지속되는 미국 적자 : 정치체제의 문제

1. 지속되는 미국 적자: 정치체제의 문제  David Webber Visiting Professor, Ewha Womans University Department of Political Science University of Missouri

2. America’s Enduring Deficit Problem: The Political System is the Problem David Webber Visiting Professor, Ewha Womans University Department of Political Science University of Missouri

3. Three graphs that haunt me

4. 1. U.S. Federal Budget Gap

5. 2. OECD Countries Debt Source: OECD Economic Outlook No. 94 (database)

6. 3. Korea’s growing debt Source: www.tradingeconomics.com/ Ministry of Strategy and Finance, South Korea

7. My Primary Point Most of our public problems are governance problems. We know how to get to the moon and how to cure many diseases but we do not know how to design a durable, effective, equitablepolitical system that yields sustainable policies.

8. My secondary point Economists and political scientists have NOT helped solve this problem.

9. My background My specialty is American public policy, especially -economic, -education, and -environmental policies. My training: 1. Mainstream economics -rational actors, pro free market. 2. American political institutions -rational individual behavior.

10. A Quick List of Policy Problems • Budget Deficit—persistent since 1969 in US • Economic stagnation—high unemployment • Health Care –high costs, questionable impact • Economic Inequality—increasing • Financial regulation and pension liability • K-12 Education—low performance • Higher education—more costly, less accessible • Infrastructure –poor condition • Military responsibility and preparation • Global climate change

11. Underlying all these problems is our unquestioned belief that we are a great democracy “A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, November 19,1863.

12. Much of U.S. political history is about individual libertyand freedom NOT how to make better policy decisions. Compare 1. USA’s “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” with 2. Canada’s “peace, order and good government.”

13. Underlying cause is “procedural democracy.” Focus is on parts of the political process with little attention given to soundness of policy outcomes. Specific instances of dominance of “procedural democracy.” 1. Citizen voting is central focus of participation. 2. Elected officials fill the role they hold—not “public good.” 3. Time horizon is next budget or next bill or next year. 4. Getting enough votes is the goal.

14. Flaws in the American democraticprocess. 1. Don’t need a majority. . . to rule. 2. Concentrated benefits recipients usually always beat unorganized cost bearers. 3. Even informed voters don’t know who to hold accountable.

15. The majority rules—right? Suppose there are five city council districts with five voters each. Voters District 1 X X X X X District 2 X X X X X District 3 X X X X X District 4 X X X X X District 5 X X X X X So a majority is 25/2 or 12.5 so 13

16. Wrong, you only need 9 out of 25 You only need to get the support of three voters to win a district. District 1 X X XXX District 2 X X X X X District 3 X X X X X Don’t need to win any of Districts 4 and 5 District 4 X X X X X District 5 X X X X X So NINE voters out of 25 (or 36 percent) will give you majority rule on the city council (this happens often).

17. Source: James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, THE CALCULUS OF CONSENT Published in 1962.

18. Quick Review of Recent U.S Events • Federal Budget Outlays greater than Revenues for all but four years since 1969 (as seen in Table at the beginning). 2. Federal government shutdown October 2013. 3. Financial Meltdown September 2008. 4. Large military and security operations Post 9/11. 5. Fundamental social change about debt and savings over past 40-50 years (1960s is a good landmark both for government debt and increased public consumption).

19. Single Most Important Fact Since 1969 Average Federal Spending 21% of GDP Average Federal Taxing 18 % of GDP Average debt each year 3 % of GDP

20. Result of These U.S. Events and Practices • Slow Economic Growth • High unemployment • Continued large public deficits, some stabilizing of private debt. But there have been benefits, too • International security • Less pollution, safer roads • More diversity in education • Increased life expectancy –but not the best in the world.

21. Large debt is bad; uncontrolled debt is worse • Intergenerational aspect (but previous debt funded roads, schools, and freedom). 2. Limits options, a specific concern is the impact on foreign policy of foreign-held debt. • Crowding out of private investment and other worthy projects. Keynesian economic theory prescribed “balancing the budget over the length of the business cycle.”

22. My explanation for how we got here Four different perspectives, all going the same directions. 1. Budget deficit as a tragedy of the commons Garret Hardin “The Tragedy of the Commons,” SCIENCE 1968. “freedom in the commons brings ruin to all.’

23. 2. Keynes was a bad political scientist: democracies can easily run deficits in bad times, but have trouble running surpluses in good times. Buchanan and Wagner, DEMOCRACY IN DEFICIT, 1977.

24. 3. ElinorOstrom, GOVERNING THE COMMONS, 1990, argues trust and communication are the key.

25. 4. Mancur Olson, THE RISE AND DECLINE OF NATIONS, 1982, argues growth of special interests clog the policy process.

26. Lots of plans • More than 20 federal budget deficit reduction plans. Simpson-Bowles (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) is probably the best known. It was a bipartisan commission proposing $4 trillion of revenue increases and expenditure cuts last December 2010. • Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) may be the single most influential member of Congress on deficit reduction. His BACK IN BLACK proposal lists $9 trillion of reductions.

27. Flaws in the U.S. Political System That Caused the National Debt • Two senators per state—this is a huge distortion of preferences. Seventeen percent of population reside in 26 smallest states; 11 percent in 21 smallest states. • Presidential nominating process and Electoral College • Legislative redistricting in the states have eliminated “competitive districts.” 4. Government-Industrial complex. 5. Increased use of the filibuster in Senate (60 votes required to do about anything). 6 Increased polarization in politics (“No tax increase pledges”, 24/7 news, loss of civility).

28. What Can Be Done • Public interested citizen education. http://www.federalbudgetchallenge.org/pages/overview 2. Internationally-imposed financial standards. 3. Inter-state compacts on debt reduction similar to environmental efforts or those leading to the uniform commercial code.

29. What I expect We will muddle along resulting in economic transitions, 1.changed home ownership, 2 decaying infrastructure, 3. changed families, 4. and more social problems. Fundamental constitutional change is not possible in the U.S. We need Constitution 2.0.

30. Two political scientists I suggest • Daniel A. Bell, political theorist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. • DohChull Shin, former University of Missouri colleague, now at University of California, Irvine.

31. Daniel A. Bell director of the Center for International and Comparative Political Philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing

32. Choosing Confucianism: Departing from the Liberal Framework

34. The End

35. Is Democracy Possible? Bruce Gilley “Is Democracy Possible?” JOURNAL OF DEMOCRACY 2009 Democracy is NOT Possible because So replace with CRITICS ON THE LEFT • Propaganda Mass Party Rule • Power difference between elites and masses Worker rule • Social exclusion • Agenda control Direct citizen rule CRITICS ON THE RIGHT • Citizen stupidity Markets • Citizen ignorance Expert guardians • Aggregation problems Weighted voting

36. To be sure there are lots of causes to U.S. current problems 1. Poorly performing education system 2. More suburbanization with public needs 3. Increased health care costs 4. Aging population 5. Aging sewer and road infrastructure will create future demands on government spending. 6. Globalization