Ezra Klein, as usual, has some smart thoughts about what fiscal responsibility really means–hint: it isn’t about this year or next year’s deficit, it’s about long term structural responsibility.
Meanwhile, Karl Rove, as usual, has some utterly predictable and utterly political thoughts about the same topic in the Wall Street Journal. He begins with an insight stunning in its clarity and profundity:
Team Obama is about to learn that it’s easier to campaign than to govern.
He then goes on to say that Obama opposed stimulus last February…but supports it now. Wonder what happened in between. He slags Obama’s tax cuts for the working poor. (Imagine that.) He says that David Axelrod’s focus groups convinced him to call the actual spending part of the stimulus “investment.” (Everybody has known about that wordplay since Clinton’s focus groups discovered it 1992; if Axelrod spent money to find out, he’s a lot stupider than the David Axelrod who helped Obama win the election). There is something hilarious about Karl Rove coming out against tax cuts and focus groups. Rove also expresses great skepticism about creating green energy jobs–or any kind of government stimulus spending. Which is also hilarious: Bush tried his own version of government stimulus: massive tax cuts for the wealthy and ever more massive loopholes for corporations. We know how that worked…but hey, Rove is only trying to be responsible, fiscally responsible. It is, yet again, an example of Rove’s political philosophy: tactics uber alles, don’t worry about the long-term, don’t worry about the country falling behind Asia and much of Europe when it comes to smart, high-tech infrastructure–govern to win, and forget the high-minded crap.
Now, Obama is going to have to be careful with the stimulus package. The more that goes to quick and dirty projects the less effective it will be in the long term; the more it goes to long-term efficiency, to creating a new green economy and a more rational, universal health insurance system, the better. I’ll put my money on Ezra’s definition, that the best way to achieve fiscal responsibility is to build the systems–health care, green energy, broadband, GPS-based air traffic control etc etc–that will provide long-term efficiencies and economies. The Bush-Rove way of knowledge has run its course, and it was not only fiscally irresponsible, it was bad politics and even worse policy.