Obsidian Wings

Merry Christmas! Plus Budget Statistics!

by hilzoy

Merry Christmas! I just got back from having a wonderful Christmas (we do it early.) Friends, family, little nephews waking me up in the morning -- all marvelous. Now, alas, it is raining in Baltimore, and Mr. Nils (my outdoorsy cat), who wanted desperately to go outside once I got back, took one look out the door, shuddered, and slunk away to pout. I, meanwhile, have gone off to have dinner with friends, and then returned again. So I thought: why not address the thrilling topic: should the level of federal spending, and thus of surpluses and deficits, be attributed primarily to the President or to the Congress?

When I wrote my last post on this topic, I had thought they should be attributed to the President, both because the figures seemed to indicate that big changes in the levels of surpluses and deficits seemed to coincide with changes in Presidents, not with changes in control of Congress, and also because what I remembered about the fights over the budgets from Reagan onwards supported this view. However, since this claim has been challenged in various quarters, I thought: why not dig deeper?

I'm not sure exactly how one would go about directly measuring responsibility for federal spending levels. One obvious thing to do would be to find figures for the budgets various Presidents actually submitted, and compare them to what actually passed. However, there are problems with that approach: for one thing, Presidential budgets are probably initial bargaining positions, not Presidents' views of how much spending is actually needed; and for another, I'm not sure where to find the figures. I would have looked further, of course, had another possibility not suggested itself to me: namely, checking what accounted for the various rises and falls in the level of the deficit, and asking whether those rises and falls seem to track the ideological preferences of those who controlled Congress or those of the President.

For convenient reference, here are some useful graphs. The federal budget deficit:

Revenues and Outlays:

The Reagan deficits seem to have been caused by two things: higher than average spending, and cuts in revenues. Let's take spending first. You can find what percentage of discretionary federal spending was spent on various uses in this GAO report (pdf), table 5.5. This table makes it clear that a huge increase in defense spending, as a proportion of discretionary spending, was the most important component of spending increases during the Reagan years. During the Reagan years (1981-1988), defense spending increased from 45.4% of discretionary spending in 1980 (Carter's last year) to 62.7% of discretionary spending in 1988 (Reagan's last year.) During the same time period spending on Education and Health and Human Services remained basically flat as a percentage of discretionary spending, while spending on Housing and Urban Development fell from 10.7% of discretionary spending to 2.3%, labor fell from 3.6% to 1.7%, and the EPA fell from 1.5% to 1.1%.

Whose priorities does this reflect? Who, during that time period, was a defense hawk and who didn't much care about labor, the environment, and the inner cities? Congressional Democrats are not the answer that leaps to my mind. Perhaps some people would disagree; however, I expect them to adjust their view of 1980s Democrats to account for the Tip O'Neill military build-up.

Reagan's major tax cut was passed in 1981 (but was phased in over three years.) He ran on a platform of tax cuts that were even larger than those that were finally enacted, and the tax cut bill had two Republican sponsors (hence the name by which it was most widely known: Kemp-Roth.) From the NYT (from the archive):

"A ''yes'' vote was a vote in favor of the President's plan. A ''no'' vote was a vote against it. Voting ''yes'' were 48 Democrats and 190 Republicans. Voting ''no'' were 194 Democrats and 1 Republican."

I call that a Republican tax cut. (The 1982 and 1983 tax hikes had both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition; the 1986 tax reform bill was intended to be revenue-neutral, and also had both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.)

Are we done with Reagan? OK: let's move on to Clinton. The drop in the deficit under Clinton is the reverse of its rise under Reagan: it reflects a rise in revenues and a decline in spending. Back to the GAO report linked above: in Table 1.2, we see that while revenues, as a share of GDP, fell a couple of tenths of a percent every year from 1988 through 1992, they began to increase thereafter. Revenues are 17.5% of GDP in 1992, 17.6% in 1993, 18.1% in 1994, 18.5% in 1995, 18.9% in 1996, and so on until they reach their highest point, at 20.9% of GDP in 2000.

