Marc Eisner notes the politics of fiscal irresponsibility. Such politics never seem to go out of style. Nevertheless, the coalition government in Great Britain is offering an object lesson in how to build political support for deep, wide-ranging cuts in government spending. With the UK’s finances in even slightly worse shape than the US’s, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have successfully made the case that there is no alternative. Here are some of today’s figures on polling on welfare cuts:
| Making the long term unemployed spend 4 weeks doing unpaid work | All voters | CON voters | LAB voters | LD voters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support | 73 | 92 | 58 | 83 |
| Oppose | 17 | 3 | 31 | 14 |
| Don’t know | 10 | 5 | 10 | 3 |
| Withdrawing Jobseekers Allowance from those who turn down a job offer or interview | All voters | CON voters | LAB voters | LD voters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support | 66 | 82 | 57 | 71 |
| Oppose | 21 | 8 | 33 | 22 |
| Don’t know | 12 | 9 | 10 | 6 |
| More stringent testing for people receiving Disability Living Allowance | All voters | CON voters | LAB voters | LD voters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support | 69 | 86 | 58 | 70 |
| Oppose | 20 | 6 | 32 | 22 |
| Don’t know | 12 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
| Putting a £400 a week maxium on housing benefit | All voters | CON voters | LAB voters | LD voters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support | 68 | 87 | 54 | 76 |
| Oppose | 20 | 6 | 37 | 12 |
| Don’t know | 12 | 7 | 10 | 12 |
Those are truly massive majorities.The British government is also cutting defense expenditures drastically and means-testing certain benefits, such as child care, so that the middle classes will no longer receive them. These policies are somewhat less popular but still enjoy majority support.
So how did they do it? One of the key requirements for the political “optics” of the cuts was the coalition government. With a social democratic party in the Lib Dems joining the Conservatives in supporting the cuts, the government was shielded from accusations of heartlessness or right-wing mania. Moreover, supporters of both parties outnumber Labour supporters. In the media, key Labour Party figures have been successfully characterized as “deficit deniers,” the people who caused the problem in the first place.
Coalition government is supposed to slow down the pace of change and create gridlock, just like divided government in the U.S. Nevertheless, it has worked well so far for Britain because it allows a formal structure that ties both parties to each other – neither party wants the coalition to fail, which would surely bring on a new election.
Unfortunately, this institutional characteristic of some parliamentary systems – endogenous election timing – is not available to American politicians. Nevertheless, Britain’s experience suggests that one way out of the fiscal mess in the U.S. would be a bipartisan, cross-chamber coalition of sorts, narrowly focused on solving the budget crisis. Given the midterm election results, the popular mandate is there for a radical fiscal house-cleaning, if anyone decides to take it up. Reasonable Republicans and Blue Dogs can join forces to create clear majorities in both houses and negotiate – in hard-fought, late-night sessions if need be – a package of radical spending reductions and tax reforms needed to close the budget gap.
With a bipartisan mandate, who could run against the results? The anti-tax-hike and anti-spending-cut extremists on both sides will be neutralized. President Obama will have no choice but to endorse the outcome of such a negotiation. Imagine if he vetoed the plan. He would clearly be the one responsible for shutting the government down if it came to that. He couldn’t blame the Republicans – because the cutters would have substantial Democratic support. He’d merely be making himself look even more liberal, which I’m sure his political advisors realize is not the key to victory in 2012.
We can dream, can’t we? As unlikely as this scenario sounds, the bottom line is that spending cuts need not be politically toxic. If you frame the debate as one of responsibility versus madness, voters will choose the former.
Sure. Dream on my friend! Popular? 50.000 students just protested on the streets. I’ve no idea where this obsession with money from you libertarians comes from? Some sort of educational/cognition shortcoming? Still living on Gold-Standard? Hey — the world moved on since 1971!
But well. I’m grateful the British citizenry volunteered to let us evaluate whether Austerian/Libertarian concepts work. We’ll see each other in two years. Willing to bet?
The Liberal Democrats aren’t completely social democratic…it is a merger of the Liberals and Social Democrats but Nick Clegg is more a classical liberal than social democrat. I believe this is why his party accepted the cuts so readily.
Yes, the world moved on from the Gold Standard in 1971. In its wake, it created wonderful financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. I’d imagine 9.8% of the US would completely agree! Isn’t fiat currency simply amazing?
Sure. Unpopular with some, but has majority approval. Students will go off at anything anyway
. Still, that doesn’t make their course right – I’d think they’d be better making structural improvements rather than simply shifting the margins – too easily reversed.
But as for USA, dream on. Your governance is broken, and review by the people is obviously not working. Time for you to actually try democracy.
Nick Clegg is an opportunist and will be non-existent after the next election. I’ve no problem with that.
And YES fiat currency is amazing! There’s only one problem: there are so much idiots hanging around who believe that markets can sort out things on their own without rules and whatsoever. I’m pretty sure you are very familiar with at least one of these faithful zealots.
I don’t advocate a gold standard exactly (I do think it would be interesting to see whether a completely private, competitive banking & currency system would work). But I am willing to bet that Britain’s fiscal austerity doesn’t harm their economic growth noticeably.
I agree “social democratic” might be a wee bit of an exaggeration about the LD’s – they have moved to the center under Clegg – but their election manifesto was still well to the left of the Tories.
But I am willing to bet that Britain’s fiscal austerity doesn’t harm their economic growth noticeably.
So, Jason, how’d that turn out?
They’re doing worse than the U.S., no doubt, but better than most of continental Europe. The UK government claims that the Eurozone crisis is responsible for their poor growth. But as always, it’s hard to evaluate these counterfactuals. I’ll admit that austerity hasn’t worked very well for Britain so far if you’ll admit that stimulus hasn’t worked very well for the US.