Most pundits are crediting this U-turn to the political muscle of the Tea Party and it’s true that President Obama would never have agreed to this deal if the Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives hadn’t engaged in the brinkmanship of the past few weeks. But to focus on the Tea Party is to ignore the tectonic political shift that’s taken place, not just in America but across Europe. The majority of citizens in nearly all the world’s most developed countries simply aren’t prepared to tolerate the degree of borrowing required to sustain generous welfare programmes any longer.Well, perhaps Britain needs a tea party, although that would be historically incongruous.
As I pointed out in a blog post last May, tax-and-spend Left-wing parties have fared poorly in election after election over the past two years:Labour was punished by the British electorate last year, polling its lowest share of the vote since 1983, but not as severely as the Social Democrats were by the Swedes, polling their lowest share of the vote since universal suffrage was introduced in 1921…For believers in redistributive taxation and egalitarian social programmes like David Miliband, Obama was the last great hope. Here was a centre left politician capable of building the kind of electoral coalition that underpinned the massive expansions of state power in Britain and America, from Attlee’s post-war Labour Government to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. That is, a coalition of the white working class, minorities and middle class liberals. Yet in spite of sweeping to power in 2008 and ensuring the Democrats won in both the House and the Senate, Obama has proved unable to sustain that coalition. Last night’s debt deal represents the moment when he acknowledged that trying to maintain the levels of public spending required to fund ambitious welfare programmes is political suicide. Which is why the deal has been greated with cries of impotent rage by the British Left.
The same picture emerges wherever you look. In the European election in June, 2009, the Left took a hammering. In Germany, the Social Democrats polled just 20 per cent of the vote, their worst result since the Second World War. In France, the Socialist Party only mustered 16.5 per cent, its lowest share of the vote in a European election since 1994. In Italy, the Democrats polled 26.1 per cent, seven percentage points less than they received at the last Italian election. As David Miliband pointed out in a recent lecture: “Left parties are losing elections more comprehensively than ever before. They are fragmenting at just the time the Right is uniting. I don’t believe this is some kind of accident.”
More at the link (via Memeorandum). See also Damian Thompson, "'Obama has betrayed us!' wails Britain's trendy Left."
I’m wondering about another story. Private workers are now less union organized and seldom have defined benefit pensions. Public employees not only have pensions but can retire early. These pensions are annuities that cost over $1 million if purchased from an insurer at the time of retirement.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it’s just “common labor” that is refusing to carry “privileged labor” in the face of fiscal restraints. New Jersey may be showing us what is happening. Christie was able to ally with a Democrat in the legislature that is or was the head of a private union. And this is in traditionally Democratic New Jersey.
Market constraints can limit “common labor” but government “privileged labor” has had no recession nor, until now, any limits. Perhaps we don't want to become France or Greece.
But the Brits have the EDL. Oh wait. Are they not supposed to be terrorists also? I am sure Biden would think so.
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