President Obama Says “Go Blue”!
May 2nd, 2010 . by economistmom…and a few other things. Wow! President Obama gave the U of Michigan commencement address this year. And apparently, according to President Obama’s speech, President Kennedy had given the U of M commencement address 50 years ago. Just about halfway in between, the year I graduated from Michigan (1983), I wasn’t so lucky; I got to hear from Lee Iacocca–the chairman of Chrysler.
Besides “Go Blue” the President had a lot to say about the critical role of government in our society. (Why, we should hope that the government can “take over” more of our country when the private sector doesn’t seem to be doing so well — just think of the two companies most prominent in recent/current news: Goldman Sachs and BP.)
…what troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad. One of my favorite signs during the health care debate was somebody who said, “Keep Your Government Hands Out Of My Medicare” — (laughter) — which is essentially saying “Keep Government Out Of My Government-Run Health Care Plan.” (Laughter.)
When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us. We, the people — (applause.) We, the people, hold in our hands the power to choose our leaders and change our laws, and shape our own destiny.
Government is the police officers who are protecting our communities, and the servicemen and women who are defending us abroad. (Applause.) Government is the roads you drove in on and the speed limits that kept you safe. Government is what ensures that mines adhere to safety standards and that oil spills are cleaned up by the companies that caused them. (Applause.) Government is this extraordinary public university -– a place that’s doing lifesaving research, and catalyzing economic growth, and graduating students who will change the world around them in ways big and small. (Applause.)
The truth is, the debate we’ve had for decades now between more government and less government, it doesn’t really fit the times in which we live. We know that too much government can stifle competition and deprive us of choice and burden us with debt. But we’ve also clearly seen the dangers of too little government -– like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly leads to the collapse of our entire economy. (Applause.)
So, class of 2010, what we should be asking is not whether we need “big government” or a “small government,” but how we can create a smarter and better government…
And President Obama also described how extreme partisanship and even “demonization” crowds out compromise and any serious, thoughtful development of policies:
…we can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. (Applause.) You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism. (Applause.) Throwing around phrases like “socialists” and “Soviet-style takeover” and “fascist” and “right-wing nut” — (laughter) — that may grab headlines, but it also has the effect of comparing our government, our political opponents, to authoritarian, even murderous regimes.
Now, we’ve seen this kind of politics in the past. It’s been practiced by both fringes of the ideological spectrum, by the left and the right, since our nation’s birth. But it’s starting to creep into the center of our discourse. And the problem with it is not the hurt feelings or the bruised egos of the public officials who are criticized. Remember, they signed up for it. Michelle always reminds me of that. (Laughter.) The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning –- since, after all, why should we listen to a “fascist,” or a “socialist,” or a “right-wing nut,” or a left-wing nut”? (Laughter.)
It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate, the one we need to have about the very real and very big challenges facing this nation. It coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response.
The President’s advice on how to avoid “closing the doors” to compromise and what’s best for our country?:
[I]f we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and our beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.
Now, this requires us to agree on a certain set of facts to debate from. That’s why we need a vibrant and thriving news business that is separate from opinion makers and talking heads. (Applause.) That’s why we need an educated citizenry that values hard evidence and not just assertion. (Applause.) As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously once said, “Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” (Laughter.)
Still, if you’re somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while. If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website. It may make your blood boil; your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship. (Applause.) It is essential for our democracy. (Applause.)
That’s some very good advice–not just for the U of M grads, but for all of us. Now pardon me while I tune into Rush…
I love this discussion of it’s not about big or small, it’s about smart. It’s actually about both. Big or small is a question of what you want government to do. Please note that the majority of what government does today it take money from Peter and give it to Paul. Funny, that wasn’t on the President’s list of good things that government does.
Whatever you decide you want government to do, you want it to do well.
Sorry but to me, this is a classic positioning/framing exercise that’s just designed to ignore the fact that the Federal government (again, only a few of the examples he cites are Federal) has grown entirely too large. It also does a bad job but solving that problem alone will not get us where we need to be.
Re:
if you’re somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while. If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website. It may make your blood boil; your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship.
