Here’s Where the Tea Party’s Power Comes From

October 22, 2013Danny Vinik 2 Comments

Sam Stein and Ryan Grimm have a great article at the Huffington Post that gives the behind-the-scenes of the shutdown and debt ceiling fights. It begins with how President Obama and Harry Reid mended their relationship and decided over the summer that they were going to play hardball. Obamacare wouldn’t be touched and they wouldn’t negotiate over a government shutdown or the debt ceiling. The piece then walks through how the negotiations unfolded and Reid and McConnell eventually came to their deal.

But there’s one minor part that exemplifies why the Tea Party has so much power in the Republican Party. Here it is:

The speaker was juggling the demands of multiple factions. His moderate members had been complaining in private that the standoff was crushing them. But they hadn’t bolted, much to the delight of the conservative wing. “At one point,” a senior House GOP aide said of one caucus meeting, “Michele Bachmann stood up and thanked the moderates for standing with us.”

Remember when the moderates were fed up with the Tea Party and ready to revolt? That fizzled very quickly. We’re not talking about the mainstream conservatives here. Instead, it’s Peter King and the 20-30 other House GOPers who could have joined up with House Democrats at any time and brought an end to the shutdown. These are the members that the Tea Party is most worried about, because they can reduce the Tea Party’s power by siding with House Dems.

But this never happened. The moderates refused to betray the Tea Party, despite repeated threats. Why? It’s not entirely clear. Maybe they fear a primary challenge. Maybe they have a deep belief in caucus unity. Whatever the reason, Boehner was rightly more afraid that the Tea Party would break off and declare war on the Republican Party than the moderates would. If the moderates were willing to commit electoral suicide by starting an intra-party civil war, they would have the power to dictate the House strategy to Boehner. Time and time again we’ve seen that’s not the case. The moderates won’t wage war against the establishment. The Tea Party, on the other hand, is more than willing to do so. If they break off from the Republican Party, it will have grave electoral effects on both. Neither would survive. But the Tea Party either isn’t considering the consequences or don’t care about them. The same dynamic exists with moderate Republicans, but they care about the consequences. The Tea Party’s blind recklessness is what gives it its true power.

Is Another Round of Quantitative Easing Coming?

October 22, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Today was a special Jobs Day Tuesday as the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the September jobs report, which had been delayed due to the government shutdown. It wasn’t very good. Total non-farm payrolls increased by 148,000, which was less than the expected 180,000, while the unemployment rate dropped from 7.3% to 7.2%. The labor force participation rate remained unchanged at 63.2%. The July (-15,000) an August (+24,000) revisions combined for an increase of 9,000 jobs.This report was disappointing, but what’s even scarier is the trend lines.

Here’s the three-month moving average going back to the end of 2011:

There’s a pretty good chance that something is wrong with the way the BLS seasonally adjusts the numbers. Every winter has been much better than the following summer, but the trend is still not good. We’re into Obama’s second term and the economy is still barely growing. The reasons for this aren’t clear, but the government likely has a lot to do with it. Sequestration is terrible policy that is taking a chunk out of the economy at the wrong time. Austerity is the last thing we need right now. The expiration of the payroll tax cut at the start of this year is likely having some effect as well. And, of course, shutting down the government and risking a default is about as boneheaded as it gets. Instead of constructing policies looking to get the economy back going, the federal government (read: Republicans) have stood in its way.

The Federal Reserve has been concerned about fiscal policy and chairman Ben Bernanke has repeatedly emphasized that Congress needs to do more. Except that’s never going to happen. The question then is will the Fed do more? The economy is slowing down, not recovering. The FOMC had hinted at tapering in September, but pushed it off due to weak data and the impending fiscal fights. The market had assumed that the Fed was going to reduce its bond purchases regardless of the underlying data. By delaying the taper, the central bank attempted to regain its credibility and prove to investors that it’s data-dependent. Now, this is another test of that credibility.

This was a bad report and the economy is trending downwards. More fiscal fights loom and sequestration will be worse in 2014 than it was this year. Inflation is still running well below the Fed’s 2% target. If the Fed is really data-dependent, it will seriously think about making its policy even more accommodative either through QE4 or another mechanism.. The economy is no longer improving at a moderate pace. It’s slowing and there’s no chance that fiscal policy will help. It’s time for the Fed to pick up the slack.

Were Mainstream Conservatives To Blame for the Shutdown?

October 18, 2013Danny Vinik 2 Comments

The post-mortem of the McConnell-Reid deal to open the government and avoid a default has focused a lot on who is to blame on the Republican side. Many have laid the blame at Speaker Boehner’s feet – something I have pushed back against a number of times. House Republicans blame Senate Republicans. Senate Republicans blame Ted Cruz and Co. The Tea Party blames the establishment. The Washington Post’s Jonathan Bernstein has narrowed it down more, specifically focusing on mainstream House Republicans:

There’s plenty of blame to go around for the shutdown and debt-limit fiasco, but any account which focuses mainly on Boehner is probably letting both the moderates and the mainstream conservatives — in other words, most House Republicans — off far too easy.

Bernstein has named this group the ‘Fraidy Cat Conference:

These 175, too, are mostly paranoid about renomination, even if they want reporters to know that they’re not actually nuts. They’re the ones who drive what Boehner does. They’re the ones who have to bear the brunt of the responsibility for this shutdown. They’re the ones who are the ‘fraidy cat conference — so paranoid about renomination, and more broadly about allowing any distance to appear between themselves and the “conservatives” who they probably honestly have contempt for, that they’re willing to run their party right into a ditch.

The problem with this argument is that the ‘fraidy cat conference is right to be afraid. They have seen the power of the Tea Party and how tough primaries can be. They’re right to be paranoid about renomination.

This gets to a larger problem with diagnosing who is to blame for the shutdown. It’s important to look at the incentive structure for all of the actors involved.

Mainstream conservatives – the ‘fraidy cats – have an incentive to put as little distance as possible between themselves and the right wingers. Many are part of the “hope yes/vote no” conference that is glad the shutdown is over with and a clean CR passed, but couldn’t vote for the legislation themselves for fear of conservative blowback. I imagine that for many, this was an easy decision. Stick with the Tea Party through and through.

Like Boehner, these members had the power to end the shutdown anytime they wanted. Like Boehner, they had both individual and group incentives to keep the shutdown going until the 11th hour. Supporting the shutdown reduced the chances that these mainstream conservatives would face a primary challenge while also keeping the party unified. This point cannot be repeated enough: the GOP cannot allow a civil war to break out between the establishment and the Tea Party. It must do everything in its power to avoid that.

The reason that Boehner and the mainstream conservatives are incentivized towards making extreme demands and shutting down the government is because the Tea Party sets those incentives. The far-right members are the ones willing to jump ship from the Republican Party and commit political suicide. In doing so, they would take the Republican Party down with them. That gives them the power to set the framework of the House Republican strategy. If the Tea Party wants to fight, then Boehner and mainstream conservatives must listen. They have every incentive to do so. These are rational decisions.

The Tea Party is being irrational. They chose a strategy guaranteed to fail, forced their fellow Republicans to use those futile tactics, and caused needless suffering and economic harm. Their incentives are shaped not by outside forces, but by themselves. Yet, they decided on this radical plan to shut down the government if the president did not make drastic alterations to his greatest legislative achievement. It was bound to fail and blow up in their face. Yet, the Tea Party irrationally chose to take this route anyways.

Ultimately, they are the ones to blame.