The Trillion Dollar Coin Option

The idea of using a legal loophole to mint a trillion dollar platinum coin and avoid the debt ceiling, is gaining some steam in the form of a petition to the president. The basic concept is that the treasury orders the minting of a trillion dollar platinum coin, which they are arguably allowed to do under a reading of 31 USC sec. 5112 (k):

The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time

This is kind of crazy legally and politically. But if the U.S. government minted the coin, deposited it with the federal reserve, was credited by the Fed with a trillion dollars, and said they would ensure that they would buy the coin back in 10 years and then destroy the coin (or put it on display), it would really be no different economically from borrowing in their own fiat currency.

The loophole here is a legal one, not an economic one.

How Centrists Lose

It's still unclear who the winner of the recent Fiscal Cliff deal is, but Pete Peterson, David Brooks, Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles, and the whole austerity crowd are the clear losers.

After years of spending money, writing op-eds, and coming up with debt-reduction frameworks, this crowd came away with literally nothing. The tax deal amounts to a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for almost everyone, and spending wasn't even addressed.

What is incredible about this is if Congress hadn't acted at all, taxes would have automatically gone up and spending would have been cut. For the austerity crowd the entire scenario seemed like a slam dunk. What went wrong?

First, The austerity crowd has a fetish for bipartisanship. Their mantra is that each side needs to come together for a bipartisan deal, and they steadfastly blame both sides equally for the failure to do so. This creates really poor incentives for political actors to make deals. A political actor who comes out in favor of the sort of "tough" measure that these groups support will be hurt politically for proposing an unpopular measure, while still sharing half the blame when the deal inevitably falls through. A good example of this sequence: Obama puts chained-CPI on the table, Marco Rubio disavows it, chained-CPI gets dropped from final deal, David Brooks lays blame equally on both parties for lack of entitlement reform. This leaves lawmakers with no real incentive to make a good faith push for deficit reduction and instead you just get each side blaming the other for not endorsing Bowles-Simpson.

Second, each of the two political parties has certain goals. Deficit reduction is secondary to those goals. The Democrats want a secure welfare state for poorer and older Americans. In order to secure those programs in the long term they are willing to raise taxes. Likewise, Republicans want low taxes, and in order to get low taxes they are willing to cut spending. The idea of a deal where major programs are cut in exchange for higher taxes is perverse to both parties.

So what should they do? The austerity crowd needs to pick a side and lobby that side to their position. I would recommend the Democrats because Republicans are too ideologically rigid a party. Pete Peterson needs to commit to supporting Democrats in primaries and in general elections who are genuinely in favor of deficit reduction--some sort of Grover Norquist style pledge could be used.

Because of their foolish commitment to bipartisanship, the austerians have no one to champion their cause.

Why the Republicans Won't Change

There has been a lot of discussion in the wake of the 2012 election of the need for the Republican party to alter. The general thesis has been that the Republican party needs to do more to appeal to non-white, young, and female voters. This is a correct analysis of the electoral challenge facing Republicans, but I think it overlooks the nature of political parties.

The press generally has a very candidate-centered view of political parties, and has focused on the degree to which various candidates--Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush--can move the Republican party in a direction is more appealing to voters. This narrative represents an incorrect view of parties.

In "The Party Decides", a quartet of political scientists make the argument that parties are actually coalitions of policy demanding groups with narrow interests. These interest groups negotiate amongst themselves and decide on a presidential nominee who is generally acceptable to all members of the party coalition. From this perspective, the Republican party can be thought of as an alliance between the social conservatives, small government conservatives, Neocons, anti-environmentalist business organizations, nativists, etc.

In the recent election cycles, nominally moderate candidates--Romney, McCain--have shifted their positions to the right on a number of issues, in order to be acceptable to these groups.

For the party to really change there would have to be a largescale realignment, effectively destroying the party as we know it, or all of the policy demanding groups would have to simultaneously ease their demands for fealty from candidates. I see no evidence of a realignment happening, and policy groups are unlikely to ease demands for two reasons. First, these groups exist for the very purpose of demanding certain policies. Second, if one group eases its demands it will effectively cede some of it's power to other groups, this creates a collective action problem within the coalition, with each group fearing that by easing its demands, the others will take advantage to gain more power within the party.

What we will see instead is a series of candidates trying to appear moderate and electable, while convincing each of the groups that makes up the Republican party that he or she (probably he) won't sell out their cause once they are in office. The potential nominees don't actually have the power to pull the party in a different direction--because they aren't the party, they are just the politicians.