That excellent message reminds me of one of my favorites pieces of advice that I received from my father. I was a sophomore in college and started getting politically involved with a student group, and my dad, who I know wasn’t coming at this with any partisan motivation, said simply “Just make sure you’re not hanging out all the time with people who all think the same thing.”
Steve,
Re: It’s actually about both. Big or small is a question of what you want government to do…Whatever you decide you want government to do, you want it to do well.
Exactly, and well-said. What’s funny, though, is the juxtaposition of Obama’s points. First he says that questioning and determining what government should and should not do is not useful because “it doesn’t really fit the times in which we live”. He then proceeds with essentially a 180 degree non sequitur, saying that we know that government doing too much or too little is very harmful, saying:
We know that too much government can stifle competition and deprive us of choice and burden us with debt. But we’ve also clearly seen the dangers of too little government -– like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly leads to the collapse of our entire economy.
Then he does another 180, thus circling back (having completed a 360) to his first assertion — that we should not bother asking what government should or should not do, just try to get government to do what it does better, saying:
So, class of 2010, what we should be asking is not whether we need “big government” or a “small government,” but how we can create a smarter and better government…
Do they teach logic at U of M? Given the applause for those rapid-fire, 180-degree non sequiturs, I have to wonder.
As a note, I don’t really mean to take a swipe at U of M. Obviously it’s a great university with high caliber students and faculty. I was just having a little fun with the general tendency some have to applaud without really considering if what the speaker just said even held together logically, a tendency from which I think Obama and other charismatic speakers often benefit.
Brooks: I don’t really think the President’s logic was flip-flopping. I think he was saying that it’s impossible to judge the value of government from its aggregate size as a share of GDP alone. Bigger in all ways is not necessarily better–and neither is smaller in all ways. In some areas of our society, government needs to get bigger and better. In other areas, it needs to get smaller and better. It’s like talking about tax policy as if all that matters is taxes as a share of GDP, and that if they exceed 18 or 20 percent of GDP that’s “too high” and unwise. But there are so many ways to raise a certain amount of revenue as a share of GDP, some that could cripple the economy, some that would help grow the economy. The aggregate or mean tells us very little about the merit of a policy or of government overall. Because of this subtlety, it’s impossible to come up with the smartest policies when both sides are too busy fighting ideologically about those aggregate summary statistics–like what overall size of government is the “right size.” And that was a point the President raised in this speech, too.
Diane,
Wow. “In other areas, it needs to get smaller and better.” Exempting the military from this debate, what areas of government need to get smaller and better? What evidence has the President provided that he understands this and is working to make it happen? For his argument to be credible, he must be willing to take it from the generic speechmaking to the specific and thus far he has shown no interest in doing so, despite having been in office for almost 18 months.
Instead, his actions since taking office have been all about making government bigger. More Federal intervention in the economy, check. Federally managed health care, including insurance pricing, check. Cap and trade, not yet but he’d like it. Show me an area where he favors reducing the role of the Federal government. I can’t think of one. No wait, I can. He doesn’t want to provide vouchers for kids in DC to go to the school of their choice. But maybe that’s actually expanding the control of government. Forget money for a moment, just give me an area where he thinks that government should be less involved.
If we switch to economics for a moment, the bulk of what the Federal government does is take money from group A (directly or indirectly) and give it to group B. That’s more than 50 percent of what government does (Medicare, Medicaid, SS, welfare, interest). Smaller in that context means less money taken from group A. I rather doubt that’s what he has in mind. As to the other things that government does, wouldn’t it require actual performance metrics to make the smaller but better argument? Where are those performance metrics? How are we doing? In the absence of answers to those questions, how will we know if we have smaller but better government?
Oddly enough, in the absence of effectiveness metrics, people tend to use efficiency (size-based) metrics. Show me some effectiveness metrics and we can talk about it. From my perspective, if you want to make the case for more money, you should be required to show more impact. In every business I’ve ever seen, that’s how it works. Only in government, and in some cases, academia, does it not work that way.
The President has no real logic. He wants to change the subject. He knows that many people are frustrated with the size, intrusiveness, and resulting cost of the Federal government. He thinks that if he can change the debate, maybe they will punish him less for continuing to make government bigger. It’s really as simple as that.
Now, if he really favored smaller but better government, here’s a few things he might do….
