Pundit Peter Beinart recently wrote the following:
Less than three years ago, the American financial system virtually collapsed, leaving an economic disaster that still blights the lives of tens of millions of Americans. That collapse may be partly the result of federal efforts that pushed too hard to make Americans with lousy credit become homeowners.
But it was also undoubtedly a result of the fact that under Presidents Clinton and Bush, the U.S. government egged on Wall Street as it created new and largely unregulated financial markets. Then, in 2010, after a BP oil spill almost destroyed the Gulf of Mexico, reporters discovered that the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service, which supposedly regulates offshore drilling, was as toothless as the agencies that supposedly regulated derivatives trading.
That was last summer, and yet, amazingly, the GOP is more adamant today in its support of deregulation than it was during the Bush years. Every single Republican in the House opposed Dodd-Frank, the 2010 bill aimed at modestly strengthening America’s financial regulatory system—and Mitt Romney has said he would consider repealing it. Not to be outdone, Tim Pawlenty has proposed repealing all government regulations except for those Congress expressly votes to retain.
Deregulation is, to be sure, one of the American right’s longstanding principles. But it was one thing to demand deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s after many years of slow growth and increasing government intrusion into the economy. It is quite another to demand it now, after decades of deregulation that have helped produce two of the greatest disasters in recent U.S. history.
This piece is completely representative of political punditry- I could have chosen many like it to make the same points. We, the reader, are asked to accept the idea that because a specific (although unspecified) regulation would have prevented the financial crisis from being so bad, that regulations in general are a good idea; and that therefore, the Dodd-Frank bill, being a species of regulation, is a good idea. What's missing is any analysis of the merits of the Dodd-Frank bill. Beinart wants his readers to think "Government: Good", and favor Dodd-Frank because it is an instance of government activism.
Now of course two can play this game. What about the conservative case that regulations easing home ownership caused the crisis? Conservatives can make a general case that since one instance of government regulation is harmful, regulation as such is bad, and therefore Dodd-Frank, as an instance of regulation, is a bad bill. Where does that leave us? Beinart gets around this by saying that while regulations easing home ownership may have contributed to the crisis, lack of (again, unspecified) regulations of financial instruments undoubtedly did so. He does no analysis supporting this distinction on which so much rests.
He also emphasizes that homeownership policy only partly explains the crisis, while he does not emphasize this about the lack of regulation of financial instruments, even though they can't be the whole explanation if homeownership policy is part of it. There are two easy stories about the crisis, and neither one can wholly explain it, and probably together they can't wholly explain it, but people always want total explanations. That's what opinion journalism is for. I often see progressives go to lengths to demonstrate that homeownership policy cannot wholly explain the crisis, while forgetting that this doesn't mean that their explanations can.
Beinart believes the "Republican Party is united behind an antigovernment theology powerful enough to survive virtually any combination of real-world events." I don't know what Beinart is talking about, except that the belief in limited government is big in Republican circles right now. That means that some things are the proper role for government, and others are not. People will disagree on its answers, but the Tea Party is attempting to answer a sensible question: "What is government's proper role, and what isn't?" Beinart is attempting to ascertain whether government in general is good or bad, which is an almost meaningless question and as such allows him to answer however he wants.
Posted by: |