Whos to blame for the failure of the Debt Reduction Deal?

[Wonkish1]

Americans are at fault. We elected these clowns. We cannot have Social Security, Medicare, and the best military money can buy without raising taxes back to Clinton levels. And people refuse to get that. They think the problem is that we gave a million dollars to a scientist to study earthworms. Americans don't understand basic math or the budget process. And they are being misled by politicians who are too scared to tell them the truth. And it pisses me off.

Well apparently Memphis doesn't understand basic math at all either because you can't even have all those things in current form even with the Clinton tax rates(which would pretty much change zero because most of the Bush tax cuts were behavior changing the behavior changes back if they expire--example qualified dividends which is probably the one tax cut of the package that netted an increase in tax revenues as a result).


Don't make me post the spending and tax charts again for the 4th time because its its irrefutable evidence we have a spending problem in this country not a tax problem. If Dems absolutely must have some revenues in a deal fine, but it better involve some serious and real cuts or they just liars, demagogues, and crooks cheating America's future.

[Brittain33]

Don't make me post the spending and tax charts again

You need to follow that with "are you feeling lucky, punk?"

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Canada cut it's deficit by increasing taxes $1 for every $7 cut from spending. Anyone who thinks this balance is incorrect is therefore wrong and at fault.

[Yelnoc]

What Mr. Morden said, basically.  It was never meant to "succeed"; this is simply another partisan game.  Boehner and Reid are probably slapping each others backs right now.

[minionofmidas]

The people who set it up that way.

[krazen1211]

Creating 'mandatory' spending that is not subject to the standard budget process (ie entitlements) was an enormously stupid decision.

[King]

1.2 trillion in auto cuts sounds like success to me.

[angus]

other:  the voters.

We like all the goods, but we don't like paying for them.  For example, the average American will pay about 170 thousand into Medicare during the course of his life, but he will receive about 500 thousand in benefits.  Who wouldn't like that? 

The government is like one big credit card.  Buy now, worry later.  And they know that we like getting things we don't pay for, and they know that they have to answer to us. 

All the debt, polarization, and dysfunction is our fault.  Nostra culpa, and until we can recognize and accept that, nothing will ever change.

[greenforest32]

Americans are at fault. We elected these clowns. We cannot have Social Security, Medicare, and the best military money can buy without raising taxes back to Clinton levels. And people refuse to get that. They think the problem is that we gave a million dollars to a scientist to study earthworms. Americans don't understand basic math or the budget process. And they are being misled by politicians who are too scared to tell them the truth. And it pisses me off.

This.

Narrowed in the context of the super-committee, it's clearly Republicans who refuse to raise taxes or significantly reduce tax expenditures (without using the savings to lower rates).

[Beet]

I think I have to agree with angus on this one. The profound lack of economics education among the American population has been on my mind lately. There is a deep need for economic literacy packaged for the common man and woman. This is especially so given the fact that we, as voters, are called upon to ultimately decide all of these very complicated economic questions [and feel deeply entitled to do so], it seems to me that the more educated people are, the better.

The fact that education as a responsibility of voting is not more often and more seriously discussed I think is that it is still associated with old debates over the poll tax, limited franchise, and the like, which were settled a century ago. Any discussion of the need to educate voters now has a whiff of elitism. Lost in all of this is memory that the Founding Fathers of the US were deeply concerned about whether people could successfully self-govern themselves, and that modern democracy, being only one or two centuries old, is still a relatively novel experiment. The Founding Fathers' concerns are by no means dated. To the contrary, as society became more complicated, the needs of education only grew, until by our grandparents' generation, only the so called experts or technocrats could truly make decisions. This was all fine and good so long as people did not lose faith in the technocrats' competence or integrity, but it seems as if we may be entering in a period where we are losing faith. It seems to me that the less people want to be governed by technocratic insiders like Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and the like, the more incumbent it is to ensure that the voters themselves have some degree of economic education. Not that this will qualify any one to actually replace a technocrat. But it will narrow the gap, if only a little, and hence narrow the power differential between voters and technocrats, if only a little. More important, may also enable our democracy to make better choices, and hence a better chance of preserving itself.

It seems that many people's thinking about economics can be categorized in several levels, similar to Converse's levels of conceptualization.

Level A - Intimidated
At the most basic level is people who are intimidated by economics. I frequently see people saying "I don't know much about economics, but...", "I'm no economist, but..." When you start talking to them about fiscal subjects, their eyes glaze over. They'll worry about the debt ceiling, but they won't have the first clue of what to do about it. I would put many Americans, if not most, in this category. They simply don't think about it. One way to reach this level of Americans is to have some supposed 'expert' say something that sounds smart. "Former Chief World Bank economist..." or "Economics PhD..." or simply "Economist..." the people with these titles can trade on them to convince a vast swath of people of some vague sense of unease on the radio.

