The Theory of Inevitable Compromise, and why it is probably wrong
“WE HAVE a system of government in which everybody has to give a little bit.” So said Barack Obama at the start of this week. But parse that sentence. Does the president mean that America already has a system in which everybody has to give a little bit? Or does he mean only that it ought to have such a system? It is not too much to say that the country’s economic well-being hangs on the answer.
As the whole world knows, America’s government is in danger of defaulting after August 2nd unless Congress raises the federal debt ceiling so that it can keep borrowing enough to pay its bills. For a while the markets assumed that because a default would be so scary, Republicans and Democrats would have in the end to agree on the spending cuts the Republican-controlled House demanded as its price for raising the ceiling. The Theory of Inevitable Compromise was that each party would have to give a bit because voters will punish whichever proves too stubborn. But here are eight reasons to wonder whether the theory is true.
First, for the theory to work, both parties need to believe that failing to raise the ceiling will trigger a default and the “huge financial calamity” Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, gave warning of this week. Not all Republicans do believe that. John Boehner, the House speaker, is a believer, but the freshmen who bobbed into Congress last November on a tidal wave of tea are not. Some say that the government could keep paying foreign creditors by slashing domestic spending, and that this would be just fine—even though Mr Obama refuses to guarantee even that Social Security (pension) cheques would go out without a deal.
Second, the Republicans are divided among themselves. The party’s leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has aired a convoluted last-ditch plan that would avert a default by letting Mr Obama increase the ceiling even without a spending agreement between the parties, provided he makes cuts of the same size. Senior Democrats have welcomed the idea, but Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House, has not. Mr Cantor had already rejected Mr Boehner’s secretive attempt to negotiate what could have been an historic bargain with Mr Obama embracing a higher tax take (anathema to Republicans) as well as vast reductions in entitlement spending (music to their ears).
Noises off are the third problem. Outside Congress, the Republicans’ presidential wannabes are taking up their starting positions for 2012. Craving power but not yet possessing it, these hopefuls are not constrained by responsibility. Indeed, further economic trouble on Mr Obama’s watch might suit them nicely. Whether for this reason or from conviction, most profess themselves unfazed by the prospect of a failure to raise the debt ceiling. Newt Gingrich called Mr McConnell’s last resort “an irresponsible surrender to big government”. Michele Bachmann says she is proud never to have voted for raising the debt ceiling in the past.
Fourth, the Theory of Inevitable Compromise holds that fear of the voters will push the parties together. But which voters? Candidates in the general election of November 2012 would not want to be thought reckless. That election, however, is an age away. Republican candidates and the new House members are now fixated not on voters in general, who want the parties to co-operate, but on the more ideological ones who will vote in the primaries. Many of these do not want the debt ceiling to rise.
Why not? In part because, fifth, the theory assumes that voters understand what the debt ceiling is. This assumption is almost certainly false. Many are under the misapprehension that it is a vote to authorise new spending, not permission to pay the bills that this and earlier Congresses have already run up. According to Gallup, 60% of Republicans, 46% of independents and 21% of Democrats oppose increasing the debt ceiling at all.
Couldn’t politicians explain things better? Dream on. The sixth argument against the Theory of Inevitable Compromise is the virtual impossibility in today’s polarised America of shaping a consensus. In the 1930s Franklin Roosevelt delivered soothing chats explaining the theory of banking. But the president’s bully pulpit is not what it was before the rise of partisan cable television and the cacophony of the blogosphere empowered the obfuscators. For every commentator wringing his hands over the danger of default, another accuses the “liberals” of crying wolf.
Seventh, the listless state of the economy makes it hard for politicians of both parties to do the hard things that are needed to reduce the deficit. The Republicans say rightly that increasing the tax burden would damage jobs and growth. Democrats are right to retort that so would the spending cuts the Republicans want.
Last, and most important, both sides have made a stand on principles that will be hard to abandon without losing face. The Republicans’ is that there can be no increase in tax revenues, because that is how public spending ratchets ever higher. The Democrats’ is that a deal that reduces the deficit by spending cuts alone would fall too heavily on the most vulnerable Americans.
Over the past few weeks, however, Mr Obama has at least shown himself open to compromise, by proposing a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, tilted heavily towards the former. By midweek, a few anxious Republican voices were beginning to argue that their side had held firm long enough, and had better bend too if it did not want to be blamed for the approaching calamity. Senator McConnell said that a default could “destroy” the Republican brand. But the zealots in the House were continuing to stand firm as the clock ticked down. On July 13th Moody’s put the United States on review for a downgrade. This is a season of dangerous brinkmanship in America. Compromise may still be possible, but there is nothing inevitable about it.
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