The dumbest (and most harmful) analogy in politics
April 18, 2012 6 Comments
Well, maybe not the dumbest, but its gotta be up there. Yglesias today nicely explains why the analogy of the government budget to a household budget is simply non-sensical. And earlier today I listened to the New Yorker’s politics podcast in which Ryan Lizza and James Suriowiecki pointed out just how politically stupid it was for Obama to publicly buy into this analogy. Anyway, here’s Yglesias:
Back to the federal budget. When the US government borrows money and builds an aircraft carrier, it hasn’t just taken on debt it’s acquired an aircraft carrier. And when the US government borrows money and pays a teacher to teach a kid to read, American society gains a literate citizen.
So there are two relevant questions to ask yourself about any kind of expenditure, neither of which is about debt. One is how valuable is a given purchase (of a car or an aircraft carrier or a company) and the second is what’s the most affordable way to raise the funds. Under ordinary circumstances, it makes a lot of sense for the government to finance its expenditures through taxes. But under the unusual conditions of a depressed economy and negative real interest rates on government debt, it’s much more reasonable to finance purchases through borrowing. A separate issue is what kinds of things it makes sense to purchase. Obviously one important philosophical difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama is that Obama thinks lots of things the federal government buys (health care and food for the needy, schools, transportation infrastructure, public health and safety regulators) are valuable whereas Romney thinks that only its military purchases and health care for the currently elderly are valuable.
If a household needs more revenue one of its members can at least try and get more work. The government clearly needs more revenue yet one politically party is theologically opposed to government doing the one thing it can most easily do to raise revenue– raise taxes. If we’re going to go with the household analogy it’s like the troglodyte husband saying the wife cannot work no matter what and then complaining when there’s not money for the new HD Television.
About Steve Greene
Your argument is based uponi the disproven reduction to the ridiculous. The government keeps growing unnecessarily. It literally doubles in size about every 8 years with a base line budget that adds 10% a year. We are currently borrowing 40% of our federal budget, this is clearly out of control
It’s not reductio ad absurdum, but I think the “husband saying the wife cannot work” isn’t the right analogy.
First, it’s not reduction to the ridiculous, because Steve is not reducing anything. He’s arguing against the Republicans’ actual policy, not an extreme version. Their position is ridiculous as is.
I agree that the household analogy fails in almost every way. But if you use it, my take is that adding a salary from the wife is more like increasing the GDP; there’s just more money available. Both sides would rather do that. Taxing is more like budgeting (if you reallllly stretch it).
So it’s more like the husband putting his foot down on the family budget — right after he bought the big-screen. Then he says we can’t buy food this week because he’s being fiscally responsible.
But, it’s a horrible analogy, anyway. Better is something like a credit union or other cooperative. You have a mandate to provide a base level of services, you don’t need to produce a profit, you don’t want to waste money, but you also want to collect enough to remain sustainable. And you expand prudently with an eye on return on investment.
Yglesias makes the valuable point, however, that, in the case of government, the return on investment often is difficult to quantify, even if we all agree we want outcomes like “educated citizens.”
Well then compare it to state governments with many operating on a mandated balanced budget. It is not good politics to continue reckless spending and then taxing more or worse yet, like we are doing now by borrowing 40% of our federal budget. This is unsustainable
Agreed. I’ll point out that no one is arguing for reckless spending and taxing (which, of course, is in the eye of the beholder).
But, like you, I’m uncomfortable with the overall level of debt and the ease with which department budgets become intractable once they’re created. (It’s human nature to never give back what you’re given, even if it’s no longer a justifiable need.)
I think a mandated balanced budget goes a bit far, in that it reduces flexibility — we’ve seen state governments suffer because of that. (And, of course, state governments can’t print their own money.) But it’s a better solution than the draconian Norquist “no new taxes, ever, no matter what” approach.
Also, thinking about it, I retract my analogy. The “taxing is like budgeting” thing still isn’t a good comparison. The whole household metaphor just doesn’t work.
I don’t think the analogy is really a problem.
The problem with this household is the family is dysfunctional and one of the family members is a spendthrift, the other has schizophrenia (they see and hear things that aren’t really there). Plus the mother shoplifts and the father beats the mother.
Also, when it comes time to make a budget everyone gets to add stuff to the list of things to buy, including some hundred odd children. And children tend to add silly things, like twenty-five pounds of candy, a bridge to nowhere, tax breaks for the massively wealthy and tax breaks for oil companies that are making record profits.
Meanwhile, they are going out to dinner every night. Some are saying they shouldn’t, but they are being ignored.
They are also supporting the grandparents, both sets. One set had a health care emergency and badly need support to keep them from losing the house and living on the street, but the other set is rich and doesn’t need any support, or needs greatly reduced support, but they still get full support, even though the rest of the family can’t afford it. All the rest of the family is terrified of all the grand parents and no-one wants to suggest cuts or changes to their support, even to the rich ones.
The family members that are rich simply refuse to help out anyone else in the family at all. They got theirs, and they believe that everyone else has to get their own as well. But they too keep taking money from the families coffers.
Half the family goes into tantrums when the other half of the family suggests that they simply increase the money that goes into the budget to help pay off the debts they already owe.
“When I was on food stamps, the government never helped me!” (quote from semi famous now well off stupid person)
Debt isn’t a problem when managed properly. Otherwise, almost no one would own a house. The US would never have been able to build the interstate system. Debt is only a problem when you let it get out of hand, weather you are a household, or a government.
Oh, and there are guns all over the house and the children keep shooting each other. Even though the kids are dying like flies, some of the adults refuse to lock up their firearms.
OK, when you put it like that, the analogy is perfect!