1. Establish actual performance metrics for the things that government does that are measurable and publishable.
2. Establish goals against those metrics.
3. Build a case for ROI against those metrics.
4. Since 1-3 will take some time, go to each and every Federal agency and challenge them to achieve equivalent impact with 10 percent less money.
When I see something like that, maybe I’ll think the argument is something other than purely empty rhetoric but not until then.
To be fair, I forgot manned space exploration as an example of smaller. Not the example I would have picked but one the President has.
Diane,
Re: your 5/3 8:36pm comment,
At risk of getting more into meta discussion (what Obama meant, the coherence of his argumentation, and whether or not he is making much sense)…
Again, Obama said:
the debate we’ve had for decades now between more government and less government, it doesn’t really fit the times in which we live. We know that too much government can stifle competition and deprive us of choice and burden us with debt. But we’ve also clearly seen the dangers of too little government -– like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly leads to the collapse of our entire economy. So, class of 2010, what we should be asking is not whether we need “big government” or a “small government,” but how we can create a smarter and better government…
I certainly considered the possibility that Obama was simply saying that, instead of considering/debating/determining the optimal “size”of government (defined not just monetarily – e.g., spending as % of GDP — but also in terms of the aggregate breadth and involvement/intrusiveness of roles it plays), we should be determining on a case-by-case basis what we want government to do and to what extent (which roles, and degree of involvement/intrusiveness) — in other words, that instead of making an abstract judgment that the aggregate “size” is too large or too small, we should be considering in which areas (roles) more/less government is in our best interest and work toward that “smart” government.
But first of all, it is hard to believe that Obama himself would really buy into the silliness of suggesting that it is anarchic (not “fit[ting] the times in which we live”) and thus inherently worthless to consider/debate/determine the cost, benefits and risks of alternative aggregate “size” of government in terms of total spending and aggregate set of roles/involvement/intrusion. Obviously total spending implies levels of debt and (sooner or later) levels of taxation which have economic impacts in themselves as aggregates, and obviously aggregate “size” in terms of the breadth and level of intrusion of government roles impacts the degree of “aggregate” liberty and opportunity in terms of business activities, personal choices in consumption and behavior, etc. And the determination of what is “smart” for government to do, with what level of intrusiveness, and using what amount of resources, should bear in mind that “aggregate” context, if nothing else because there can be diminishing returns to scale (diminishing marginal utility), changes in opportunity cost, etc. on an aggregate level, and thus the aggregate “size” of government impacts whether or not adding some government role or spending more on a given role or making that role more intrusive would represent a good “investment” or be net beneficial.
For example, the desirability of adding some new function of government and expending incremental funds on it can be very different if tax rates or effective tax rates are already at level X as opposed to much lower, and the same applies to the context of different levels of current debt or deficits driven by the current level of spending at the current level of revenue. Raising taxes from X to X+Y to fund that new function will presumably (in general) reduce incentives to work/invest, and how that adverse effect nets out with the benefits of that new function depends in part on the size of X (how high tax rates or the effective tax rate already is). And again, the same applies, albeit more qualitatively than quantitatively, to any reduction in liberty or opportunity as a result of greater government involvement/intrusiveness.
Or, if I may use an imperfect analogy, it’s like Obama is telling me I shouldn’t bother thinking about how many calories I consume on a daily basis, nor that consumption relative to my ability to burn off calories (equivalent to GDP in this analogy). He tells me such questions just don’t fit our times. Instead he says I should just ask which foods I should eat more of and which I should eat less of. Well, sure, the composition and proportions of my daily diet matter, but so does total caloric consumption relative to my ability to burn calories in a day and relative to my actual number of calories burned daily. If I’m faced with the question, say, of whether or not to add a banana (or another banana) to my daily diet as incremental calories and food volume, in order to determine the cost-benefit of doing so I need to know my total consumption in terms of total calories and total appetite satiety (e.g., from volume) relative to total ability to burn calories and relative to calories I currently actually do burn. Only then will I be able to assess the magnitude of benefits (e.g., how much hunger will it alleviate?) and costs (will it bring my total calories above the number I burn and force me to choose between weight gain or adding sufficient incremental exercise to offset it? And how much that “costs” me depends in part on how much I’m already exercising to burn calories). In other words, the size of the marginal benefit and marginal cost of that banana as incremental consumption is affected by my total (aggregate) consumption, hence the curved shape of such functions as you know. And if Obama’s point is that I should just assume that the banana would NOT be incremental consumption, but just would replace something else if it was a “smarter” choice, I’d have to ask why in the world he would simply assume that it should NOT be even partly incremental; why he would assume that my current total caloric consumption is optimal and will always be so, and that I therefore should simply consider that total amount static.