What happened in 1993 that would explain why revenues, as a percent of GDP, started jumping half a percent a year? The Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1993, that's what. And who was responsible for its passage? That would have been the 217 Democrats, one Independent, and zero Republicans who voted for it in the House, and the 50 Democrats (plus Al Gore) and zero Republicans who voted for it in the Senate.

On to discretionary spending under Clinton, and thus back to Table 5.5 of the GAO report. Here, as far as I can tell, most forms of discretionary spending are essentially flat or shrink slightly, with a few exceptions: defense falls slightly (from 50.2% in 1993 to 46.2% in 2001); HHS rises slightly (from 5.8% in 1993 to 8.2% in 2001); Justice rises (from 1.7% in 1993 to 2.8% in 2001 -- can you say 'Community Policing Grants?'); and Homeland Security rises (1.7% in 1993 to 2.4% in 2001). I'm not sure what to make of the rise in Homeland Security, largely because I'm not sure what exactly they're counting under that category, but all the other substantial changes seem to me more in line with Democratic priorities of that period than with Republican ones.

I welcome disagreement and other people perusing the statistics, but, for what it's worth, I think that digging into the stats provides further evidence for the claim that Presidents set priorities. The Congress has the right and the power to set its own, of course, but in practice I don't really think it's fair to attribute what we normally call the Reagan defense buildup to the Democrats, or the cuts in defense of the '90s to Newt Gingrich. And it certainly doesn't make sense to hold the Congressional Democrats responsible for the Reagan tax cuts, or the Congressional Republicans responsible for the Clinton tax increases, both of which played a major role in the size of the federal deficit in the years that followed them.

Merry Christmas!

Open Thread (Merry Christmas!)

by hilzoy

I'm going to be away for the next couple of days, and I don't know whether I'll have access to a computer, or the time to use it. So be well, and have wonderful versions of whichever holidays you plan to celebrate. Don't burn down any Christmas goats while I'm gone.

More Evidence That The Air Is Thin In Denver

Tom Tacredo, idiot:

Look at what has happened to Miami .... It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country.

When Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen invited him to visit Miami, Tancredo's spokesman responded:

[I]f Ros-Lehtinen's invitation includes ''a stay at a five-star beachfront resort, he may be willing to look beyond the inherent dangers that he had cited and visit Miami again[.]"

Budget Deficit Pirouette: The Worm Turns

--by Sebastian

I know I've written it somewhere before, but there are certain issues which are deeply important to a party's leadership so long as they are out of power, but vanish with the wind when they win.  The ones I've identified are gerrymandering, voter fraud, and the budget deficit.  For a high level politico, worrying about the budget deficit is an important way to try to stop an opponent's ill-advised spending, but is an unfortunate necessity when talking about one's own vitally important spending.  This ties in with my 130% theory that politicians play into the electorate's very real desire to have much more spending and much lower taxes. 

Since the Democratic Party has recently regained power, I expected the high level rhetoric on the budget to shift as well.  I did not expect the first signs of that to come from an economist who has spent the better part of the past five years railing about deficit.  But unfortunately, Krugman wrote this:

One of the biggest questions is whether the party should return to Rubinomics -- the doctrine, associated with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, that placed a very high priority on reducing the budget deficit. The answer, I believe, is no. Mr. Rubin was one of the ablest Treasury secretaries in American history. But it's now clear that while Rubinomics made sense in terms of pure economics, it failed to take account of the ugly realities of contemporary American politics. And the lesson of the last six years is that the Democrats shouldn't spend political capital trying to bring the deficit down. They should refrain from actions that make the deficit worse. But given a choice between cutting the deficit and spending more on good things like health care reform, they should choose the spending.

