[Cthulhu D]

http://www.nytimes.c...ness-world.html

Good article, and neatly illustrative of the problem. If you're saying that 40% of consumption sitting with 5% is reasonable - or to put it in pragmatic terms the top 5% consume 11 times as much as the remaining 95%, you have a recipe for disaster. If the trend of the last 20 years continues, you'll soon be facing more income inequality than France in 1780 in the next 20 years.

That can only go well.

[kenberg]

The recent CBO comments on the ACA have drawn some discussion. I looked up the report, here is the stuff, from appendix C, about the effect on the labor market.

Full report at
http://www.cbo.gov/s...Outlook2014.pdf
I comment briefly after the quoted passage..

Note: Cutting and pasting from the pdf proved a little tough on formatting, I did my best.

Quote

APPENDIXCBO2C

Labor Market Effects of the Affordable Care Act: Updated Estimates

Overview

The baseline economic projections developed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) incorporate the agency's estimates of the future effects of federal policies under current law. The agency updates those projections regularly to account for new information and analysis regarding federal fiscal policies and many other influences on the economy. In preparing economic projections for the February 2014 baseline, CBO has updated its estimates of the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on labor markets.1The ACA includes a range of provisions that will take full effect over the next several years and that will influence the supply of and demand for labor through various channels. For example, some provisions will raise effective tax rates on earnings from labor and thus will reduce the amount of labor that some workers choose to supply. In particular, the health insurance subsidies that the act provides to some people will be phased out as their income rises—creating an implicit tax on additional earnings—whereas for other people, the act imposes higher taxes on labor income directly. The ACA also will exert conflicting pressures on the quantity of labor that employers demand, primarily during the next few years.
How Much Will the ACA Reduce Employment in the Longer Term?
The ACA's largest impact on labor markets will probably occur after 2016, once its major provisions have taken full effect and overall economic output nears its maxi-mum sustainable level. CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive. Because the largest declines in labor supply will probably occur among lower-wage workers, the reduction in aggregate compensation (wages, salaries, and fringe benefits) and the impact on the overall economy will be proportionally smaller than the reduction in hours worked. Specifically, CBO estimates that the ACA will cause a reduction of roughly 1 percent in aggregate labor compensation over the 2017–2024 period, compared with what it would have been otherwise. Although such effects are likely to continue after 2024 (the end of the current 10-year budget window), CBO has not estimated their magnitude or duration over a longer period.The reduction in CBO's projections of hours worked represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024. Although CBO projects that total employment (and compensation) will increase over the coming decade, that increase will be smaller than it would have been in the absence of the ACA. The decline in full-time-equivalent employment stemming from the ACA will consist of some people not being employed at all and other people working fewer hours; however, CBO has not tried to quantify those two components of the overall effect. The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week). CBO's estimate that the ACA will reduce employment reflects some of the inherent trade-offs involved in designing such legislation. Subsidies that help lower-income people purchase an expensive product like health insurance must be relatively large to encourage a significant proportion of eligible people to enroll. If those subsidies are phased out with rising income in order to limit their total costs, the phaseout effectively raises people's marginal tax rates (the tax rates applying to their last dollar of income), thus discouraging work. In addition, if the subsidies are financed at least in part by higher taxes, those taxes will further discourage work or create other economic distortions, depending on how the taxes are designed. Alternatively, if subsidies are not phased out or eliminated with rising income, then the increase in taxes required to finance the subsidies would be much larger.CBO's estimate of the ACA's impact on labor markets is subject to substantial uncertainty, which arises in part because many of the ACA's provisions have never been implemented on such a broad scale and in part because available estimates of many key responses vary considerably. CBO seeks to provide estimates that lie in the middle of the distribution of potential outcomes, but the actual effects could differ notably from those estimates. For example, if fewer people obtain subsidized insurance coverage through exchanges than CBO expects, then the effects of the ACA on employment would be smaller than CBO estimates in this report. Alternatively, if more people obtain subsidized coverage through exchanges, then the impact on the labor market would be
smaller than CBO estimates in this report. Alternatively, if more people obtain subsidized coverage through exchanges, then the impact on the labor market would be larger.
Why Will Those Reductions Be Smaller in the Short Term?
CBO estimates that the ACA will cause smaller declines in employment over the 2014–2016 period than in later years, for three reasons. First, fewer people will receive subsidies through health insurance exchanges in that period, so fewer people will face the implicit tax that results when higher earnings reduce those subsidies. Second, CBO expects the unemployment rate to remain higher than normal over the next few years, so more people will be applying for each available job—meaning that if some people seek to work less, other applicants will be readily available to fill those positions and the overall effect on employment will be muted. Third, the ACA's subsidies for health insurance will both stimulate demand for health care services and allow low-income households to redirect some of the funds that they would have spent on that care toward the purchase of other goods and services—thereby increasing overall demand. That increase in overall demand while the economy remains somewhat weak will induce some employers to hire more workers or to increase the hours of current employees during that period.

