Here is the long form of an email I am sending to my Washington State Senators Murray and Cantwell.
Dear Senator:
I am writing to urge you to get your Democratic caucus not to go ahead on the Build Back Better bill or the proposed voting rights legislation -- the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Look, I get that, if these bills come up for a vote, you will vote for it. You know which side your bread is buttered. But in the Senate cloakroom, or wherever it is that Senators get together these days...
I think that passing these items would in fact blow back on Democrats and energize Republican voters in the 2022 and 2024 elections. "Backlash" they called it back in the day.
I urge you not to pass the Build Back Better bill because the nation is right now headed into a hell scape of inflation brought on by the remarkable money creation done by the Federal Reserve System during the COVID emergency. Hey, last time we had big-time inflation and big-time interest rates in the 1970s the gross federal debt was 31 percent of GDP. You could look it up on usgovernmentspending.com. Today, the debt is over 100 percent of GDP. Imagine what would happen to federal debt payments if interest rates on the debt went to 7 percent or more from the present 0.5 percent to 2.01 percent. What would happen to Social Security payments? What would happen to Medicare? What would happen to Democratic elected officials?
The sooner that the political system -- that means you, Senator -- starts to fight the unfolding inflation the better for the American people and for Democrats. The inflation and consequent increase in interest rates are going to make the Crash of 2008 look like a walk in the park. And the longer you guys put it off, the worse it is going to get.
And the worse it is going to get for Democrats, because all this is happening on your watch.
So: you need to have stopped COVID-related stimulus six months ago. Good luck, Senator.
I urge you not to pass the two voting-rights bills, and certainly not by suspending or eliminating the Senate filibuster.
Yes, I know, all good people know that the Senate filibuster is associated with Jim Crow Southern Democrats blocking needed civil-rights legislation.
But then there is Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He argued, according to David Frum writing in 1999, that you don't want to pass significant legislation by one vote.
When Ira Magaziner dreamed up his intricate health-care reform, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned him that bold new policy departures pass the U.S. Senate by a 70-30 margin or they don't pass at all. In the Reagan era, Social Security tinkerers like David Stockman met with disaster for the same reason: They tried to alter the system suddenly and surreptitiously.
Sen. Moynihan wasn't saying that you can't pass stuff by one vote. He was saying that you will live to regret it, that "bold new policy departures" need broad support all across the political landscape, or they produce a blowback. He said that "alter[ing] the system suddenly and surreptitiously" doesn't work.
Sen. Moynihan would advise the Democrats of this time that when you propose to transform the economy with green energy, you'd better get a national consensus on it. When you want to transform the voting system, you'd better get almost universal buy-in. Or you'll regret it.
Then there is the "science." If you have ever read The Calculus of Consent by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock you will know that, after a book full of discussion and analysis, they argue that the only just process for passing legislation is to pass it by unanimous consent.
Why would that be? Because unanimous consent forces the proponents of legislation to pay for the costs to be experienced by the opponents. In other words, every piece of legislation is typically experienced by its opponents as straight-up injustice, and the only way to get around that is to pay the opponents, to compensate them for the taxes or fees they will have to pay without getting any benefit. Reparations, you might call it.
I remember the day that HillaryCare died in 1994. I was driving home from work on the Ship Canal Bridge in Seattle listening to NPR and the host opined, sadly, as how the average American didn't like HillaryCare because she already had health insurance. That, of course, is why President Obama assured us in 2009 that his ObamaCare would reduce our health care costs. Fortunately, that was in the good old days before Donald Trump started lying to us, so no harm no foul.
Look, I'm a racist-sexist-homophobe, one of the worst sort on the planet. But at least I have the decency to plead with you before you do something really stupid.
Forget the Build Back Better bill; forget the voting-rights legislation. Take your lumps in the 2022 and 2024 elections. And I promise you, Senator, that by 2026 or 2030 the American people will decide it is Time for a Change.
Sincerely,
Christopher Chantrill
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