In a saner political environment, the economic logic behind Rubinomics would have been compelling. Basic fiscal principles tell us that the government should run budget deficits only when it faces unusually high expenses, mainly during wartime. In other periods it should try to run a surplus, paying down its debt. Since the 1990s were an era of peace, prosperity and favorable demographics (the baby boomers were still in the work force, not collecting Social Security and Medicare), it should have been a good time to put the federal budget in the black. And under Mr. Rubin, the huge deficits of the Reagan-Bush years were transformed into an impressive surplus.

But the realities of American politics ensured that it was all for naught. The second President Bush quickly squandered the surplus on tax cuts that heavily favored the wealthy, then plunged the budget deep into deficit by cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains even as he took the country into a disastrous war. And you can even argue that Mr. Rubin's surplus was a bad thing, because it greased the rails for Mr. Bush's irresponsibility.

As Brad DeLong, a Berkeley economist who served in the Clinton administration, recently wrote on his influential blog: "Rubin and us spearcarriers moved heaven and earth to restore fiscal balance to the American government in order to raise the rate of economic growth. But what we turned out to have done, in the end, was to enable George W. Bush's right-wing class war: his push for greater after-tax income inequality.%" My only quibble with Mr. DeLong's characterization is that this wasn't just one man's class war: the whole conservative movement shared Mr. Bush' squanderlust, his urge to run off with the money so carefully saved under Mr. Rubin's leadership.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that conservatives who claimed to care about deficits when Democrats were in power never meant it. Let's not forget how Alan Greenspan, who posed as the high priest of fiscal rectitude as long as Bill Clinton was in the White House, became an apologist for tax cuts -- even in the face of budget deficits -- once a Republican took up residence.

Now the Democrats are back in control of Congress. They've pledged not to be as irresponsible as their predecessors: Nancy Pelosi, the incoming House speaker, has promised to restore the "pay-as-you-go" rule that the Republicans tossed aside in the Bush years. This rule would basically prevent Congress from passing budgets that increase the deficit. I'm for pay-as-you-go. The question, however, is whether to go further. Suppose the Democrats can free up some money by fixing the Medicare drug program, by ending the Iraq war and/or clamping down on war profiteering, or by rolling back some of the Bush tax cuts. Should they use the reclaimed revenue to reduce the deficit, or spend it on other things?

The answer, I now think, is to spend the money -- while taking great care to ensure that it is spent well, not squandered -- and let the deficit be. By spending money well, Democrats can both improve Americans' lives and, more broadly, offer a demonstration of the benefits of good government. Deficit reduction, on the other hand, might just end up playing into the hands of the next irresponsible president.

In the long run, something will have to be done about the deficit. But given the state of our politics, now is not the time.

Like dealing with gerrymandering, now is never the time if you happen to be in power.  This is of course the dark Democratic reflection of "starve the beast".  The other side can't be trusted to be fair (season to preference by inserting "cut useless programs" or "raise taxes") therefore we must be imprudent now to force them to be prudent in the way we like later. 

Of course Krugman is being silly to pretend that there are going to be enough savings from 'fixing' anything to actually fund a new program.  The Medicare Drug Program he specifically calls out was projected to be much more expensive in its Democratic Party form--and that is even with the drug price negotiation piece.

Krugman has successfully performed the deficit pirouette less than three months after the election.  Others will follow.  But don't expect them to be as sober as even he is.  PAYGO is the next to fall.  I don't really blame the Democrats.  They are focusing on their side of the electorate's irrational "more services AND lower taxes" desire. 

We need a mechanism to show the electorate on a yearly basis exactly how much their preferences cost them.  I still like Henke's proposal for a floating tax rate:  set a level of taxation to pay this year's budget.  You can make it progressive or flat.  You can exempt people from the bottom of it or even guarantee a minimum income with a negative income tax rate graduated at lower levels.  This sets the tax level for the next year.  (Take the spending for the Jan through Dec 2006 year.  In January 2007 announce the tax rate.  That will be the tax rate for the 2007 year and will be paid by April 15, 2008.  We can even keep paycheck withholdings.)  In January 2008 the tax rates are automatically adjusted to pay for all the spending from January 2007 through December 2007.  Those rates would be for taxes paid by April 15, 2009. 