It is far from anarchic or useless to consider aggregate “size” as a — not the only — factor in deciding what government should do, with what level of intrusiveness, and expending what level of resources. Yes, it would be equally silly to reflexively reject any incremental role or incremental total spending simply on the basis of aggregate “size” without considering the individual case at hand – aggregate “size” neither determines, by itself, that something is worth doing or not worth doing — yet Obama is not simply making that point that aggregate size should not be the only consideration, as I think you’re suggesting is his point; rather, he seems to be dismissing consideration of aggregate size even as a significant factor as anarchic, irrelevant, and useless.
Second, at the very least his language is sloppily ambiguous, perhaps by design, and moreover he doesn’t really seem to be making the distinction you are attributing to him. He says “We know that too much government can… burden us with debt.” Presumably he means that, ceteris paribus (at a given level of revenues) “too much government” means total spending at a level that “burdens us with debt”. Thus, that seems to be a reference to aggregate size, and in particular total spending level. I suppose one could come up with an argument that could conceivably relate that comment to a point regarding smart allocation of funds as investments considering dynamic effects (providing huge revenue feedback and incremental GDP, thus perhaps not burdening us with incremental debt), but I consider that the most plausible reading of his point that “too much government can…burden us with debt.” Again, he seems to be referring to total spending, presumably as a % of GDP, and thus does indeed seem to be saying that too much total spending as a % of GDP can be harmful.
I could go on (believe it or not) with more points regarding his implicit premises and apparent internal inconsistencies, but I’ve probably put any reader to sleep already, and I probably shouldn’t spend much more time on this meta stuff.
For the sake of anyone reading this, I do want to add, though, that, given the abundance of tax expenditures, any discussion of the size of government in terms of “spending” defined by explicit expenditures will involve a metric so flawed in terms of validity (measuring what it’s supposed to measure conceptually) that it may be close to worthless or even counterproductive. For elaboration, see my comment in response to Keith Hennessey’s “bubble graphs” a thttp://keithhennessey.com/2010/03/03/budget-bubble-graphs/#IDComment59653317
Here’s that link to my comment on Keith Hennessey’s blog: http://keithhennessey.com/2010/03/03/budget-bubble-graphs/#IDComment59653317
Oh, I also want to add an analogy that popped into my head and which might be considerably more amusing than anything in my prior, perhaps tedious comment.
This analogy relates to the point that the cost-benefit of adding some new government role (or increasing that role) that is incremental to the “aggregate” of all that government does can decline as we move along the curve of government doing more and more (in terms of breadth of roles, involvement/instrusiveness, and/or resources expended). Something that would be “smart” to have government do if government were “smaller” may not be as desirable if government is “larger” because at some point the marginal benefits decline and/or the marginal “costs” increase due to the cumulative effect of everything government is already doing prior to adding that incremental activity/investment.
ok, here’s the analogy. I recall from about 20 years ago a page from the pre-Simpsons-fame Matt Groening’s hilarious cartoon book, Life is Hell. The page described the “9 Types of Girlfriends” (yes he did the same for boyfriends). I found it. Below is the girlfriend type — “The Bosser” — that could be seen as government at some point being “too large” even if one could make a decent case for why each individual role/activity of government is “smart”.
The Bosser
“Stand up straight. Put on a different tie. Get a haircut. Change your job. Make some money. Don’t give me that look.”
Also known as: Whipcracker, The Sarge, Ms. Know-it-all, Ball and Chain, Yes Mom
Advantages: Often right
Disadvantages: Often right, but so what?
http://www.fussy.org/girlfriends.jpg
And for the types of boyfriends, http://bp1.blogger.com/_yI6PRaIOISE/Ri4pwYlgy6I/AAAAAAAAAVA/Vl5i0Ib66-4/s1600-h/03_The_9_Types_Of_Boyfriends.jpg