What to make of this? I don't find it easy to grasp. I am prepared to stipulate that
a. The ACA is intended to do good
b. The CBO report is an an honest attempt at accurate assessment

It seems to me that both a. and b. are very difficult to achieve.
I see this report as indicating areas of concern, not as a devastating assessment of the ACA. But definitely a concern..

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on 2014-February-05, 14:29, said:

I see this report as indicating areas of concern, not as a devastating assessment of the ACA. But definitely a concern..

Why do you consider this a concern?

This was a predictable and predicted outcome for the Affordable Care Act.

Prior to the ACA, it was incredible difficult for individuals - especially those approaching retirement age - to purchase affordable insurance on the private market.

The ACA lowered the cost of insurance which means that people can retire earlier.
The ACA breaks the link between employment and insurance which means that people aren't locked into jobs they might otherwise want to leave.

This is a feature, not a bug.

Andrew Sullivan (a conservative) has collected a lot of good coverage of the CBO report.

http://dish.andrewsu...nomic-check-up/

[blackshoe]

I don't think it's a "devastating assessment". I do take from what you quoted that the CBO expects that the ACA will result in more people deciding to "opt out" of the work force - because the ACA will encourage them to do so. In the short run (CBO's outlook is limited to the next ten years) that may be okay. What about the long run? Is anybody looking at that? (Yes, I know that the farther out you try to make predictions the less likely they are to be accurate.)

[kenberg]

An excerpt, indicating an area of concern:

Quote

How Much Will the ACA Reduce Employment in the Longer Term?
The ACA's largest impact on labor markets will probably occur after 2016, once its major provisions have taken full effect and overall economic output nears its maximum sustainable level. CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive.

What exactly should we make of this? Is it not a concern if we might be setting things up to discourage work? Yes, I do understand that a person who is making a very low wage should be given a larger wage. That would be a good idea. But meanwhile...
Here, in a nutshell, is how I was brought up: I was expected to be able to support myself. Nothing was ever said about going to college, if anything my father thought it weird and my mother accepted it as being just the way I was, no accounting for what the kid will come up with. But self-supporting? Absolutely essential. I still see things this way, and any program that might discourage a person from that goal is of concern to me.

Yes, I realize that now, at age 75, my income is mostly from social security and from a generous pension. I work a little, mostly because I enjoy it. Actually, my retirement at 65 was more than a little bit due to some rules regarding pensions that had the effect of making it only very slightly, if at all, profitable financially to continue working. A guy who worked well into his 70s wrote an article for our faculty journal after he figured out his pension would have been larger if he has retired earlier. (I can understand skepticism here. If you take your pension for your self, working longer makes it larger. If you have a spouse, especially a younger spouse, and want her supported after your death, there are some actuarial features that come into play and it gets tricky if you plan to live for a while. There are other features as well.) I thought and still think that this is a rather stupid way to set things up.

Anyway, if the CBO report is at all suggesting that someone, much younger than 65, might rationally decide to work less to protect his benefits, I am concerned.

[mike777]

My main point is that CBO predictions are crap...really crap.


As a side note many believe that tax payers supporting people who can work and chose to work less is a good thing.

Again as a side note.....that fact that some people who can work are working less and supported by those who do work is a good thing.

But the really big main point is cbo predictions are junk.

[Mbodell]

kenberg, on 2014-February-05, 18:59, said:

Anyway, if the CBO report is at all suggesting that someone, much younger than 65, might rationally decide to work less to protect his benefits, I am concerned.

