Debating
the Heritage Foundation
 |
Stephen
Moore, conservative economist
who doesn’t understand Rhode Island.
|
Stephen
Moore, the Royal Economist at
the Heritage Foundation came to town last Saturday, to debate me in an event
sponsored by the Rhode
Island Center for Freedom, Prosperity, and Apple Pie. Was it an
educational experience? Well, possibly.
I
did learn, for example, that Moore knows pretty much nothing about Rhode Island
politics, economics, the history of its manufacturing sector, or even the
legislative history of the past 25 years.
And
he admits it, too, though he very much wants our state to take his advice. For
example, he made repeated references to the way we “demonize” business owners
and tax them at high rates without being able to be specific about what he
meant, or to contradict the long list I gave him of tax cuts for rich people we
have enacted over the past 20 years. In fact, the number of broad-based tax
increases enacted by the state legislature since 1993 is zero, while taxes were
cut for rich people in 1996, 1998, 2001 (twice), 2005, 2006 and 2010.
Moore
even repeated the right-wing shibboleth that raising the minimum wage will make
unemployment rise. Now of course he has to claim that, or else go back on years
of his writing. Still, it’s an odd thing to baldly make the claim in a state
where the minimum wage went up in January and the unemployment rate has just
ticked down, a month or two later.
Do
I think those are cause and effect? No, not simply, but it is at least
consistent with the effects I predict for an increase in the minimum wage. It
seems to me that there is a heavier burden on the person who claims that the
future will be exactly the opposite of what happened just last month, but Moore
does not appear to see it that way.
Despite
both his ignorance of our state and utter disregard for the evidence Sam and I
did present, Moore happily claimed that yet more tax cuts for rich people —
doing away with the estate tax, or even better, the income tax — are the cure
for what ails our state. Late in the debate, he fell back on the claim commonly
used by people who can’t win on the facts: “perception can become
reality.” As if the only rational way to address the misperception of
business magazine editors and conservative economists is for the state to
sacrifice a billion dollars of revenue.
He
further insisted that we needed to do something “bold” and suggested Rhode
Island should become a “right to work” state. He blamed our loss of
manufacturing on unions, though of course our state’s biggest lost
manufacturing sectors (textiles, plastics, costume jewelry) were not heavily
unionized.
Beyond
this, there is a decent body of evidence to suggest that Rhode Island’s
economic troubles stem mainly from underpaying its lowest-paid workers, but
time limitations and the moderator prevented me from presenting that evidence.
(It is, however, described in my book, “Ten
Things You Don’t Know About Rhode Island” a copy of which I inscribed and gave
to Moore since he so obviously needed it.) But all the other evidence I
presented was ignored, so I don’t see that Moore’s side of the debate suffered
much for this.
So
in the end, what do we learn? That Steve Moore, and those who enable him,
such as the Center for Apple Pie that sponsored this debate, care very little
for evidence or for anything that might disturb or even enrich their
understanding of our state and its economic woes. But that’s ok for them,
because they are supported by a legion of people who agree with them, like
those in the audience on Saturday.
Here’s
the problem, though. As I’ve written before,
there is a moral dimension to lobbying. Lives are ruined and people die because
of bad decisions made at the state house. Advocates have a responsibility to
test their hypotheses in an intellectually honest fashion.
Our
state has a high unemployment rate. That is where inquiry begins, not where it
ends. It matters a lot to sensible policy whether that is due to state policy,
federal policy, history of the labor market, the decisions of private
employers, the conditions of the local credit market, the price of tea in
China, or anything else.
A
responsible advocate will examine as many possibilities as seem reasonable
before insisting on a solution. But I didn’t see any of that curiosity on
display Saturday. Indeed, I got a couple of indignant snorts from the audience
merely for suggesting that if you look at our state’s unemployment rate in
terms of metropolitan areas, it might tell a different story than looking at
state rates. (There are 32 metro areas in the country, in a dozen different
states, in worse shape than Providence.)
Quite
to the contrary, Moore is willing — even eager — to parachute into our state
and make outrageous recommendations about state policy while remaining ignorant
of pretty much all the actual facts. This, it seems to me, is a deeply
irresponsible use of the prominent position he holds. So that’s what I learned
on Saturday. I was paid to be there, so that was ok for me, but if you slept in
on that rainy morning, and weren’t at URI to see our little show, it seems to
me that you probably came out ahead.