Level B - Group Economics
Beyond the intimidation level are people who have been activated enough by concern for economic subjects to get interested and vocal, but they don't understand any more about the subject than people at Level A. What they do understand is that the banks got bailed out and they didn't, or the top 1% have a lot more wealth than them, and that they are angry about it. It's like the school yard child who fights for their share of the toys. Their motivation for being involved in these discussions is to make sure that they, or people like them, 'get theirs'. Alternately, they may not belong to the group they are trying to help, but still see it in the same way (one group vs another). Unfortunately many of the tea partiers and Occupy Movement people are at this level, even though they are good people.

Level C - Property Economics
A lot of conservatives fall into this category, but many non-conservatives think this way too. For them, economics is all about justice as they see it in a very narrow property sense, rewarding good, punishing evil, preserving liberty. The laid off are lazy, and need to work harder. The rich got there because they deserve it. Any sort of redistribution is theft. The key is that the free market always delivers the morally just result, and any attempt to interfere with this is morally wrong. The analogy is like the school yard child who learns to treat others like he would be treated. Unfortunately, this puts many conservatives and tea partiers at a higher cognitive plane than many Occupy people, who more likely fall into Level B.

Level D - Intellectual
Finally, the intellectual level, consists of people who actually try to understand the economy as a working system that is complex and has certain predictable rules and patterns. The analogy is the child who have moved out of the school yard and into the classroom. It does not matter what the child's opinions are; he or she could have identical opinions as a Level C, Level B, or Level A person. He or she could be far left or far right. They could be a communist or a Paulite. What matters is that they are not intimidated to engage in economics, and are also not intimidated to seeing it as a system with facts and rules that are relevant to decision-making and opinion-formation. Hence amenable to study.

Most people who are engaged, of course, fall into more than one category, and may combine A, B, C, D. Still, I would wager that many people do fall into one of the categories predominantly. The use of economic jargon or sophistication is not an indicator of what category one falls into. Just because one can talk about interest rates, bonds, CDOs, moral hazard, the money supply, et cetera, it does not mean that they operate on the intellectual level. That's because there is a lot of jargon out there and it can be used & abused to an infinite degree. What you have to do is really look at what a person is writing or saying in a wholistic manner, to get sense of what kind of thinking the person is appealing to.

Our schools have undoubtedly failed us. But I don't think that economics education is something that can be solved by appeals to self-education alone. It requires an active effort, among professors, teachers, lecturers, economists, and professionals of all stripes, to spread knowledge far and wide. It is a project, that can be in service to the highest ideals of our nation.

[Wonkish1]

I think I have to agree with angus on this one. The profound lack of economics education among the American population has been on my mind lately. There is a deep need for economic literacy packaged for the common man and woman. This is especially so given the fact that we, as voters, are called upon to ultimately decide all of these very complicated economic questions [and feel deeply entitled to do so], it seems to me that the more educated people are, the better.

The fact that education as a responsibility of voting is not more often and more seriously discussed I think is that it is still associated with old debates over the poll tax, limited franchise, and the like, which were settled a century ago. Any discussion of the need to educate voters now has a whiff of elitism. Lost in all of this is memory that the Founding Fathers of the US were deeply concerned about whether people could successfully self-govern themselves, and that modern democracy, being only one or two centuries old, is still a relatively novel experiment. The Founding Fathers' concerns are by no means dated. To the contrary, as society became more complicated, the needs of education only grew, until by our grandparents' generation, only the so called experts or technocrats could truly make decisions. This was all fine and good so long as people did not lose faith in the technocrats' competence or integrity, but it seems as if we may be entering in a period where we are losing faith. It seems to me that the less people want to be governed by technocratic insiders like Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and the like, the more incumbent it is to ensure that the voters themselves have some degree of economic education. Not that this will qualify any one to actually replace a technocrat. But it will narrow the gap, if only a little, and hence narrow the power differential between voters and technocrats, if only a little. More important, may also enable our democracy to make better choices, and hence a better chance of preserving itself.

It seems that many people's thinking about economics can be categorized in several levels, similar to Converse's levels of conceptualization.

Level A - Intimidated
At the most basic level is people who are intimidated by economics. I frequently see people saying "I don't know much about economics, but...", "I'm no economist, but..." When you start talking to them about fiscal subjects, their eyes glaze over. They'll worry about the debt ceiling, but they won't have the first clue of what to do about it. I would put many Americans, if not most, in this category. They simply don't think about it. One way to reach this level of Americans is to have some supposed 'expert' say something that sounds smart. "Former Chief World Bank economist..." or "Economics PhD..." or simply "Economist..." the people with these titles can trade on them to convince a vast swath of people of some vague sense of unease on the radio.

