This is an essentially accurate article about the federal government. Actual problem-solving seems to occur at the state and local level. One reason is that states cannot print endless amounts of money. This tethers them, somewhat, to reality. The federal government has been tasked to do way too much. Disappointment is the inevitable result.
The federal government’s number one job is to defend the country which today takes up 13% of the budget. Today payments on debt exceed defense spending. I can’t remember in the Constitution where it said we had to maintain entitlements and welfare that today take up almost 65% of the budget. Halperin is wrong about Trump - he has tried to get a handle on many issues which the Democrats fight tooth and nail; he has reduced the federal bureaucracy by about 13%, the regulations have been massively cut and he’s done everything he can to increase access to all sorts of energy. And that’s just the short list
I would say that the current nature of governments in democracies does a bit more. For me, the preamble does imply key duties: "... in Order to form a more perfect Union (coordinate interstate commerce for example), establish Justice (federal courts) insure domestic Tranquility (police and law enforcement), provide for the common defence (military), promote the general Welfare (the basics of today's social security and Medicare, and so on) secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity (various programs that ensure free elections, and protect personal liberties balanced with social responsibilities)
Attempts to apply expert judgement to reductions in spending were shouted down. This is because every line item has some constituency for whom the funds are do or die.
At some point a universal spending cut - every expenditure, every line item - will need to take a haircut. This will happen in either an orderly way or when Treasury bonds can no longer be sold to the public or foreign borrowers, requiring the Fed to buy them all. Hello Argentina.
Not every state. Illinois simply promises pensions to public employees then fails to fund them adequately. That is effectively printing money or simply embezzling it. The outcome is basically the same. The state's Constitution mandates that pensions pay full benefits so there's no obvious way out. The legislators voting the deals will be long gone when the debt bomb goes off. And pensioners annoyingly are living longer and spending more on health care to do so, making the problem worse. I'd be wary about buying any Illinois bonds unless they are collateralized by tangible assets.
Very well said, John. It’s human to want to belong, and to want to have a meaningful life. Political parties exploit these attributes to attack each other. The internet amplifies all this. Every American knows we’ve accumulated $40T in debt, that Medicare and Social Security are careening towards insolvency, that our education system is failing many people. Make your own list. It doesn’t matter. Politicians pretend none of this exists or change the subject.
Yet we the voters keep falling for this finger pointing. You say you can’t do anything and that the other side is worse? Yes you can. Register as an independent. Make them earn your vote. If independents become > 50% of the electorate, both parties will realize they have to change. Independents are already in the low 40%+ area, much larger than either party. It’s not that far. Send a message!
I fear that the actual problem rests with us, the electorate. Any candidate or party who would suggest real solutions to the real problems that we face would be laughed at, ignored, and/or vilified for having the temerity to suggest that real solutions that involve sacrifice might actually be necessary.
We are ultimately responsible. And if we allow ourselves to be manipulated cycle after cycle, that’s really on us.
I hope there eventually comes a way to solve many of our issues, a modern pragmatism. A big part of our problem I think is we want to get stuff for free. I don't mean welfare I mean everything.
I used to play a game with my calculator based on how many people make how much money and how high a tax would need to be to balance a budget or pay off debt. I personally have lately become much more secure, I got very lucky with investing, and yet I pay little in taxes, and I started thinking about the millions and millions who make much more than I do.
Now with AI assisting I try different scenarios of things like VAT, or taxing capital gains, inheritance, etc. My one self imposed rule is to never increase or decrease spending. It's a fun game and I encourage anyone to try it, with AI you don't need to get the statistics for yourself.
Interest payments are equal to defence spending, imagine what could be done.
I think you have captured the dominant fingerprint of our current political system pretty well. Where I may be a little more constitutionally optimistic is that, every once in a while, I see people from opposite sides actually working together to solve a real problem. They may only be pockets, and they often aren’t working on the big, politically exciting issues that get all the attention. But they exist, and I wish we had a much better way of seeing them.
The one I remember recently was Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Moreno working together on Social Security. You could hardly pick two senators who are further apart politically, and yet they found a problem they thought they could work on together. When I saw that, my reaction was simply: good. More of this.
I wish somebody kept a running inventory of these examples—not just bills that happen to have bipartisan sponsors, but actual instances where people from opposite sides are working together to solve a real problem.
Maybe there wouldn’t be very many. That itself would tell us something. But I would like to know where they are, what they are working on, and what allowed them to work together.
And I think making them more visible matters. It would give the rest of us something concrete to support. We could write our representatives and senators and say, essentially, this is the behavior we want more of.
None of that changes the larger cycle you describe here. That may very well be the dominant fingerprint of the political system right now. But if there are pockets within the system producing a different kind of behavior, I don’t want to overlook them. I want to understand what allows them to happen and whether there is any way to strengthen them.