It isn't to "protect benefits". It is because the old choices were "die, or near death, or bankruptcy from no health care coverage VS work full time at a job that you'd rather not do that you are locked into because it is the only way you can get health insurance" and the new choice is "pay for health insurance at a more reasonable rate because the pool of risk of non-employment linked insurance is more robust VS work full time at a job that you'd rather not do that you are locked into because it is the only way you can get health insurance". This lets people do things like work 80% or 50% time as they get older, or have family to look after, or whatever and not be as concerned that they lose employer provided health insurance. Or quit a dead end job and try starting their own business with better access to health insurance.

If you want to see graphs explaining how this could work, see here.

The same report of the CBO predicts that we'll have 13 million fewer uninsured people, btw. That is worth remembering too.

[mike777]

you are told over and over again cbo is junk yet posters want to ...yearn to ......


This tells us that we are bias and we want to show you we are correct. we are not wrong

[kenberg]

Two related aspects:
a. What does the cbo say?
b.Should we trust it?

a. They say, verbatim, " almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive." Surely this means that some workers will choose to work less than full time based on the provisions of the ACA. If "working less than full time to protect their benefits" sounds wrong, leave it as "working less than full time based on the provisions of the ACA". I don't think there is a dime's worth of difference in the two formulations so the latter is fine. I regard this as cause for concern. As mentioned, not a devastating indictment, but cause for concern.

b. Is it, as Mike says, crap? I would say "compared to what?". My understanding of the cbo is that they do not purposely shade their analyses to favor Paul Ryan or to favor Barack Obama. That doesn't mean that they are right. Prediction, most especially economic prediction, is difficult. They are revising previous predictions, they may not, probably don't, have it all correct now either.


Every political party needs to think about why they lose some of the votes that they would not expect to lose. Why on earth would a working class guy vote Republican? I think I can give the Democratic Party a clue. In my early days I worked many different jobs. On one, I worked nine hours a day M-F, almost always nine hours on Saturday at time and a half, and often nine hours on Sunday at double the hourly rate. Tell a guy doing that that that you have no problem with the ACA providing a structure that encourages people to cut down to 32 hours or so a week and you have created a Republican voter. I strongly suggest that their advisers give this fact some thought.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on 2014-February-06, 07:46, said:

b. Is it, as Mike says, crap? I would say "compared to what?". My understanding of the cbo is that they do not purposely shade their analyses to favor Paul Ryan or to favor Barack Obama. That doesn't mean that they are right. Prediction, most especially economic prediction, is difficult. They are revising previous predictions, they may not, probably don't, have it all correct now either.

Indeed, that is the key question.

It would be nice if Mike would indicate some group that is

1. Trying to do the same job
2. Providing more accurate results

In the case the CBO, they are chartered with providing guidance on (virtually) any question that a congressman chooses to pose. I readily agree that they don't have a perfect track record, but as Niels Bohr famously said ""Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future".

It's easy to find examples where the CBO made a mistake, however, their analysis is very well respected on both sides of the aisle.


(Personally, I find it a little rich to that Mike777, who can barely string together a coherent paragraph half the time, has a gall to complain about other people's work)

[Winstonm]

What the CBO report showed is the under the ACA many (I would guess low-earning) workers will exercise a choice to work less hours.

The crux of an argument that would be supported by this data would be that the ACA discourages work due to the expansion of governmental safety net. However, another way to view this same argument is that the ACA allows workers more choices about what they do.

Myself, I think the ACA is better than the old system, but it is quite imperfect and has been hurt by the SC ruling that allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion and the continued losing-battle opposition by the right to overturn the entire idea rather than attempting to improve current law.

Regardless, the numbers of people in the CBO report is not a serious threat to capitalism - the CBO report also found no shortage of workers would occur due to the ACA.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2014-February-06, 07:46, said:

Why on earth would a working class guy vote Republican? I think I can give the Democratic Party a clue.

Indeed. One could argue that perhaps the most cost-effective spending the Dems could do while in power would be to double (or more) the education funding, particularly for Southern States, while simultaneously banning such wonderful initiatives as teaching Creationism in science classes as fact. Most people seem to vote for who they do because their parents did, or because that is just what everyone does (vote for the winner), or they belong to an organisation (such as a church or union) that says they should, or just for plain personal reasons (nice eyes or whatever). It is such a small percentage of the elcetorate that actually calculates under which policies they will be better off as to be almost negligible. Add to that how notoriously difficult it is to get any half-intelligent policy across and you can see why a simple message such as "we won't take your money" resonates so well even when the end effect is that they are really taking much more of your money than the other guys.

