A New Deal for the New Economy

Hanging around with Libertarians on the Internet (It's fun, but remember to wash your hands), I am often challenged to reassess my party affiliation. Yup, the GOP has some positions which are not friendly to liberty and a poor track record of success on its good positions.

Reading Reason Magazine, or Ann Althouse, or Megan McArdle, I encounter serious, sane, sentient people who love liberty and look first to the Democratic Party for candidates to pursue it. One tries to be open minded and all -- BUT

But then I watch the Democratic debates, or read something like this. Comprehensive "Fisking" is not my blogging style, but I am tempted to try it here. I think I disagree with every sentence in Rep Rahm Emmanuel's "A New Deal for the New Economy." To be fair, Congressman, I didn't think so highly of the Old New Deal.

He starts with Nafta, the thesis being that the trade deal is not the cause of anxiety so much as the lack of a social contract. Even still, he is not willing to defend Nafta, with which he was closely involved.

In 1993, I was President Clinton's point man in ratifying Nafta. And, I am the first to admit, the fact that our party is still debating this trade agreement 15 years later is proof it hasn't lived up to its hopes. It is true that if we were to negotiate Nafta today, we'd insist on tough labor and environmental standards that never mattered to negotiators in the first Bush administration, who hammered the agreement together before Bill Clinton took office.

Evil, wicked, Republican pact it was -- I always thought so too.

But the problem is not Nafta, the problem is that we are not Sweden. The way to make an anxious middle class feel better is to:

• Add another year of compulsory education (the first twelve rock!)


• Expand Schip for all kids (why shouldn't I take care of Warren Buffet's grandchildren?) and those between 55 and 64 years of age.


• "[C]reate a new institute -- funded at the same level as the National Institutes of Health -- that will support critical research into energy technologies for the future." Millions of green collar jobs, energy independence, yadda. (Because government develops and selects technology so much better than the private sector -- look at Ethanol!)


• Finally [at last!] Universal Savings Plans,"Like 401(k) plans, these accounts would supplement, not supplant, Social Security. Employers and employees would contribute 1% of their paychecks on a tax-deductible basis, and workers could make additional contributions if they chose."

He learned at the foot of the master, only a Clinton aid could use the word "contribute" in the sense of a forced, coercive mandate.

Rep. Emmanuel is not a crazed lefty or ideological outlier. He's a party centrist in the mold of President Clinton. This is their best plan. Greater regulation of trade pacts abroad and a huge increase in the size, scope and cost of government at home.

Wonder if they still have the green St. Pat's Pachyderms for sale at gop.com...

Politics Posted by jk at March 19, 2008 11:50 AM