Even if they start with the less exciting problems, they show us that people on opposite sides can still work together to get something done. And right now, I think we need to see more of that.
Extremely well said. I live in Northern Virginia and went to visit my senator's office (Warner) concerning a bill and met with his young staffers. They say they meet often with their counterparts "across the aisle" and that members of the two parties often work together but don't want these collaborations advertised too much... often to avoid riling up their partisan constituents...
Warren and Sanders have worked a couple of times on economic issues with senators of the new right, Josh Hawley, J D Vance, etc. Some problems are big enough to require real solving.
The current political moment calls for radical pragmatism and honesty above all else. This isn't coming from either the "center" (in neither its corporate, establishment or identitarian varieties) or the far left, or progressive or establishment liberals.
The blind spots, intellectual dishonesty, opportunism and lack of originality are rampant in politics and our infotainment society.
Voters and the media share responsibility too due to their media consumption/production habits creating a vicious cycle of ignorance combined with polarization.
"We the People" do not exist. We won't have effective government until we have government that will acknowledge that we don't all have the same ambitions, goals and beliefs. Nor should we.
Excellent piece. The distinction between government’s capacity to shape complex economic outcomes and its inability to direct them gets at something fundamental about contemporary democratic politics. Politicians are rewarded for promising a degree of control that governments simply do not possess, and the inevitable disappointment then feeds the next cycle of blame and promises. This is a much deeper problem than ordinary political cynicism: democratic competition itself makes honesty about the limits of government extraordinarily difficult. A genuinely important argument.
The problem is that political competition increasingly selects for the ability to win control of government rather than the ability to govern effectively.
The two parties exist for only one reason… to win elections.
There is a reason parties aren’t mentioned in the Constitution. It was by design as our Founders knew they would divide us and place the people’s power in the hands of a few party leaders.
How did we allow this to happen… letting a couple of political clubs gain so much power?
The two parties are brands, like Ford and Chevy. Fords and Chevys are essentially the same car, but you will never hear Ford or Chevy acknowledge that.
This is an essentially accurate article about the federal government. Actual problem-solving seems to occur at the state and local level. One reason is that states cannot print endless amounts of money. This tethers them, somewhat, to reality. The federal government has been tasked to do way too much. Disappointment is the inevitable result.
The federal government’s number one job is to defend the country which today takes up 13% of the budget. Today payments on debt exceed defense spending. I can’t remember in the Constitution where it said we had to maintain entitlements and welfare that today take up almost 65% of the budget. Halperin is wrong about Trump - he has tried to get a handle on many issues which the Democrats fight tooth and nail; he has reduced the federal bureaucracy by about 13%, the regulations have been massively cut and he’s done everything he can to increase access to all sorts of energy. And that’s just the short list
I would say that the current nature of governments in democracies does a bit more. For me, the preamble does imply key duties: "... in Order to form a more perfect Union (coordinate interstate commerce for example), establish Justice (federal courts) insure domestic Tranquility (police and law enforcement), provide for the common defence (military), promote the general Welfare (the basics of today's social security and Medicare, and so on) secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity (various programs that ensure free elections, and protect personal liberties balanced with social responsibilities)
I also believe the constitution and bill of rights covers more than military. Interstate commerce is obviously a big one in addition to what you list.
Attempts to apply expert judgement to reductions in spending were shouted down. This is because every line item has some constituency for whom the funds are do or die.
At some point a universal spending cut - every expenditure, every line item - will need to take a haircut. This will happen in either an orderly way or when Treasury bonds can no longer be sold to the public or foreign borrowers, requiring the Fed to buy them all. Hello Argentina.
Not every state. Illinois simply promises pensions to public employees then fails to fund them adequately. That is effectively printing money or simply embezzling it. The outcome is basically the same. The state's Constitution mandates that pensions pay full benefits so there's no obvious way out. The legislators voting the deals will be long gone when the debt bomb goes off. And pensioners annoyingly are living longer and spending more on health care to do so, making the problem worse. I'd be wary about buying any Illinois bonds unless they are collateralized by tangible assets.
And observe the steady outflow of folks from the state...drip by drip....even Oprah!
Sounds like a serious problem. Depressing. Thanks for the information.
You always hit the nail right on the head. Just upgraded, keep up the good work.
Very kind! Many thanks, Mitchell. Cheers
Very well said, John. It’s human to want to belong, and to want to have a meaningful life. Political parties exploit these attributes to attack each other. The internet amplifies all this. Every American knows we’ve accumulated $40T in debt, that Medicare and Social Security are careening towards insolvency, that our education system is failing many people. Make your own list. It doesn’t matter. Politicians pretend none of this exists or change the subject.
Yet we the voters keep falling for this finger pointing. You say you can’t do anything and that the other side is worse? Yes you can. Register as an independent. Make them earn your vote. If independents become > 50% of the electorate, both parties will realize they have to change. Independents are already in the low 40%+ area, much larger than either party. It’s not that far. Send a message!