[HighLow21]

Winstonm, on 2014-February-06, 08:41, said:

What the CBO report showed is the under the ACA many (I would guess low-earning) workers will exercise a choice to work less hours.

The crux of an argument that would be supported by this data would be that the ACA discourages work due to the expansion of governmental safety net. However, another way to view this same argument is that the ACA allows workers more choices about what they do.

....

Lost in all this is the fact that Americans currently work way more hours per week, on average, than most (if not all?) other first-world nations. What the ACA will do is to help some of the people who are working ridiculous amounts because they have to--just to get by--to curtail that somewhat. Isn't this a good thing?

It also makes it easier for people to switch jobs, making the labor force more fluid, which is unquestionably a good thing for ANY free market advocate.

[Winstonm]

HighLow21, on 2014-February-07, 11:38, said:

It also makes it easier for people to switch jobs, making the labor force more fluid, which is unquestionably a good thing for ANY free market advocate.

These free marketers are more anti-government activists than free market supporters - they are still pretending to be fighting the cold war and they preach the evils of socialism.

They are so driven by their ideology that they display an instant knee-jerk reaction to anything that hints of government involvement, which is why these same types of ideologically-driven people tried to destroy the science and scientists who proved the cancer link to tobacco, the coal link to acid rain, and who are now fighting tooth and nail to disavow climate change as man-made.

[awm]

The examples (and I know people in both these situations) are something like:

1. Young married couple with small children. The husband is self-employed and the wife has a job teaching high school. The wife would like to take a few years off to take care of the kids. From a financial standpoint, the wife's salary barely covers the cost of child care plus the increased taxes from the second income, and it would certainly be better for the kids to have their mom at home instead of a full-time nanny. However, prior to ACA the family would not have health insurance if the wife did this. If someone in the family had a pre-existing condition, they could not get insurance on the private market at all (the husband's income is sufficient that they do not qualify for medicaid)! Even if they could get insurance it would be prohibitively expensive. After ACA, the various guarantees and subsidies make sure that the wife can quit her job to take care of the kids, and we have reduced the size of the workforce...

2. Man in his early sixties. He has saved enough to cover a modest retirement, and would like to transition to working part time instead of full-time. However, prior to ACA this would mean he loses health insurance through his employer and is one serious illness from bankruptcy. He's still a few years away from Medicare and purchasing insurance at his age on the individual market was prohibitive even if he had no significant health issues. After ACA, insurers can only age-discriminate to a limited degree (I recall hearing a factor of three) and thus this fellow can work part-time instead of full-time, and again we have reduced the size of the workforce...

Note that in our current situation with three applicants for every job, allowing these people to stop/cut down on their work opens up opportunities for other job seekers. So not only are the individual people happier, but currently unemployed workers can find jobs.

This seems like a totally good thing. Note that the people indicated are not really "lazy people getting by on government subsidies" -- they're people who (through savings or a spouse's income) can really afford not to work.. except for the health insurance issue.

[PassedOut]

awm, on 2014-February-07, 17:26, said:

Note that in our current situation with three applicants for every job, allowing these people to stop/cut down on their work opens up opportunities for other job seekers. So not only are the individual people happier, but currently unemployed workers can find jobs.

Yes. For this reason alone, I'm puzzled why anyone would fret about the effect of the ACA on employment. The other positive factors are icing on the cake.

[kenberg]

Perhaps this is a nationwide Rorschach test. We all bring our own experiences and ideals to bear.

My first though on reading Adam's 2nd example was that if a guy has to continue full time work until he is 65 that's hardly such a tragic event that we need a government program to deal with it. BUt then I thought back. My father was self-employed, had a stroke at age 52, recovered enough to go back to work, but faced a new problem as he hit 60 or do. Technological changes were making him somewhat, not totally but noticeably, obsolete. That can be tough for anyone, tougher for a 60 year old, tougher still for a 60 year old who really has not totally regained his abilities. I'm sure that this sort of technological shock is more frequent now than it was then (my father was born in 1900 so I "then means maybe 1960 until he died in 1977). Now in his case he didn't lose insurance, he never had it to lose, but things were different then. So yes, I can see advantages for the ACA here.