As government became more frugal, you would automatically see more money.  The cost of new programs would be actually felt.  It would be easier to really see how such things effected your bottom line.  Like buying a new TV or a new house, I'm certain new spending would be authorized.  But there would be a price, and it would be much clearer than now.  I won't say that would entirely fix the 130% problem, but I suspect it would help quite a bit. 

UPDATE:  Sorry, I didn't see that hilzoy posted on exactly the same topic. 

UPDATE II:  As a reader at AngryBear pointed out, Krugman's argument makes no sense with reference to the Medicare drug program, but it offers excellent cover for spending the money even if still deep in deficit, when the Bush tax cuts expire.

Fiscal Responsibility

by hilzoy

Paul Krugman wrote an interesting column today. I am very much of two minds about it. Excerpts:

"Now that the Democrats have regained some power, they have to decide what to do. One of the biggest questions is whether the party should return to Rubinomics — the doctrine, associated with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, that placed a very high priority on reducing the budget deficit.

The answer, I believe, is no. (...) Democrats shouldn’t spend political capital trying to bring the deficit down. They should refrain from actions that make the deficit worse. But given a choice between cutting the deficit and spending more on good things like health care reform, they should choose the spending.

In a saner political environment, the economic logic behind Rubinomics would have been compelling. Basic fiscal principles tell us that the government should run budget deficits only when it faces unusually high expenses, mainly during wartime. In other periods it should try to run a surplus, paying down its debt.

Since the 1990s were an era of peace, prosperity and favorable demographics (the baby boomers were still in the work force, not collecting Social Security and Medicare), it should have been a good time to put the federal budget in the black. And under Mr. Rubin, the huge deficits of the Reagan-Bush years were transformed into an impressive surplus.

But the realities of American politics ensured that it was all for naught. The second President Bush quickly squandered the surplus on tax cuts that heavily favored the wealthy, then plunged the budget deep into deficit by cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains even as he took the country into a disastrous war. And you can even argue that Mr. Rubin’s surplus was a bad thing, because it greased the rails for Mr. Bush’s irresponsibility.

As Brad DeLong, a Berkeley economist who served in the Clinton administration, recently wrote on his influential blog: “Rubin and us spearcarriers moved heaven and earth to restore fiscal balance to the American government in order to raise the rate of economic growth. But what we turned out to have done, in the end, was to enable George W. Bush’s right-wing class war: his push for greater after-tax income inequality.”

My only quibble with Mr. DeLong’s characterization is that this wasn’t just one man’s class war: the whole conservative movement shared Mr. Bush’s squanderlust, his urge to run off with the money so carefully saved under Mr. Rubin’s leadership.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that conservatives who claimed to care about deficits when Democrats were in power never meant it. Let’s not forget how Alan Greenspan, who posed as the high priest of fiscal rectitude as long as Bill Clinton was in the White House, became an apologist for tax cuts — even in the face of budget deficits — once a Republican took up residence. (...)

I’m for pay-as-you-go. The question, however, is whether to go further. Suppose the Democrats can free up some money by fixing the Medicare drug program, by ending the Iraq war and/or clamping down on war profiteering, or by rolling back some of the Bush tax cuts. Should they use the reclaimed revenue to reduce the deficit, or spend it on other things?

The answer, I now think, is to spend the money — while taking great care to ensure that it is spent well, not squandered — and let the deficit be. By spending money well, Democrats can both improve Americans’ lives and, more broadly, offer a demonstration of the benefits of good government. Deficit reduction, on the other hand, might just end up playing into the hands of the next irresponsible president.

