Here is Dani Rodrik defending Hillary on trade, here is Paul Krugman. Here is the very good critique from Clive Crook. So what’s up? My uninformed default assumption is that Hillary wants to win the Iowa caucases. That means her goal is to signal protectionism to Iowa activists and voters, and sophisticated non-protectionism to the more trade-oriented elites and donors. Congratulations if you were able to pick out the latter signal, but don’t confuse it with a defense of what she said, why she said it, or when she said it.
I couldn’t agree more. I used to be surprised at how anti-Clinton the posters on this site are given that Hillary’s anti-free trade message is pretty clearly what she’s saying to get elected, and her donor base really wants free trade. Now, I think people who identify as libertarians are more pro-republican and less politically independent than they care to admit.
Note: I am not a Clinton booster. I dislike dynastic politics, whether the dynasty is the Bush family or the Clinton family.
Don’t worry Tyler we are confident that she is only lying.
Tom–
The only choice libertarians have is the Republican party?!? Am I taking crazy pills? During the 8 years of the Clinton administration, per capita federal spending decreased significantly every year–even when the congress was controlled by Democrats. This is no guarantee Democrats will always decrease spending, but it certain disproves that they will always increase it–just as the first 6 years of the Bush administration disproves that Republicans are for decreased spending.
The fact that small government-types persist in identifying with the Republican party makes me think they decided their political affiliation 15 years ago and haven’t taken the time to re-evaluate.
A lot of libertarians are absolutely disgusted with the Republican Party.
Personally, I’ve long backed Clinton primarily for one simple reason: I think it’s the best way to ensure a trade-friendly government (obviously I tend to think her current pseudo-protectionism is just a way to win primaries. Personally, I suspect she’s even more pro-trade than her husband†¦). If we had the most radically pro-trade Republican candidate win, a Dem-controlled Congress would make it a point of pride to block as many trade deals as possible. If we end up with a Republican or Democrat who’s iffy on trade then we’d surely see trade deals blocked from the start or negotiated away for support on other bills (even W used the steel tariff in an attempt to win support in Ohio). A strong, pro-trade Democrat, however, can whip Congress into shape and get trade deals through (witness Bill Clinton and NAFTA); Hillary seems to be the candidate who most fills that niche. The question isn’t just who is screaming their support of free trade the loudest, but who can provide new trade bills with the legitimacy and legislative support they need to actually be approved. It’s much easier, in general, for a federal official to be in support of trade; that it’s good for the country as a whole is fairly apparent to most who read up on it. What’s much more difficult is to support a trade bill that’s great for the country but which makes your local constituency nervous. The way to get these bills passed, therefore, is to provide those legislators with the political cover they need (“I stand with the President†, etc) to vote in favor and keep their jobs.
Either way, I really hope the mess of this cycle’s primary scheduling brings an end to the dominance of Iowa and New Hampshire (a lottery to pick dates seems much better to me). Iowa’s first-in-the-Nation status has long swung national politics towards protectionism and farm subsidies (no Senator who thinks they have the stuff to win the Presidency someday wants to be known as the anti-farm candidate), and I’ll do a little dance the day we put it to an end†¦
The GOP spews free-market rhetoric while spending massively. The Dems spew socialist rhetoric while spending less. Ironically, the GOP’s supposed free-market bias is touted out by lefties as a reason for economic failures, when in fact it is recent Dems who have free-market biases in practice.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate both parties. Both the Clinton and Bush administration took actions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, among other peoples. But if I had to choose anyone but Ron Paul (and yes, I am skeptical of Paul’s stance that we can have free trade without managed deals with other governments, but the POTUS isn’t a legislator), I’d pick a democrat.
Rodrik states:
“The real risk facing globalization today is not that markets are not open enough, but that the political support for the existing set of rules is eroding to the point where it becomes difficult to maintain the openness we have. It is a far better use of political capital to bring those rules into conformity with ordinary voters’ sense of what is fair than it is to negotiate one market-access expanding agreement over another.”
Well, a big reason for the “eroding political support” is that folks like Krugman, who had been a very effective advocate, speaking in clear language, is now too busy trying to honey up to the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party (e.g., spending endless energy still trying to show that Gore got a raw deal from the media and should’ve won in 2000). People like Rodrik and Krugman (and Robert Frank) make strained arguments against free markets in general, seemingly trying to prove that they’re “enlightened” or “caring” or something. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs is allowed to run wild and relatively unanswered, and “Lou Dobbs Democrats” like Sherrod Brown get elected.
I’m keeping an eye on this as I’m curious to know how the preferences of “economists”, or at least economic-minded folks, are ranked. Is free trade the leading preference? Or maybe increasing FDI to stop-gap the debt? Are the social programs preferred in the face of all we learned and observed about past and current programs?
Personally, I’m not voting for either party as I find them both untrustworthy. I’m more a libertarian than not, voted republican often in the past but was dissatisfied with their acts once they reached office (at every level of government), but disagree with the social engineering plans of democrats.
For me, it’s Paul in the primaries, and I’ll probably just sit this one out in the generals.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you have to give a Democratic Congress some credit for passing The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (under a Republican President George H. W. Bush) or you have to give the Democratic President Clinton some credit for controlling spending during the ’90s (part of which had a Republican Congress). Arguing that the Democrats deserve no credit for either is disingenuous.
And that factoid means exactly what I think it means (although, come to think of it, it may have been decreasing as a fraction of GDP)-it was a decrease in total government spending including entitlements. Slice it however you want, Holsclaw, if spending decreases per capita (or as a fraction of GDP) for eight years in a row, that represents the kind of Marginal Revolution this blog advocates and it stopped when the Republicans took the Presidency. Libertarians who are loyal to the Republican party are blind to this. I’m pleasantly surprised that so many commenters on this thread don’t fall into this category.
Why does anyone think HRC is in favor of free trade? I think President Clinton was a pure politician who came to office with lots of ideas (including higher spending, just look at his budget proposals, as opposed to Reagan’s which were low. Both were DOA because the House was controlled by the other party, and the House sets the spending agenda.), but when the Republicans took over in 1994, he quickly changed to pragmatism. I do not think a HRC adminstration will be as favorable towards free trade or economic liberalization.
Libertarians want smaller government, not smaller deficits. Republicans spend less than Democrats. Every budget passed from 1994 to 2006 was opposed by Democrats because it didn’t spend enough money. Since everyone is affected by spending and economic issues, libertarians lean Republican—the least bad. If Republicans tried to affect every American’s social life, they’d be just as unpopular.
Greenspan has said that Bill Clinton agreed with him on “80-90%” of economic issues while he was president. Many have called him the best pure politician they’ve seen. Effectively, this means that Bill Clinton was only a Democrat by name, using the D to get elected. He is much more libertarian than any Democrat we’ve had. It is not obvious if “Senator Clinton” is the same way, but I would feel much better having “President Bill Clinton” in the White House again, if only to sleep on the couch and advise his wife.
Reminder:
HRC spent her youth campaigning for Republicans. She canvassed the South Side of Chicago for Nixon in ’60 (she thought Nixon lost due to fraud) in her young teens and later volunteered for Goldwater in ’64. Raised in a solidly GOP household, she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. In ’68 she worked for Rockefeller’s campaign. She only turned towards the Dems over Civil Rights (like many Rockefeller Republicans, she was severely turned off by the “Southern Strategy”) and Vietnam. Those who talk about how “socialist” she is haven’t been paying attention…
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