The highly nonpartisan budget maven Stanley Collender points out that there are consequences to the Bush administration's habit of lying about everything, all the time.
Budget Battles (02/24/2004): The most important thing any person or organization dealing with the federal budget has to offer is credibility. Lose that, and your ability to promote what you are trying to do or criticize what your opponents are saying quickly, and understandably, goes by the wayside. Unfortunately, the White House's steady series of missteps has made it hard for the administration to claim the credibility it will need to get through the rest of this year's budget debate. At almost the precise point when it has to have the trust of Capitol Hill, the media and the public, the administration is unable to get the numbers right, forcing even its staunchest supporters to question its programs and promises.
The most recent example is also one of the worst. Less than two weeks after the administration released 2004's Economic Report of the President and trumpeted its estimate that 2.6 million new jobs would be created this year, the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of Commerce, the White House press office and finally President Bush himself all very publicly walked away from that number.... This extremely rapid (indeed, almost unprecedented) backing off from an important projection in an official report is only the latest in what has become a steady series of embarrassing gaffes from the White House's budget and economic team.
Last July, the administration said in its midsession review of the budget that the 2003 deficit would be $455 billion. When the fiscal year ended only 10 weeks later, the actual deficit turned out to be a whopping $80 billion less. When the president's FY 2005 budget (PDF) was released two weeks ago, it became clear that the administration had increased the projected cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill by an incredible $134 billion. The increase was even more astounding because it came only eight weeks after the White House used the original $400 billion estimate to convince reticent conservatives to support the plan. The White House almost certainly had to know at the time the bill was being considered that the higher cost was at least a strong possibility....
The president's promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of 2009 is now being treated with growing skepticism by a larger and more bipartisan group of senators and representatives. Rather than take the administration's word for it, lawmakers are increasingly focused on the fact that the Bush budget actually increases the deficit compared to the baseline; that much of the predicted improvement is the result of a growing Social Security surplus; and that a good part of the rest of the improvement occurs because of unspecified, unrealistic spending cuts.... [T]he president is likely to have reduced authority when it comes to taxing and spending decisions, and little or nothing will be accomplished in the fiscal 2005 budget debate.
I would point out that the national security team's record is, in some respects, even worse. And the level of truthfulness in science policy is unspeakable.
Posted by DeLong at February 24, 2004 01:39 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this posthttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/business/businessspecial/24ANDR.html
Soaring Health Care Costs Leave Little Companies in a Bind
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
LIKE thousands of other business owners around the country, Dwight Messinger got the bad news last fall. As the owner of Power Curbers Inc., a manufacturer of paving equipment in Salisbury, N.C., Mr. Messinger had already seen his company's health insurance premiums jump 25 percent in 2003 while benefits were trimmed. His own wife had been denied reimbursement for a precautionary colonoscopy.
Now, shopping desperately for lower prices, Mr. Messinger learned that premiums for his 94 employees would rise another 19 percent this year — to $749 a month from $634 a month last year.
Unable to raise prices on his products, Mr. Messinger is doing what thousands of other business owners are doing: asking employees to pay more, accept less, or both. This year, workers will have to pay a bigger share of the premiums for family health coverage. Down the road, he worries about cutting costs by eliminating coverage for routine doctors' visits.
Posted by: anne on February 24, 2004 01:46 PMAre you serious? Lying matters?
Posted by: SW on February 24, 2004 01:50 PMThe backing away from predictions is indeed unprecedented. The trumpeting of out of date numbers when the administration should have known they were out of date is also unprecedented.
Posted by: bakho on February 24, 2004 02:02 PMMy neighbor insists that even a half-*ssed Democratic campaign will result in a Dem landslide in November.
Sigh...'Tis a consumation Devoutly to be wish'd.
D
Posted by: Dano on February 24, 2004 02:05 PMI think it is being unwarrantedly hopeful to believe "there are consequences to the Bush administration's habit of lying about everything, all the time."
Idealogues are not disconcerted by errors of fact or truthfulness, since for them, idealogy will always trump reality. Perhaps a few swing voters will be persuaded, but for this to happen, the lies need to be publicised by the mass media, not just in the blogosphere. I certainly don't see this happening in my local newspapers or TV coverage. Sample headline from the Denver Post: "Democrats criticise President Bush's service record". Even if you penetrated past that headline, there was no attempt at substantive investigation of the issue.
Posted by: Douglas on February 24, 2004 02:18 PMEveryone knows:
(Credibility) deficits don't matter
Here's a little (too much) thin-film solid state physics. Defects, in the crystal lattice are much more harmful when the film is in tension rather than when the film is in compression.
Similarly character defects in political leaders are more harmful when their coalition is in tension. There is tension in the republican coalition. And as Martha would say..."That's a good thing"
Posted by: SW on February 24, 2004 02:41 PMNo, Dear Mr. Mailtand,
Brad is, unfortunately, correct.
No amount of vitriol or invective on your part can change the sad fact that truth and good governance are the least of this (mal)Administration's concerns.
One of the most important things that the Clinton economic team did was to reestablish confidence in OMB after the Reagan/Stockman/Bush era of wishful forecasting. Bush II has reestablished the Reagan/Stockman/Bush era of wishful forecasting.
Posted by: Eli Rabett on February 24, 2004 05:38 PMTo answer your question."...Why are we ruled by such liars",the reason is given by Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News cited by Kevin Phillips in his latest book. Phillips writes that "one of the apparent guiding principles of Bush governance as per Karl Rove is that "perception is reality." Rove is a great reader of Machiavelli who is quoted as writing "The great majority of mankind is satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities."
Phillips goes on to remind us that Machiavelli regarded deception and disguise as essential to rulers. He advised that:
"a prince must take great care that nothing goes out of his mouth which is not full of the above-named five qualities, and, to see and hear him, he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity and religion. However, because everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, a ruler can ignore the mob and devote himself to the interests of the ruling class, gulling the inert majority who constitute the ruled."
Phillps goes on to remind us that when John Diulio resigned he "... deplored the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis, in which everything-and I mean everything-[is]being run by the political arm... There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus."
Posted by: RuthWA on February 24, 2004 06:49 PMSo I note that Brad DeLong did not leap in to point out that Stanley Collender wrote that:
> The most recent example is also one of the worst. Less than
> two weeks after the administration released 2004's Economic
> Report of the President and trumpeted its estimate that 2.6
> million new jobs would be created this year,
...when the actual number was 3.8 million jobs. Does this mean that DeLong is being less shrill and partisan this week? :-)
More seriously, I thought the huge and gaping you-could-drive-an-M1-tank-through-it hole in the budget is the lack of any funds in it for the continued occupation of Iraq or other war-on-terror program related activities. Why has this gotten no press?
Also, to what extent does the budget revenue forecast actually depend on the over-optimistic employment forecast? To any degree that matters in a major way? Just curious...
Posted by: Jonathan King on February 24, 2004 07:09 PMConsequences? Consequences are for little people.
Posted by: Charles on February 24, 2004 11:15 PMCharles, if Bush's life motto could be summed up in one sentence, that'd be it.
Posted by: Barry on February 25, 2004 04:52 AMAdeste Fideles - Be present, faithful ones
Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat - It's not the heat, it's the humidity
Non sibi sed suis - Not for one's self but for one's people
Sona si latine loqueris - Honk if you speak Latin
Hinc illae lacrimae - Hence these tears. (Terence)