Level B - Group Economics
Beyond the intimidation level are people who have been activated enough by concern for economic subjects to get interested and vocal, but they don't understand any more about the subject than people at Level A. What they do understand is that the banks got bailed out and they didn't, or the top 1% have a lot more wealth than them, and that they are angry about it. It's like the school yard child who fights for their share of the toys. Their motivation for being involved in these discussions is to make sure that they, or people like them, 'get theirs'. Alternately, they may not belong to the group they are trying to help, but still see it in the same way (one group vs another). Unfortunately many of the tea partiers and Occupy Movement people are at this level, even though they are good people.

Level C - Property Economics
A lot of conservatives fall into this category, but many non-conservatives think this way too. For them, economics is all about justice as they see it in a very narrow property sense, rewarding good, punishing evil, preserving liberty. The laid off are lazy, and need to work harder. The rich got there because they deserve it. Any sort of redistribution is theft. The key is that the free market always delivers the morally just result, and any attempt to interfere with this is morally wrong. The analogy is like the school yard child who learns to treat others like he would be treated. Unfortunately, this puts many conservatives and tea partiers at a higher cognitive plane than many Occupy people, who more likely fall into Level B.

Level D - Intellectual
Finally, the intellectual level, consists of people who actually try to understand the economy as a working system that is complex and has certain predictable rules and patterns. The analogy is the child who have moved out of the school yard and into the classroom. It does not matter what the child's opinions are; he or she could have identical opinions as a Level C, Level B, or Level A person. He or she could be far left or far right. They could be a communist or a Paulite. What matters is that they are not intimidated to engage in economics, and are also not intimidated to seeing it as a system with facts and rules that are relevant to decision-making and opinion-formation. Hence amenable to study.

Most people who are engaged, of course, fall into more than one category, and may combine A, B, C, D. Still, I would wager that many people do fall into one of the categories predominantly. The use of economic jargon or sophistication is not an indicator of what category one falls into. Just because one can talk about interest rates, bonds, CDOs, moral hazard, the money supply, et cetera, it does not mean that they operate on the intellectual level. That's because there is a lot of jargon out there and it can be used & abused to an infinite degree. What you have to do is really look at what a person is writing or saying in a wholistic manner, to get sense of what kind of thinking the person is appealing to.

Our schools have undoubtedly failed us. But I don't think that economics education is something that can be solved by appeals to self-education alone. It requires an active effort, among professors, teachers, lecturers, economists, and professionals of all stripes, to spread knowledge far and wide. It is a project, that can be in service to the highest ideals of our nation.

Great answer. Mega 5's across the board!

[King]

Once a Republican wins the Presidency and moderates himself, the American people will be ready to learn economics.

[Badger]

Americans are at fault. We elected these clowns. We cannot have Social Security, Medicare, and the best military money can buy without raising taxes back to Clinton levels. And people refuse to get that. They think the problem is that we gave a million dollars to a scientist to study earthworms. Americans don't understand basic math or the budget process. And they are being misled by politicians who are too scared to tell them the truth. And it pisses me off.

[exopolitician]

Americans are at fault. We elected these clowns. We cannot have Social Security, Medicare, and the best military money can buy without raising taxes back to Clinton levels. And people refuse to get that. They think the problem is that we gave a million dollars to a scientist to study earthworms. Americans don't understand basic math or the budget process. And they are being misled by politicians who are too scared to tell them the truth. And it pisses me off.

Truth.

Congress just had to do it's job, it shouldn't be this hard.

[rwoy]

Who is to blame for the failure of the Debt Reduction Deal?

The American people who continuously elect politicians who don't do anything.  The American people who are so apathetic regarding their government that their "best and brightest" are rarely interested in working in it.  The American people who don't seem to understand that we can't spend insane amounts of money and never bring in more money to pay for it.

In short, blame the American People, not the politicians who are simply "the messenger".

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

All of the above share some blame.

[GLPman]

Everyone is to blame - Democrats, Republicans, Americans, blah blah blah. In all honesty, though, I'm really surprised that Obama has not addressed the issue more. I would've liked to see him do more, even if he's limited. He's taken a back seat, which is quite disappointing.

[anvi]

Depends on how far one goes back in the story.  If one goes back to last summer, I think most of the blame should go to the House.  If we go back further, into last year, I'd blame Obama for not endorsing Simpson-Bowles or at least something like it of his own design, as if he could design good legislation himself, that is.  If we're just talking about the "Supercommittee," that was a Congressional failure.  That b.s. Sessions and the gang were peddling last week about how, had Obama only gotten involved, the Supercommittee would have reached a deal, was laughable.  The Committee was a task Congress gave itself, and they're supposed to be a co-equal branch of government; they blew it all by their lonesome-9% approved of-selves. The American people?  Yeah, of course.