As dead-armadillo-in-the-middle-of-the-road centrist, I’ve been really unimpressed with most of the conservative critiques of Barack Obama’s economic plans that I’ve seen. (Michael Boskin’s WSJ op-ed piece of a couple of days ago serves as a pretty good proxy for the lot of them.)
First, they tend to be inordinately alarmist about the economic consequences of proposed tax changes that, for the most part, would simply return us to the tax rates of the Clinton era. Which was, in case you’ve forgotten, not an economic disaster. (On trade policy they tend to focus only on Obama’s more inflammatory comments and not on his moderate ones, although I guess that’s fair when a candidate tries to straddle the issue as he has.)
Second, they usually ignore the economic reality motivating most of Obama’s tax and trade proposals, which is that pretty much all the income growth of the past eight years has gone to people at the tippy top of the income scale. Whether you agree with Obama’s ideas or not, you’ve got to acknowledge that the current setup isn’t working very well for most Americans.
But now I think Jim Manzi, surely the most interesting new conservative voice on economic issues to emerge in the past few years, has produced a screed against Obamanomics that suffers from neither of these flaws. A sample:
Growing inequality and middle-class wage stagnation are big problems for America. But trying to re-regulate the economy and redistribute income is a cure worse than the disease. Of course, all of my criticisms of Obama’s economic plans would also be a lot more useful if his opponent seemed to care at all about any of these issues, and was presenting creative alternatives. Further, for all of my litany of dumb things Obama wants to do (and things that the current government is doing right now) to inhibit growth, the United States is a very rich country with a strong economy. Subject to normal ups-and-downs, it is likely to keep growing for a long time even if Obama does all he wants to do. If you keep eating enough french fries, however, eventually you’re going to have a heart attack.
I’m not saying Manzi is necessarily right. His post begins by approvingly citing Boskin, after all. But this is what the discussion ought to be about.