An Incredibly Shocking Moment Of Self-Discovery

Apparently, and I know this will come as a shock to many of you, I am not a liberal…

Kevin Drum and Duncan “Atrios” Black have invented a little quiz to determine if you’re a liberal or not based on your views of certain policy issues. Already Glenn Reynolds, Megan McArdle, Daniel Drezner, and Prof. Bainbridge have all taken the test, so I figure this D-list blogger can have delusions of grandeur and take a swing at it too:

1. Repeal the estate tax repeal:

   Nope. The estate tax always struck me as a truly unnecessary tax. The argument has always been that only the über-rich get hit with this tax – if that were true, how many of the über-rich die in a given year and have their estates subject to taxation. The reality of the fact is that a member of America’s landed gentry can escape the estate tax in a large part so long as they have a decently intelligent financial planner. Either the estate tax doesn’t work, or it’s hitting people who aren’t part of that über-rich classification. If the goal of such a tax is to make incomes more equitable, then why has income inequality gone up despite its presence.

   I say, you can tax when someone’s alive, but once they’re dead, that should be beyond the reach of the tax-man. It gets taxed as income to those who receive it, and that’s good enough for me.

2. Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI.

   Absolutely not. 70% of those in low-wage jobs are teenagers, not the “working poor”. Such a bill could be just as easily titled “The Buy Billy Bastardteen a New XBox 360 Act of 2006”. If one is really concerned about the status of the working poor, getting people job training to get better jobs and increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) would be far better ways of doing that.

   Not only would such a law not have the intended effect, it would make things worse for the working poor by making the supply of jobs that much tighter. The incomparable Megan McArdle did a great job of tearing that myth to shreds. It’s well-intentioned policies that are so poorly thought out and ultimately self-destructive like this which help explain why I’m not a liberal.

3. Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one).

   No, no, no, no, no, no, no. As Drezner quips, “Do free ponies come with this one?”

   Government-run healthcare doesn’t work. The problem with our current system is do to the fact that there’s an essential disconnect between producers and consumers which causes prices to rise at the same time quality takes a nose dive. It’s a testiment to the compassion and care of our medical establishment that the fall in quality has been limited, but that drives prices up even more.

   Third-party health care, be it the government who pays, or an HMO, just doesn’t work. In fact, third-party anything is a bad idea, because it shields the true costs from the people who get the treatment. If we opened the market so that this disconnect was ended, you’d see costs return to a more reasonable level and people would be empowered to make better medical choices. Furthermore, we’d have enough money saved that we could easily provide quality health care to those who truly need it.

   Universal health care is a profoundly stupid idea, and a plan that’s barely working in Europe where populations are smaller and less diverse would be absolutely disastrous here. Again, abso-freakin’-lutely not on that one.

4. Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation.

   No again. The market is already punishing those dumb enough to have bought massive land yachts as it is. Uncle Sam just tends to distort prices for the rest of us. And what “other environment-based regulation”? That’s a potential poison pill I’m just not going to swallow. Already too much damage has been done in the name of “the environment” that does nothing to ameliorate the problems. So many of our problems can be solved with more transparency and not regulation. Let the markets do their job, if some company is dumping toxic waste in the river, that’s already illegal, and the PR disaster of having that on 60 Minutes is more destructive than another handful of asinine regulations.

5. Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there’s probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise.

   No on all of these. I’m iffy on abstinence-only education, but there’s absolutely no evidence that teenagers who have unprotected sex do so because they don’t know what a rubber is. An increase in the level of education on and supply of contraceptives won’t prevent teens from doing dumb things like having unprotected sex. It’s a trite cliche, but most teens really do think they’re indestructible and have the judgement of a Kennedy at all-you-can-drink whisky buffet. Spending more money on that won’t solve the issue.

   As for abortion, I can’t personally support the taking of what I see as innocent life. However, this is an issue for the states, and each state should be allowed to regulate it as they see fit. Roe v. Wade was simply bad law, and should be struck down.

   I do support full and easy access to contraceptives, which we do have right now, so there’s no need for the state to butt their noses into this. If a pharmacist has a moral objection to dispensing the morning after pill, that’s their right. Their employer also has the right to fire them for refusing to do so. Again, government doesn’t need to fix what isn’t broken.

6. Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code.

   And again, we get a demonstration of why being a modern “liberal” (as opposed to a classical liberal) is an intellectually incoherent exercise. You can’t do both – either the tax code is simpler and less “progressive” or it’s more complex and more progressive. On that question, I lean towards the simpler end. Let’s make the tax code completely flat except for a few poverty-fighting programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, so that your 1040 can fit on a postcard. The complexity of the tax code in this country is a national shame. As it is, the working poor and others pay a negative effective rate of taxation through the EITC, so the arguments that our tax code isn’t fair to the poor is a load of bull.

7. Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination.

   NO. Religious groups do more to help people than secular ones, and it’s almost always been that way. As Glenn Reynolds observes, all one has to do is look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The government has no right to discriminate against groups who are religiously affiliated. This smacks of anti-religious bigotry to me, pure and simple. There’s another reason why I am not a “liberal”.

8. Reduce corporate giveaways.

   I’ll give them that one. That includes Amtrack, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Postal Service. Let them sink or swim on their own, and have everyone compete for the right to serve those niches – and no bail-outs if you’re unsuccessful.

9. Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan.

   I’m with Drezner on this one: “Hell, no. Just kill the motherf#$er.” In fact, I’d go a step further and say “I say we nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.“

10. Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.

    Again, here is why being a liberal practically requires a fundamental unwillingness to learn or understand the principles of basic economics. Megan McArdle sets him straight:

    Mr Black should know better. Most of the pension shortfalls were in fact caused by ERISA (America’s pension regulations), which forced companies to disburse “excess” gains in the name of preventing companies from accumulating slush funds. Mr Black may not be aware that unions are in the same boat–and that if he pushed his desired regulations through, it would gut many of the unions who have gigantic holes in their pension plans, makign their labour even more unaffordable.

    Nor would putting the pension plans first in line do much–secured assets aren’t available to the pensions, and in most of the bankruptcies we’re really worried about, the non-secured assets aren’t worth much, because the whole industry’s in big trouble.

    Just think about it: how in hell would a corporation put enough money aside to “fully fund” their pension plans when people are living longer (thanks to expensive pharmaceuticals and medical treatments) when the population as a whole was aging. How would a company pay both a vastly inflated minimum wage while also having to pay the entire meal ticket for all their former workers at the same time. Again, did Drum and Black actually think through the consequences of these arguments, or is one of the requirements of being a liberal blissful ignorance of the basics of economics?

11. Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards “more decriminalization” of drugs, though the details complicated there too.

    Yes on the first, no on the second.

    I’m all for leaving states alone, but the fact is that drugs such as marijuana and other narcotics do have a social cost. I’m fine for making possession a minor charge, and having more sane drug laws. I’m not OK with the widespread usage of drugs. Alcohol is bad enough – adding to our troubles doesn’t make much sense to me.

12. Paper ballots.

    Absolutely. (Then again, I always get a receipt when I use an ATM or fill up with gas, so perhaps I’m a bit more paranoid than others.)

13. Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies.

    I suspect what they mean by this is making the government pay for daycare – in which case the answer would be no. Providing tax credits to daycare providers and also loosening laws that prevent daycare providers from operating would be good ideas. Again, in a market with extremely low unemployment, there shouldn’t be any problem in companies offering daycare as a perk of employment – and if they don’t, they’ll have a tough time attracting workers.

14. Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.

    How about getting rid of Social Security and replacing it with a system that works? I figure any amount of money I put into FICA taxes will never be seen again, so I’d really not rather see the cap raised – not that the cap even remotely effects me.

15. Marriage rights for all, which includes “gay marriage” and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.

    I believe that the institution of marriage is between a man and a women. Period. That being said, I have no problems with “civil unions”, “joinings”, “partnerships” or whatever you want to call them. If two guys want to hook up under some legal arrangement that’s a marriage in all but name, I’m not going to raise a big stink about it. That seems to me to be a fair compromise on the issue.

    As for spouses of citizens, that’s a qualified yes. I’m not sure what the impact of such a policy would be, even though I agree with it in theory. We need to revalue the concept of citizenship in this country, and I’d prefer we not cut corners in doing so. There might be some middle ground in providing for extended citizenship-track visas for foreign spouses of citizens that could work as well.

    I’m actually more worried about those who use sham “marriages” in order to foster the trafficking of human slaves, especially sex slaves. I have a feeling that may be more prevalent than we’d like to think.

16. Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration.

    The Democrats aren’t clean of this one either, but I provisionally agree anyway.

    In general, we need better regulation of lenders, not necessarily more regulation. Terms and conditions should be made clear in consumer-readible language. Student loan lenders should not be allowed to send credit offers that look like government documents. (I hate those!) All credit-card companies should respect consumer opt-out requests. In my experience, a certain company that sounds like chaise does not, and I’m sick to death of having to shred pounds of wasted paper because someone wants to give me yet another damn credit card.

    And states should make payday lenders abide by a strict code of ethics including random spot-checks by state officials. Those places are incredibly harmful to the poor, and exist by feeding off them. However, that’s a state, not a federal issue, and a digression at that.

So, it doesn’t look like I’m much of a liberal. I know that must come as an incredible shock to most people who read this site. However, what this does demonstrate is that most “liberal” policy provisions just aren’t all that well thought out. How are we going to continually raise the minimum wage by indexing it to the CPI while forcing companies to fund massive increases in pension costs caused by an aging workforce? What businesses, large, medium, or small would be able to shoulder such a burden without laying off a massive number of people. Just look at the disaster of GM’s pension plan – imagine if legislative fiat forced everyone into such an unsustainable system.

I will give Drum and Black credit for trying to advance a set of arguments rather than just calling people names – and some of the arguments presented here are things which both sides can agree upon. However, public policy is a difficult beast to understand. Policies, especially the more utopian ones, almost always have negative side effects, and the more utopian the policy, the worse the side effects will be. (In fact, that’s Jay’s First Law of Public Policy.) One of my single biggest critiques of liberalism is that it tries to play the social do-gooder without ever really trying to understand the implication those policies would have. As intriguing and worthwhile these questions are as a thought experiment, that lack of holistic thinking shows up in spades here – which is why I’m not a liberal in the sense that Drum and Black are.