projected deficits facing the nation. After New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman argued recently that Obama's spending and borrowing policies were responsible for leaving the the U.S. economy "gasping for air," Bartlett offered the rejoinder that the economy faced a massive projected budget deficit long before Obama's $787 billion spending bill was ever a gleam in Rahm Emanuel's eye. So it was, he wrote, that a $1.2 trillion deficit "was baked in the cake the day Obama took office."
"Now let's fast forward to the end of fiscal year 2009, which ended on September 30. According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion. To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected."
"Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending."
Bartlett's critique extends beyond economics. Earlier this year, he told the New York Times that "much of what passes for conservatism today is just pure partisan opposition." While Democrats won't find that to be a controversial observation, it's guaranteed to infuriate his Republican brethren. I spoke with one Congressional staffer who put it this way (not for attribution, naturally): "We're open to constructive criticism but if Bartlett's trying to be helpful, he sure has a strange way of going about it."
To be sure, you don't find many Republicans these days publicly proclaiming that government's not spending enough or that the only policies which will help the economy "are those that increase spending." Those are lines worthy of note if only because they are the exception, not the rule, these days.