Great advice! Cheers
I fear that the actual problem rests with us, the electorate. Any candidate or party who would suggest real solutions to the real problems that we face would be laughed at, ignored, and/or vilified for having the temerity to suggest that real solutions that involve sacrifice might actually be necessary.
We are ultimately responsible. And if we allow ourselves to be manipulated cycle after cycle, that’s really on us.
What journalist has pressed a Democrat for specifics? For example, how are you going to make housing affordable?
Rinse. Repeat. Plenty of blame should be dumped on the media. Co-conspirators pushing partisan agendas.
I hope there eventually comes a way to solve many of our issues, a modern pragmatism. A big part of our problem I think is we want to get stuff for free. I don't mean welfare I mean everything.
I used to play a game with my calculator based on how many people make how much money and how high a tax would need to be to balance a budget or pay off debt. I personally have lately become much more secure, I got very lucky with investing, and yet I pay little in taxes, and I started thinking about the millions and millions who make much more than I do.
Now with AI assisting I try different scenarios of things like VAT, or taxing capital gains, inheritance, etc. My one self imposed rule is to never increase or decrease spending. It's a fun game and I encourage anyone to try it, with AI you don't need to get the statistics for yourself.
Interest payments are equal to defence spending, imagine what could be done.
Well said. I have minimal hopes with each new administration, and they usually don’t even those.
I think you have captured the dominant fingerprint of our current political system pretty well. Where I may be a little more constitutionally optimistic is that, every once in a while, I see people from opposite sides actually working together to solve a real problem. They may only be pockets, and they often aren’t working on the big, politically exciting issues that get all the attention. But they exist, and I wish we had a much better way of seeing them.
The one I remember recently was Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Moreno working together on Social Security. You could hardly pick two senators who are further apart politically, and yet they found a problem they thought they could work on together. When I saw that, my reaction was simply: good. More of this.
I wish somebody kept a running inventory of these examples—not just bills that happen to have bipartisan sponsors, but actual instances where people from opposite sides are working together to solve a real problem.
Maybe there wouldn’t be very many. That itself would tell us something. But I would like to know where they are, what they are working on, and what allowed them to work together.
And I think making them more visible matters. It would give the rest of us something concrete to support. We could write our representatives and senators and say, essentially, this is the behavior we want more of.
None of that changes the larger cycle you describe here. That may very well be the dominant fingerprint of the political system right now. But if there are pockets within the system producing a different kind of behavior, I don’t want to overlook them. I want to understand what allows them to happen and whether there is any way to strengthen them.
Even if they start with the less exciting problems, they show us that people on opposite sides can still work together to get something done. And right now, I think we need to see more of that.
Extremely well said. I live in Northern Virginia and went to visit my senator's office (Warner) concerning a bill and met with his young staffers. They say they meet often with their counterparts "across the aisle" and that members of the two parties often work together but don't want these collaborations advertised too much... often to avoid riling up their partisan constituents...
Warren and Sanders have worked a couple of times on economic issues with senators of the new right, Josh Hawley, J D Vance, etc. Some problems are big enough to require real solving.
The current political moment calls for radical pragmatism and honesty above all else. This isn't coming from either the "center" (in neither its corporate, establishment or identitarian varieties) or the far left, or progressive or establishment liberals.
The blind spots, intellectual dishonesty, opportunism and lack of originality are rampant in politics and our infotainment society.
Voters and the media share responsibility too due to their media consumption/production habits creating a vicious cycle of ignorance combined with polarization.
This was an excellent article. We need a third strong party that is truly a “we the people party”.
"We the People" do not exist. We won't have effective government until we have government that will acknowledge that we don't all have the same ambitions, goals and beliefs. Nor should we.
Excellent piece. The distinction between government’s capacity to shape complex economic outcomes and its inability to direct them gets at something fundamental about contemporary democratic politics. Politicians are rewarded for promising a degree of control that governments simply do not possess, and the inevitable disappointment then feeds the next cycle of blame and promises. This is a much deeper problem than ordinary political cynicism: democratic competition itself makes honesty about the limits of government extraordinarily difficult. A genuinely important argument.
The problem is that political competition increasingly selects for the ability to win control of government rather than the ability to govern effectively.
So long as party loyalty trumps country loyalty we can expect only more of the same. Is a third party the solution??
A grand slam piece. It’s been a long time since I’ve had so many great quotes to excerpt on Notes. Well done.
The two parties exist for only one reason… to win elections.
There is a reason parties aren’t mentioned in the Constitution. It was by design as our Founders knew they would divide us and place the people’s power in the hands of a few party leaders.
How did we allow this to happen… letting a couple of political clubs gain so much power?
The two parties are brands, like Ford and Chevy. Fords and Chevys are essentially the same car, but you will never hear Ford or Chevy acknowledge that.