Framing Democrats as the new Libertarians, part one

Blogger Markos Moulitsas, a fan of concept of framing, has expanded upon this concept by making the remarkable claim that left wing ideas are actually libertarian in an essay on the Cato Institute's web site. The dishonesty begins in the first paragraph when he claims

It was my fealty to the notion of personal liberty that made me a
Republican when I came of age in the 1980s. It is my continued fealty to
personal liberty that makes me a Democrat today.

The implication is pretty clear, the Republicans of the Reagan era are not the Republicans of today. Maybe Kos doesn't remember that Reagan is the guy who helped popularize the Moral Majority, or that he was very much pro-life, was a strong proponent of school prayer, and certainly wasn't known as a civil libertarian by ACLU types. Maybe he does know all these points and is just being shifty about it all. But framing really isn't about telling the truth, it is about taking bits and pieces that make your side look like it is righteous and correct, while making the other side appear wrong, dangerous and evil. It is done by everyone in politics to some degree whether they call it that or not.


This first post will focus on the economic issues, which are the most obvious deviation between Democratic and libertarian policies. Kos criticizes Bush for spending far too much for libertarian tastes, and that part of his argument is correct. Yet Kos enthusiastically supports a Democratic party that regularly bashes the Bush administration for not spending enough. According to Kos, Bush spends too much, yet according to Kerry, Bush was underfunding education so much, that Kerry suggested adding $266 billion in education spending over ten years. For libertarians, it isn't even the amount of money being spent on education that matters, the important issue is allowing parents the freedom to educate their children with their tax dollars through school vouchers. On this matter, democrats are openly hostile towards the libertarian point of view.


Here is Howard Dean, head of the DLC and former employer of Moulitsas, on school vouchers

Q: Do you support allowing parents in areas that are poor or with bad
schools to use tax money to help send their children to private schools?
A:
Vouchers undermine public education, a cornerstone of our democracy. I oppose
all public funding of private school tuition, including demonstration programs
like the one President Bush is foisting on Washington, DC, and the one Governor
Jeb Bush has instituted in Florida, since they siphon badly needed resources
from our public schools.

That is a pretty strong slap in the face to libertarian principles by the Democratic party. This is no surprise since the the largest teachers' union, the NEA, brags that they are the largest group of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. With the NEA holding so much power over the party, it is difficult to reconcile libertarian ideals with the Democrats. The wealthy can afford to send their children to a better, safer private school if they live in a failing district. The poor often do not have the personal liberty Kos speaks of, to free their children of a lousy school because they don't have the money for private school tuition.



However, education is not the biggest portion of the federal budget, so let's move to the largest one, social security. No program consumes more than social security and this program is growing rapidly as our post war baby boomers move into retirement and our life expectancy expands. Since Kos has chosen to express his views of libertarianism on the Cato Institute's site, I will use Cato's point of view to represent what libertarians think of social security. They are for voluntary privitization and sum up the issue by stating

Privatizing Social Security would give people the freedom to choose how to
finance their retirements, the opportunity to save, the chance to accumulate
wealth and the freedom to give it to the people and causes they love. Does
Howard Dean really want to prevent that?

The answer to the question of course is yes. Dean and most every democrat is opposed to giving Americans the freedom to invest their money as they see fit. With the largest government program there is, libertarians are directly at odds with the Democratic pary.

When it comes to health care, democrats really don't have a single plan, they have many plans that they can not agree upon, one is a single payer plan another is a medicare for all plan, so commenting on the specifics is difficult. But speaking in generalities, their plans call for more government programs, more government spending, more government regulation and in many cases, more taxes. I am no expert on health care, so I don't want to comment on the efficiency of one democratic plan over another, but one thing these plans aren't are libertarian. They are big government programs that would expand the size, spending and reach of the federal government.


Libertarians are understandably upset with President Bush's spending and fiscal programs. He compromised on education with Ted Kennedy, and threw school vouchers overboard. He has spent more on education than any President in history and proposed a meek version of social security reform that Republicans promptly let die. He also expanded Medicare through a costly drug program that Democrats complained wasn't big enough. However, on the major economic issues, libertarians would be extremely disappointed with mainstream Democratic economic policies. I have not even touched on taxes, mostly because Moulitsas never mentioned them and for good reason. There is no way to frame Democratic views on taxation to make them sound consistent with libertarian views. When it comes to the greatest government intrusion into most of our lives, the taxation of our wages and personal property, the libertarians are once again not on the Democratic side of the issue. This is so apparent that Kos doesn't even attempt to make this argument.