In the long run, something will have to be done about the deficit. But given the state of our politics, now is not the time."

In what follows, it's important to bear in mind that I, like Krugman, am not considering the question: should the Democrats just toss fiscal responsibility out the window and spend like drunken sailors?, but the quite different question: should we accept PAYGO rules, which require that any new spending be paid for, or should we try to reduce the deficit even more? That is, I'm assuming that we should be much, much more responsible than the Republicans have been, and asking whether we should go even further.

On the one hand, I am not, in principle, opposed to deficits. I'm basically Keynesian: i think that ideally one should run deficits when the economy slows down, and surpluses when it is hot. In principle, I want the structural deficit to be zero; in practice, I'm fine with low-level persistent deficits. But that, of course, has nothing to do with now: our deficits went beyond my OK level sometime early in the Reagan years, and by now they are wildly beyond anything I'm remotely comfortable with. The present level of debt, rather than any across-the-board hostility to deficits, is why I'm a serious deficit hawk.

On the other hand, it has not escaped my notice that Democrats' hard work at cutting the deficit, and our willingness to postpone a lot of things we think badly need doing for the sake of fiscal responsibility, have in practice served only to allow Republicans to rack up more debt without having to face the consequences. The Democrats have spent the last thirty years being fiscally responsible. Just look (pdf):

(Note: these figures are from the CBO. They are legally required to make forecasts based on current law. The reason the deficit seems to improve is that under current law, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire, and the AMT is not scheduled to be fixed, meaning that taxes for the upper parts of the middle class will balloon. If either of these is changed, the deficits continue to increase at an alarming rate.)

So: Republicans (Nixon Ford, Reagan/Bush) massively increase the deficits. We (Carter*, Clinton) come in and bring the deficit under control again. (Various details about how this happened under Clinton are here.) Republicans then regain power and spend uncontrollably again. And so the cycle continues.

This means three things. First, while the philosophy of "starve the beast" doesn't work well as a way of shrinking government, relying as it does on the false assumption that politicians are fiscally responsible, it works very well as a way of starving the Democrats. We are fiscally responsible. We don't do things we would like to do because we have to clean up the disasters Republicans leave us with, for the good of the country. We don't spend half a trillion dollars, and counting, on our pet adventures. We don't drive the country into fiscal ruin with our peculiar economic visions, as the Republicans have done with their tax cuts deferments. No: we put most of what we want to do on hold, because we are responsible.

Second, the Republicans get away with casting us as the people who raise taxes. This is basically true. However, the reason it's true is because we have this annoying habit of coming to power when the Republicans have gotten us into a fiscal hole, and something has to be done about it. Or, in other words: they get to call us the party that raises taxes, because we are the only party who believes in paying the bills, and so we keep on paying theirs. In a sane world, the blame for the Clinton tax increases would go to Ronald Reagan, whose deficits created the need for them. But nooooooo.

Third, because the Republicans have managed for decades to avoid the consequences of their actions, they have gotten into the habit of relying on Democrats to clean up after them. I really don't see any sign at all that Republicans have come to believe that tax increases are now necessary. People at NRO are still peddling myths according to which tax cuts lower the deficit, despite overwhelming evidence that, as one would expect, they do nothing of the kind. But if the current fiscal nightmare has failed to convince them that they need to change their views and accept the unremarkable idea that sometimes you have to increase taxes in order to pay for stuff, then I see no reason at all to think that the result of Democratic fiscal responsibility will be anything other than another Republican burst of fiscal insanity.

For this reason I am, with serious misgivings, in the Krugman camp on this one. (Bear in mind that "the Krugman camp" involves accepting a lot more limits on spending than the Republicans have accepted. It's PAYGO, not a free-for-all.) The 'serious misgivings' come from the fact that this is, as PGL at Angry Bear says, a game of chicken. The fact that in the final analysis I come down on Krugman's side comes from the fact that I don't see any upside to serving as the Republicans' enablers. As long as they can go on pretending that it's OK to cut taxes forever, we will never get out of this mess.

