THE NEW YORK TIMES We can analyze the circus in the House of Representatives based on the personalities (the mild ambition of Kevin McCarthy collides with the burlesque and television career of Matt Gaetz) or under the conditions of the Republican coalition (united only by illiberalism and demagoguery and therefore hostage to the most shameless of demagogues).
But the essence of the impasse, the mannerisms about what kind of spending cuts Republican officials should demand or accept, are no coincidence either. Along with derelict presidents and dark vigils surrounding senators and Supreme Court justices, chaotic and absurd debates over fiscal policy are part of what happens when a democracy becomes a gerontocracy.
The gerontocratic tax trap is easy to describe: as societies age, live longer, and have fewer births, their obligations to older people become increasingly costly, even as the share of voters benefiting from these obligations (and voting) increases. This makes it difficult to solve budget problems and turns the path of least political resistance into protecting the elderly and deceiving young people who are thus tricked into starting fewer families and increasing the aging of society.
After House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was removed from office by the extremist wing of the Republican Party this week, House Republican leaders must choose a new speaker. Photo: J Scott Applewhite/AP
But there is an even bigger twist in American politics: The party that would normally be the ideological vehicle for the driving resistance to gerontocratic inertia—the party of free markets and limited government—also relies on the votes of culturally conservative older voters . This makes it particularly politically challenging and even selfsabotaging to actually adopt the kinds of tax reforms officially supported by rightwing philosophy.
This type of challenge doesn’t just exist US; At the United Kingdom, for example, explains why Conservative Party politicians can’t move forward with the big buildings they like to promise in their election campaigns because their own wealthy, older voters are committed to a status quo of low growth and high property values. But in the US, the main centers of action (or inaction) are on Medicare and Social Security, as well as the transition of Paul Ryan’s Republican Party Donald Trump and now from Matt Gaetz show the effectiveness of a gerontocratic logic.
Congressman Matt Gaetz speaks to reporters at the entrance to the Capitol in Washington, USA. Photo: Kent Nishimura/ NYT
Ryan was a true limitedgovernment advocate, dedicated to crafting ambitious entitlement reforms and pressuring his colleagues against their natural inclination to support them.. He was also an ambitious politician and could be seen struggling to reconcile his fiscal vision with the interests and demands of the party base. These difficulties were never fully resolved, partly due to his search for a mandate (on Mitt Romney) was defeated, and this was partly because their cautious stance was trampled on by Trump, who simply rejected all projects and promised extravagances instead.
The irony is that Trump was almost completely right about this at this point: Neither 2012 nor 2016 were ideal times for spending cuts, given the slow recovery from the Great Recession and the resilience of low interest rates. But in practice, Ryan’s version of the Republican Party, with its libertarian leadership and wealthy supporters in the suburbs, was probably the last to have at least a serious attempt at tax reform, particularly on welfare. But after Trump’s transformation of the party, the task seems almost impossible: the gerontocracy is now too advanced, the Republican base is now more working class and therefore more reliant on pension programs, and the Democrats have become more entrenched on the left .
And unfortunately, now is the time when we really need some kind of fiscal adjustment the most. Even as inflation begins to decline due to overspending caused by Covid19 and pandemic disruptions, higher interest rates have dramatically changed our spending trajectory. After a long period in which low interest rates allowed the government to borrow trillions without significantly increasing its annual debt service, the interest rate on the 10year Treasury note reached 4.5% last week according to Brian Riedl of the US government There is a risk to the future. According to the Manhattan Institute, debt repayments will cost about as much each year as a second Defense Department.
ThenPresident of the United States House of Representatives Paul Ryan of the Republican Party speaks with thenPresident of the United States Donald Trump at the White House in Washington in September 2018. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP
This is a future that tends to neglect any priority other than strengthening benefits. Industrial policy? Help for families? Military spending in a multipolar world? Forget this: the money won’t be there. Populists, socialists, embattled belligerents they could all use a figure like Ryan, a SimpsonBowles commission or a repeat of deficit negotiations right now Barack ObamaJohn Boehner Really get a great deal.
What they have instead is Matt Gaetz. Who tells the truth in his own way when he criticizes the stupid style with which McCarthy tried to negotiate between his party colleagues and the Democrats, or when he told the reporters gathered at his lectures that the leaders of both parties were responsible for America’s decline. But Gaetz clearly has no plausible political vision — neither the ability to convince his party’s voters about welfare reform, nor the willingness to cut a hard bargain with Democrats even if such a move were possible. He is just using our financial crisis as a ladder; The worse the problems, the easier it is to climb.
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Aging supposedly makes people wiser, and in theory one can imagine that an aging society lacking dynamism and innovation compensates for this deficiency with the sobriety and seriousness of its leaders.
Instead, we notice weaknesses of age in our presidential candidates: the weakening of the Joe Bidenthe instability of Donald Trump to the paranoia of his potential independent rival Robert Kennedy Jr. (who, if elected, would be the second oldest American to begin a term as president).
At the same time, instead of balancing virtues, we see in our younger leaders chaotic vices that threaten to make everything they touch ungovernable: the Republican Party, the House of Representatives, and the entire country. / TRANSLATION BY GUILHERME RUSSO