Bob Roggio's Issues Statement: Good Start But Needs Some Upgrades

Bob Roggio's campaign website is now live. It looks nifty. I urge everyone to check it out.

It even has a tab containing an issues statement. Mr. Roggio should be commended for taking this step. Ideal Candidate wishes the other candidates had given activists a peak at this type of info as well, so it could be debated and discussed among those who are being asked for donations and early endorsements.

The trouble is that it is a bit thin (and safe). Particularly weak is the tab on the economy. The statement in its entirety is as follows:

We need to restore the principles of fiscal responsibility that the Bush Administration has ignored. By concentrating on fiscal discipline and reducing deficit spending, our country can focus on long-term economic prosperity. Our country needs to invest in infrastructure, early childhood education, programs for college bound students, and economic development. We need a new commitment to job creation. Above all else, we need responsible and accountable leaders who will curtail the spending spree in
Washington.

Basically a salad of feel good words that reveal nothing about how Roggio would vote on economic issues (other than, presumably, how the Democratic leadership would instruct that he vote). At its root, the statement betrays a careless adoption of the weakest form of 1990's Clinton nostalgia. Whatever Clinton's other achievements, his successful run on the economy had very little to do with his historic decision to listen to the "bond market" and balance the budget first. The fairy tail goes on to recount how the bond market reacted by lowering interest rates and ushering in a new era of prosperity.

As nobel prize winner and former Clinton economic advisor, Joseph Stiglitz, points out in his book, The Roaring Nineties, Clinton got lucky. As he passed his historic tax increase, banking regulators adopted new rules that made it cheaper for banks to lend. The expansion of credit then led to growing optimism which led to the tech boom and a rise (for the first time since the 1970's) in real incomes for average working families. Stiglitz proves, I think, that the tax increase and the decrease in deficits did not cause the boom. On the contrary, the boom caused the budget to come into balance.

So what? The 111th Congress will be under pressure to cut certain taxes (the Alternative Minimum Tax) and to keep certain tax benefits (the Earned Income Tax Credit) for working families. Even if you assume that the "Bush Tax Cuts" will be trimmed back and certain loopholes closed (like the "carried interest" loophole that benefits Pete Peterson and his ilk) the budget will face rising deficits in 2009. Also, the credit markets are so consumed with cleaning up after the burst of the "leverage bubble" that they are unlikely to be the source of a boom in lending for quite some time. Thus 2009 will not be 2003.

So, will Roggio side with the "Blue Dogs" and insist on a narrow version of "fiscal discipline?" Or will he follow his instincts towards making needed public investments in "infrastructure," education and "economic development" and back reform of the budgeting process or the revival of mechanisms like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that extend government credit directly to investments that will pay back the federal government over time?

Based on Roggio's campaign statement, your guess is as good as mine.

Demand more from our candidates. Demand that they venture beyond pat answers based on false nostalgia for the "golden nineties" and propose policies that can reverse 30 years of the "conservative"-led disinvestment in our economy and people.