Toward a more doctrinaire centrism

Ezra argues that Nelson and Collins aren't actually making specific economic arguments, against specific programs, in these specific times, but rather are just yelling "too big!" and "bipartisan!"

...the gang of job-cutters -- to steal Dean Baker's elegant formulation -- hasn't justified their cuts on grounds of either size or efficacy. Why is $900 billion a stimulus package they would have to oppose, but $800 billion is a stimulus package they can support? There's been no explanation for the superiority of $800 billion against $600 billion, or even against $1.2 trillion. Nelson has not argued that the likely output gap over the next two years has been overstated in CBO estimates -- and way overstated by Goldman-Sachs' estimates -- and thus the stimulus is too large for our purposes.

Nor have they argued that the $40 billion in state aid and $20 billion in school construction will be less stimulative than the $70 billion Alternative Minimum Tax patch, of which exactly 0.5% goes towards the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution (which are, of course, the folks most in need of relief, and most likely to spend it quickly).

In fact, they haven't really argued anything at all. Rather, it's been a dazzling display of the most analytically bankrupt strain of centrism: The belief that the right answer lies, by definition, somewhere between the answers that are already on the table. The Nelson-Collins bill hasn't been justified in terms of virtues so much as in terms of abstract numerical positioning. It's a neat trick, and widely applicable. If one party announced a bill mandating that all Americans must bathe themselves in mud and brambles, and the other party opposed the "Mud and Brambles Bathing Act of 2009," Collins and Nelson would be right there to explain that the American people are tired of dogma and interest group politics and they have brokered a compromise mandating that all Americans take a monthly mud and brambles shower instead.

Mostly because they want to be seen as broad-thinking , diplomatic and practical, all manner of Washington-type are liable slip into centrist-speak. It's not that centrism is, in and of itself, problematic--if you're politics take you to the middle, then they take you to the middle. But an unthinking moderation is an ideology in and of itself. Believing the bike should be split in half is not always the most sensible position.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/02/toward-a-more-doctrinaire-centrism/6690/