(Besides, I have some hopes that if Democrats do something on health care, it might bring down health care spending in the long run, which would be good for the economy.)

***

* Andrew points out that this is debatable about Carter. He cut deficits for three years, but the 1980 deficit grew again (though it did not outdo Ford's in real terms.) A quick glance at the 1980 budget suggests that a significant part of that was an increase in defense spending; however, I haven't really slogged through the details.

A Modest Proposal

by von

Don't know whether it's something Brian Boitano would do, but Erick Erickson (of RedState) reveals a surefire way to deter future visits  from Jehovah's Witnesses.

UPDATE, AND ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT:  Just don't forget the little people, Jonathan, when you go on Nancy Grace.  (Jonathan Polak, Goldman's attorney in the most recent lawsuit against O.J. Simpson, used to represent certain co-defendants of one of my clients in a long-running civil RICO case.)

Tsongoid

by von

And now we learn that he voted for Tsongas!  Who didn't love the deficit hawkin', mind your own business talkin', let's grow business larkin', never mind the comments 'bout his speedo snarkin' former presidential candidate?  I mean, aside from Democratic primary voters.  (And, likely, most Republicans not from the Northeast.)   

Why is it the more that I find out Mitt Romney-of-old, the more I like him?  Economic conservative, social liberal -- heck, that's someone I can git behind.  (By contrast, Guiliani is a big-government social liberal, McCain is a big-government big-governmentarian.)  Although I'm sure that Romney would rather all of this evidence of his prior moderation and general sanity come out after the primaries.  (That faint sound you hear is K-Lo's heart breaking.  There, there dear.  You knew it couldn't last.)

UPDATE:  Tsongas was a liberal dem?  WTF?  People seem to forget that in 1992 Tsongas was considered to be in the pocket of big business and a control-the-spending deficit hawk -- neither of which were particularly popular with large numbers of Democratic voters.  It's true that the Democratic party has moved in his direction (helped along, no doubt, after being rebuked at the polls in 1994), but it's not correct to call him a liberal Democrat.

Still:  Using the term liberal dem probably aids TPM in defeating Romney in the primary so the Dem nominee doesn't face him in the general.  No need to let the facts get in the way.

The proper analogy for my fellow conservatives open thread

by Sebastian--

Housekeeping moment.  I haven't been able to resume my daily posting schedule, and for some reason I allowed that to convince me not to post.  My New Year's resolution is commit to at least one post per week.  Funny how just changing my expectations makes things easier.

My thoughts on the proposal to 'surge' the troops:  I have thought since the beginning that we needed more troops.  However I have identified a regularly discussed conservative understanding which perfectly explains why I'm not thrilled about a 'surge' at this point:

Throwing more money into education isn't helpful when the teachers' unions make accountability for performance nearly impossible.  The US has a very high per pupil spending rate now.  The idea that we spend less than most in the developed world is a holdover impression from the 1970s.  I won't sign on to increased education funding unless it can be explained how this funding is going to be used differently from all the other woefully ineffective funding. 

If you can't explain how this surge of troops will do things differently and how that will help, I'm not for it. 

Further throwaway thought--Education is an area where we spend more than most developing countries for an apparently lower return.  Health care is another.  Are the useful similarities between the two that could be examined? 

Otherwise this is a "Hope you are doing better Gary Farber" open thread. 

Too Little? Too Late?

by von

It seems that President Bush is finally coming around to my views regarding the need for an expanded military and more troops in Iraq.  One would expect rejoicing among the vonanites of greater vonistan.  One would be mistaken.  I get no sense from President Bush that he has any idea how to work these troops into a new strategy for Iraq, nor any confidence that he is up to the job of doing it right this time when he's screwed up so many times in the past.  Another hand at the helm would find me in a different mood; but, then, another hand at the helm would have heeded the advice of me and others far more notable -- who, desiring victory, have long warned that we were preparing ourselves only for failure.