Deficits and Full Employment

Joe Wiesenthal has a great piece at Business Insider showing that our deficit problem is really a growth and unemployment problem.

The basic point is that short term deficits are driven by recessions, which cause tax revenues to fall and spending to increase relative to GDP.

He goes on to note that inequality has been steadily increasing: "If this inequality is something that's of concern, and something worth addressing, then taxes should be one part of the discussion in addressing them." He is correct that taxes should be one part of the discussion, but I wish he had spent some time noting that one of the ways to help reduce inequality is to demand more aggressive counter-cyclical policies from the Federal Reserve and Congress--policies that would simultaneously reduce budget deficits.

I think one of the tragedies of the politics of the "99%" is that it focuses too heavily on taxing the wealthiest, while ignoring the importance of full employment.

Bipartisanship

A few weeks ago, Charles Krauthammer argued that Obama's original fiscal cliff offer--where he refused to concede anything--wasn't about deficit reduction, but was rather a cynical effort to fracture the Republican House majority:

Such nonsense abounds because Obama’s objective in these negotiations is not economic but political: not to solve the debt crisis but to fracture the Republican majority in the House. Get Boehner to cave, pass the tax hike with Democratic votes provided by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and let the Republican civil war begin.

Since then, Obama has moderated his position substantially, reducing revenue demands and increasing the amount of spending he is offering to cut. Nonetheless, Krauthammer went on Hannity and repeated his claim:

He’s been using this, and I must say with great skill–-and ruthless skill and success–to fracture and basically shatter the Republican opposition… His objective from the very beginning was to break the will of the Republicans in the House, and to create an internal civil war. And he’s done that.

I think Krauthammer was completely wrong the first time, but basically correct the second time.

There isn't a single Republican in congress who would have been willing to support Obama's initial offer, as a result it would have been a terrible vehicle for creating splits in the Republican ranks. Republicans were able to unite in opposition to that offer, denouncing Obama as negotiating in bad faith.

Since that first offer, Obama has tried to be more realistic, proposing plans that some Republicans would vote for, but would still be acceptable to most Democrats. Krauthammer is right that the goal is to split Republicans. But with such wide political differences between the most conservative Republicans and the Democratic leadership, any Bipartisan solution requires this.

Push Back the Fiscal Cliff

With the Republicans in a state of confusion, I think Obama should attempt to push the Fiscal Cliff back a year or two. This strategy isn't being discussed much, but I think it would lead to a good outcome for Democrats in both the short and long term.

First, Democrats should have a long-term goal of returning all taxes to Clinton-era levels. Funding government programs that liberals favor requires this amount of revenue. Pushing back the fiscal cliff preserves the option for Obama to unilaterally return tax rates to those levels in a few years. At the point the economy will likely be stronger and hopefully the market trusts the new, more aggressive, federal reserve to sustain nominal spending in the face of a tax increase.

Second, the sequester mechanism makes no sense at any point. But the spending cuts less devastating in a year or two, for the reasons stated above.

I know Obama promised to raise taxes on the rich, but one or two years of additional revenue from those making over 250,000 isn't that helpful to the U.S.'s fiscal position. The Republicans will probably claim it as a political victory--taxes didn't go up on the rich--but it will be a substantive victory for Democrats. Obama will have achieved both his short term goal (avoid the fiscal cliff) and will have paved the way for what should be the Democrats long term goal (clinton-era revenue levels). The current aim of permanently extending tax cuts for those making under 250,000, while letting tax cuts expires for those above that amount, prioritizes the political over the substantive, and makes future cuts to government programs more likely.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I think liberals should have used the attention being paid to income inequality as an argument for shoring up and expanding government programs, not as a call to tax the rich.

Bizzare Ideas from the NRA

The NRA held a press conference this morning where they advocated the placement of armed cops in schools, in order to prevent future tragedies like the one in Newtown. This idea strikes me as a weird abdication of what seems to be their purpose as an organization. The NRA and fellow second amendment advocates usually promote an ideology and policies that support an armed citizenry; the idea being that we cant rely on the government or its agents to protect us or loved ones. This type of suggestion cuts against that purpose; with more cops there really isn't any reason to own a gun, unless you are worried about the cops--in which case you shouldnt be arguing for them to be placed in schools in the first place.