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Douglas Holtz-Eakin disgraces himself yet again

I am really starting to wonder about Doug. Doesn't he plan to spend his life after the election - at least assuming McCain loses - in some sort of academic or intellectual setting? Does he have any inner compass of integrity left whatsoever? Are they drugging his food?

The McCain campaign has dredged up an Obama quote from 2001 that is today's new attack point. In this quote, according to Holtz-Eakin,"Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn't been more 'radical' and described as a 'tragedy' the Court's refusal to take up 'the issues of redistribution of wealth.'"

Let's go to the videotape. Overall in the quote, Obama, in his own words, "look[s] at the victories and the failures of the Civil Rights movement and its litigation strategy in the Court."

Obama continues: "[T]he Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical, it didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties ..."

Holtz-Eakin Lie Number One now stands revealed. Obama describes the Supreme Court as not "radical" in a certain sense. He is not expressing his regret. Indeed, he sees the Court's unwillingness to venture into wealth redistribution as reflecting the "essential constraints" placed on its role.

Obama then continues: "And one of the I think the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that."

Holtz-Eakin Lie Number Two now stands revealed. The "tragedy" identified by Obama is that people in the Civil Rights movement were too court-focused, when the political realm is where they should have pursued their social and economic objectives.

Holtz-Eakin further asserts in his interview that this proves that Obama wants to take money "away from people who work for it" and give it to people "Obama believes deserve it."

Here the dishonesty becomes more subtle. Has Holtz-Eakins ever heard of this thing called optimal income taxation? (It's only the dominant intellectual tradition in his field, public economics, for the past thirty years.) Does he oppose all redistribution? What is his baseline for judging whether there is redistribution? Does he support a uniform head tax? Etcetera.

I am disappointed by Holtz-Eakin's lack of intellectual scruples and honor. He can do what he likes to his own good name, but he is also trashing that of his entire profession.

Full post as published by Start Making Sense on October 27, 2008 (boomark / email).