Am I comforted at all by the fact that the "good news" brigade finally seems to have realized where their blind cheerleading for Bush has led us?  Yes and no.  It is always nice when folks stop urging us to march in the wrong direction; pity that we might already be over the cliff.

We should have started the process of building the military that we need three years ago.  We should have been listening to folks like Andrew long ago.  We didn't, and it's not clear that we can catch up. 

So what to do?  Many imagine that victory and defeat are our only options in Iraq, and that if we cannot win then we should cut our losses and go.  This is an oversimplistic view.  There is still great benefit in not-losing Iraq (even if we cannot win); ask South Korea.  And it may be that even a too-little-too-late surge is better than the alternatives at preventing even worse events in Iraq from unfolding.  I'll hold off judgment until I hear the particulars from President Bush in the new year.  But, having seen the profound unseriousness with how this administration fights its wars -- and the vigor with which it and its supporters deride those who actually want to win -- I have little reason to trust that either will get it right. 

UPDATE: Slartibartfast points to General Abizaid's comments that more troops may make the situation in Iraq worse.  I remain agnostic regarding whether this view is correct.  I do know, however, that Iraq is not secure; that there likely will not be a political solution unless it becomes secure; and that it is unlikely that Iraq's neighbors will influence things for the better (assuming that we even make the attempt, which the Administration seems unwilling to do).

UPDATE 2:  Incidentally, we would likely be in a better place in Iraq had we eliminated Sadr's forces when the opportunity arose (i.e., when Sadr's forces were shooting at us).  It's called a war:  They shoot at you, you shoot back until they die or surrender. 

As for the comment (in comments) that the Iraq War is/was all about the OOOOOOIIIIIIIILLLLLLL.  I disagree, but let's say you're right.  Wouldn't oil be a pretty good reason to go to war?  Call me old fashioned, but aren't wars generally over scarce resources (water, oil, land, etc.)?

Another Death I Find It Hard To Get All Broken Up Over...

by hilzoy

From the NYT:

"Turkmenistan's President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov died suddenly on Thursday after 21 years of iron rule, raising a risk of political instability in the energy-rich country that some feared could have an impact on Europe's gas supplies.

Niyazov, 66, who crushed all dissent in his reclusive state and basked in a unique and bizarre personality cult while ruling a country with huge natural gas reserves, died overnight of cardiac arrest, state television said.

His funeral was set for December 24 and the government fixed December 26 for the desert state's highest representative body to meet to decide on the succession and name a date for elections.

Turkmenistan has never held an election judged to be free and fair by foreign monitors. Until the new polls, which have to be held within two months, Deputy Prime Minister Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, 49, will be acting head of state.

But Niyazov, who held all top posts, left no designated heir and his sudden death raised concerns about the transfer of power in the ex-Soviet nation of 5 million, where foreign oil and gas companies are keen to invest in vast energy reserves."

Niyazov was Kim Jong Il's main competition for the title of "most insane and dreadful living dictator". He did all sorts of horrible things, some of which I listed here. For sheer strangeness, my favorite was basing the driving tests in Türkmenistan on knowledge of his leaden book of "wisdom", the Ruhnama. The candidates for most destructive act are legion; one would surely have to be his decision to close all the hospitals outside the capital city, saying: ""Why do we need such hospitals?" he said. "If people are ill, they can come to Ashgabat."" This in a country of 188,457 square miles (slightly smaller than Spain, slightly larger than California), which is mostly desert and has only 19,488 km of paved roads. (By comparison, Spain has 659,629 km.)

He was a brutal and destructive lunatic who deprived his people of anything remotely resembling freedom, and spent most of his time and his country's wealth on pointless self-aggrandizement. I'm trying to think of some reason to mourn his death, but I'm having a pretty hard time.