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Neil the Ethical WerewolfIn an email to his weekend blogging team, Ezra asked the following:
I'm interested in the idea that, if Bush asked for sacrifice, a one time tax increase, a something -- if he said he and his VP and his cabinet would lead it by foregoing salaries for the year -- his numbers would skyrocket. Why, then, doesn't he do that? Why is this admin so allergic to sacrifice, to tax increases, to all of it? I don't think it's ideology -- they're more craven, and have proved themselves to willing to contradict conviction for that. So what is it? Just an ethical failure?There's a bunch of things to say here. The first is that once you've given over your soul to fiscal nihilism, you're not going to see any need for tax revenue of any kind to deal with the problem. More deficit spending will work just fine. In fact, if you're clever enough, you might be able to use Katrina as political cover for extra tax cuts, just like you used 9/11 to cover the tax cuts earlier in your presidency. When the higher deficit numbers come in, you just shrug and say "Of course the deficit is higher -- we got hit by a monster hurricane that reduced revenue and made us spend money!" It won't matter that your tax cuts are an even bigger source of the problem. Democrats will call you out on it and some people will be wise to the game, but the media will give it the usual lazy he said / she said coverage, and foolable people will be fooled.
