A paper (coauthored with Adrian Vermeule) is here; some of the ideas I contributed to it originated as posts on this blog. The abstract follows.
This essay compares crisis governance and emergency lawmaking after 9/11 and the financial meltdown of 2008. We argue that the two episodes were broadly similar in outline, but importantly different in detail, and we attempt to explain both the similarities and differences. First, broad political processes and constraints operated in both episodes to create a similar pattern of crisis governance, in which Congress delegated large new powers to the executive. We argue that this pattern is best explained by reference to the account of lawmaking in the administrative state offered by Carl Schmitt, as opposed to the standard Madisonian view. Second, within the broad constraints of crisis politics, the Bush administration asserted its authority more aggressively after 9/11 than in the financial crisis. Rejecting competing explanations based on legal differences, the nature of the threat, or other factors, we attribute the difference to the Bush administration's loss of popularity and credibility over the period between 2001 and 2008 and to the more salient and divisive distributive effects of financial management.
That's plain nuts. Very few ordinary people regard death by flaming airplane in the same way they regard panic in the stock market, firstly. Doesn't matter that the latter may, in the long run, have a broader effect on more people, any more than the fact that the Japanese argument that the United States really started the war on the Pacific through its restrictions on oil exports -- that little business at Pearl Harbor didn't cause nearly as much suffering. Only a very dessicated thought process can equate the two, duly making multiplications of harm per person times number of persons.
Secondly, when's the last time the Bush Administration gave a damn about its poll numbers? Their numbers sucked when Bush proposed his surge, and he did it anyway. Nor is it a case, I think, of people just ignoring Bush. He just didn't push.
And maybe he didn't care to. Why would he? In the first place, Bush himself doesn't much care about finance, and he certainly has no particular love for the New York Goldman-Sachs crowd. War and peace are his thing, not credit markets and bailouts. I imagine the whole business rather turns his stomach. Thirdly, once he's done whatever his economic people tell him is necessary over the short run, I can imagine he's more than happy to hand over as much of the problem as possible to Barack Obama. Again, why not? The credit, if any, will go to Obama no matter what -- why not make the kid earn it?
... though perhaps not in equal measure.
Thirdly, once he's done whatever his economic people tell him is necessary over the short run, I can imagine he's more than happy to hand over as much of the problem as possible to Barack Obama. Again, why not? The credit, if any, will go to Obama no matter what -- why not make the kid earn it?
I think that a major problem many (including myself) have with the Bush administration is that they put partisan political considerations over governance. You are elected from your party, but to govern the country.
This post is emblematic of that thinking- it's okay to screw over America as long as the Democrats take a collateral hit.
Also, this dismissal led to some contradictions later on in the paper. For example a later section acknowledged that 9/11 required a violent response to a foreign enemy, in contrast to the financial crisis, and that this made it easier for the executive to act assertively in the former. Surely this supports the argument that differences in the nature of the threats were significant?
Oh, wait...
Yeah, those strings really stopped TARP from being converted from a mortgage buying policy to a bank "ownership" policy.
The first "oversight" report is overdue as well.
I believe the inspector general is just now being appointed so won't make his report until after the change of administration.
The changes were cosmetic only and constitute the exact blank check as the original proposal.
Because Congress can't get good information &advice on military matters? There were plenty of former military/DOD officials on hand to testify in Congress -- did their ability to analyze the situation magically disappear when they took off a military uniform?
Oren:
They couldn't because the executive branch controlled what information it would share, and which members of congress could listen in. Further, they were not allowed to discuss this outside the briefing rooms. That is a staggering informational assymetry.
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