It's Adam's example number 1 that particularly strikes me, and it is something I have much thought about. Life is not altogether better for the ordinary guy now compared to how it was when I was growing up. For example, my father, with his eight grade education, decent skills, solid work habits, could support a family. I am not at all saying with this that women should quit work and go home and keep house, but yes I agree that it was a nice thing to have a mother at home when I got back from school, at least in my younger years. We seem to have a double whammy today. Far more single parents, and much less ability for one working parent to adequately support a household . If I could have one wish, I think it would be that we could fix it so that a typical worker could make enough to support a family at a modest but adequate level. People could choose. Perhaps one parent works and the other cares for the kids, maybe also working at a less demanding job. Or both parents work and make suitable arrangements for the kids. Or, although I don't really advise it, a woman decides, as in Kiss Me, Kate, that "Husbands are a boring lot and only give you bother", and decides to raise her kids on her own. Not in poverty.

But I am dreaming.

[y66]

Rick Ungar's take on the CBO projections:

Quote

While the CBO report remains theoretical—with absolutely no certainty that this problem will ever come to pass—we ought to be wrapping our heads around the question of how we can give effect to the benefits of subsidies without incentivizing people not to work because they come out ahead when they stay home.

Naturally, the first reaction of Obamacare opponents will be to seize on the data as further proof that the law must be repealed—something that simply is not going to happen and does little more than represent the same overreaction to which we’ve all grown accustomed.

However, Obamacare supporters who choose to “hype” the fact that the law is not projected, per the CBO, to reduce employment availability but rather creates choice among workers to increase or decrease hours worked depending on their financial circumstances, also make a mistake.

The right answer is to do what we have always done with complicated laws—make changes to adjust and improve the law as things play out.

By suggesting that the CBO projections constitute good news that allows Americans to spend more time with their families on the taxpayer dime, the White House is electing to simply play politics as usual. By pursuing yet another vote seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act as a result of this data or simply talking more trash, the law’s opponents will also be playing politics as usual, producing nothing to actually address a problem in need of a realistic solution.

At some point, the political games need to come to an end so that the ACA can be improved to meet the needs and wants of the American public and not just those who enjoy raising their voices in anger and indignation or the politicians who think they know a good campaign issue when they see one.

Working to solve the issue raised by the CBO report might be a very good place to begin when it comes to working through problems with the law as opposed to simply calling for the end of Obamacare—particularly when nothing has been put forward that will do a better job to resolve our healthcare issues.

[kenberg]

Quote

While the CBO report remains theoretical—with absolutely no certainty that this problem will ever come to pass—we ought to be wrapping our heads around the question of how we can give effect to the benefits of subsidies without incentivizing people not to work because they come out ahead when they stay home.

If this eminently sensible view takes hold I will be very happy.

[y66]

Quote

Why on earth would a working class guy vote Republican?

From When blue-collar pride became identity politics by Joan Walsh:

Quote

The great political failure of the 1960s was the New Left’s inability to bring the labor movement into its great liberationist tent. There were lots of reasons for that, one of them being that most big union leaders didn’t want to be in that stinky tent with a lot of hippies, feminists, dashiki-wearing black militants and “fags.” (That last comes from AFL-CIO leader George Meany’s description of the New York delegation to the disastrous 1972 Democratic convention: “They’ve got six open fags and only three AFL-CIO representatives!”) Also, not a small matter: The New Left opposed the Vietnam War; again, most labor leaders supported it.

Still, the inability to forge a political movement that was as much about class as race and gender rights haunts the United States today. We saw the shadows of that struggle even in the 2008 presidential campaign, as supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded charges of “racism” and “sexism,” but few paid attention to the increasing openness of white working-class voters, especially men, to pick a Democrat again in a time of profound economic crisis. We see it today in the hostility of many Democrats, and the resistance of the Obama administration, to backing aggressive government action to address the continuing unemployment disaster. The decline of the labor movement hobbled the Democratic Party, and so far nothing has come along to replace it, to represent the great majority of Americans who are disadvantaged by the ever-increasing power of corporate America and the wealthy.

