Incubators of Austerity
Having never recovered from the last recession, America’s states are now being dealt another dose of austerity from the federal government, forcing more budget cuts across welfare, education, and even health care. It’s the opposite approach of what’s needed. Unless we can fund these services, the crises will only deepen.
New York State Capitol in Albany, New York, 2009.Matt H. Wade / Wikimedia
The libertarian political theorist James Buchanan once argued that democracies are structurally predisposed to deficit spending. Like most reactionaries, Buchanan had a horror of deficits, seeing them as gratifying the desires of a populace without the sacrifice and struggle he imagined should come before all pleasure. If given the opportunity to vote, he argued, people would happily spend on themselves, and leave future generations the bill.
Buchanan would no doubt be horrified by the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the most important component of which has been the $2 trillion stimulus bill, which is financed by massive deficit spending.
Yet it would be a mistake to crow, as some liberals have, that “there are no libertarians in an epidemic.” While on the federal level deficit spending has been the rule for decades, virtually all of the states are run on principles that would make Buchanan smile.
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