If you want to understand how we got here — how the Democrats’ New Deal coalition shattered in the 1970s, and why progressives are still picking the shrapnel out of their political hides — you must read Jefferson Cowie’s “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class.” If you missed the 1970s entirely, or only remember it as a child or teen (as I do), you’ll learn a lot. If you lived through it, you might come to think about it all very differently — the missed opportunities, and what they say about our own time. Plus, this isn’t an eat-your-spinach review, it’s a fun read with cultural insight that makes connections I hadn’t, from “Saturday Night Fever” to “Dog Day Afternoon,” Bruce Springsteen to Devo.

Quote

Walsh speaking with Tom Geoghegan:

Walsh: I’ve come to see the Tea Party as identity politics for white people. But you make me realize that long ago, the Republican Party became identity politics for white working-class men, it was the place where their grievances were paid attention to … well, their cultural grievances, at least. It’s amazing the whole way Nixon manages to co-opt so many of them while doing relatively little economically.

Geoghegan: And so consciously, too.

He was really smart!

He really was … he’s my favorite character in all political history.

Really?

Yeah, he’s so fascinating. Actually, I got a course evaluation once that said, “Great teacher,” blah blah blah, “but he’s got kind of a Nixon problem.”

It was Nixon’s great insight that you could pull a coalition together not about what we want, but what we don’t want … not “I have a dream,” but “I have a grudge.”

Who hates whom. (laughs)

Who hates whom, it’s the foundation of modern politics.

Talk about the cultural stuff you found in the ’70s, walk us through “Saturday Night Fever” and even Springsteen, who later takes back responsibility for representing the working class. But the Springsteen who became popular in 1975 is the guy who’s gonna leave it all behind. The dreams you see projected on working-class people … their only solution is to escape.

Well, since Mark Twain people have been getting out, “lighting out for the territories.” But it was never with such a vengeance. There was never such a difference between the chosen ones and those who were left behind. And you clearly see that with “Born to Run.” But what’s new and different is the degree to which the communities they’re leaving are relegated to the past. You never find out what’s going to happen to those guys.

Yeah. It’s not going to end well, and you’re not really supposed to care.

It becomes much more about hero, spectacle, if you compare it to, say, Frank Capra movies of the ’30s and ’40s; it’s a very different world. The community is there, but there’s also the hero.

There the hero is saving the community.

Exactly.

So let’s talk about the present, which is not that much more inspiring.

I keep thinking the pendulum has swung far enough on these issues on race that we can get back to talking about the economy, or infrastructure, and jobs, and healthcare, which would really bring together a broad coalition of working people. But it is unbelievable how toxic race can be. If you look at all the crazy stuff — the Obama birther stuff is still alive out there, the Obama Muslim stuff, and then, of course, immigration. I think Nixon laid the paradigm for politics of fear and divisiveness. I think the ’70s really are the paradigm for the current age. Just like the ’30s created the paradigm for the postwar era, the ’70s created the paradigm for the next decades. And I think part of writing this book for me was trying to lay that out so we can get it behind us.

I kept being struck by parallels between the ’70s and today. You had 1974, Democrats are swept in by Watergate and hatred of Nixon; compare that to 2006, where Democrats surge thanks to Bush loathing and the reaction against the Iraq war. Two years later — in ’76 and ’08 — you elect a rather centrist Democrat. You have this line in the book about Carter winning because he made inroads with Republicans, because there was still a Republican backlash against Nixon. And I think that was true of Obama — he had this fiction that he was going to create “Obamacans,” and he did bring over some Republicans — but it was because of the anti-Bush backlash, and a lot of them are now going back. I don’t know what they’re going back to; John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are no more inspiring than Bush, but these voters were culturally and politically Republican, and they’re now ditching Obama. So I see these 1974-76/2006-08 parallels, in terms of the Democrats benefiting from the Republicans’ screw-ups, but not being able to consolidate their gains.

Yeah. And also, then, choosing to play on their terrain. I think there’s an almost unconscious sense that, OK, we got away with something here, we got elected, so we gotta be really careful. The Democrats seem to have been playing on the Republicans’ playing field for the last generation, rather than trying to say, “OK, here’s our agenda. Here’s what we do … if we’re going to fail, let’s fail on our agenda rather than their agenda!” Because Republicans are always going to do their agenda better. I think that haunts us.