First, he writes,"Barack Obama won't say it, but a school of thought linked to his presidency no longer sees a justification or need for U.S. primacy." This line is silly, irrational and gratuitous.
- Silly. Obama wants to be the President remembered for making us mediocre? He wants the legacy of being the anti-hero of American history, the one who dedicated his time in office debunking the illusion of exceptionalism and instilling the ethic of American Average-ism? The very same man routinely charged with putting his own ego over the good of the country wants a limited version of American identity so that his own identity would thus not be worth very much in the world? There is more than a whiff of the Birther movement here, with an added faint odor of Obama the anti-American Kenyan anti-colonist, Socialist muslim. Yes, silly.
- Irrational. What does this have to do with taxes? Henniger continues, "That posture would indeed make it easier to maintain the "parity" between taxes and outlays that Mr. Summers seeks on behalf of the public sector." A balanced budget means that Obama wants to destroy America's ability to act powerfully in the world? This point admits that deficits are necessary, that primacy demands spending without considerations of consequences and that no relationship exists between what America has to spend in order to establish 'primacy' and how America pays for these expenses. Henniger is linking taxes to decline. Taxes are part and parcel of a weakened America. A primal America acts with force in the world by not paying for its actions. Accountability, especially fiscal accountability is for suckers. Not just counter-intuitive, but hypocritical, contradictory and, yes, irrational to everything else Henniger and his paper would otherwise stand for.
- Gratuitous. This "school of thought" originates from the same political side that Henniger is speaking to, amplified by authors like himself and his publication the WSJ and its mother ship, Fox News Corporation, and made real by an insular feedback chamber of its readership. It is "linked" to Obama by the very organs of propaganda that created it. It is a rational, justifiable school of thought only to the extent that one already believes it to be possible, which already identifies the believer as inside a self-contained, hermetic worldview. Using an argument agreed upon only by the select audience you are addressing as a rational attitude, shared by those outside the closed shop of anti-Obama-ists (who by virtue of this essay could be called silly and irrational) is not just bad journalism; it is gratuitously bad journalism because Henniger knows better.
His second point has the veneer of substance to it. "To ensure American well-being, the pre-eminent purpose of a modern tax system should be to achieve the highest possible level of growth in the private economy with a competent, efficient state in a supporting role."
- Here, he switches his argument from "primacy" to "well-being." Primacy is a relational term; us and the world. Well-being is relative (comparing current experience with the highs and lows of possible and past experiences) though more thoroughly absolute (one's estimation of her quality of life). We are no longer in the world of competitive influence, but firmly lodged in considerations of the quality of life here in America. Henniger is saying that taxes play a leading role in what makes life worth living and what keeps the good life possible. Following this logic all the way thorough, the "competent, efficient state" supports this possibility for all citizens. That means a positive role for the state, rather than a negative one. Put differently, the state needs to act forcefully to ensure the opportunity for well-being rather than restrain itself and hope for maximum well-being through a theoretical potential of trickle-down processes.
- "Possible" is an important word here. The question becomes under what context is the "possible" possible? What conditions are relevant? What circumstances matter? What considerations must be made? Keeping to the main goal of ensuring American well-being, the tax system enables the kind of growth that leads to a maximal amount of well-being. Henniger creates a sociological and psychological standard for the quality of life, one that is answerable not in the size of GDP or in arguments about marginal income brackets or by the raw fact of revenue and outlays. He is saying that well-being proceeds all other considerations, not that it follows and is the consequence of other considerations. The "possible" is modified by the goal; taxes should be part of a policy of well-being, not a stand-alone issue, nor an isolated economic argument. The state, then, creates the conditions for this possibility and acts to ensure them.
- The only way that his line makes sense, though, is that one already believes the narrative that maximum well-being is produced by maximum freedom, and that maximum freedom is risked by a state that acts forcefully to ensure false kinds of well-being, one that has revenue, and thus a large tax base. A reader must already believe the narrative that Obama wants his legacy to be the decline of American exceptionalism to understand Henniger's thinking here. Put another way, this line makes perfect sense in the the silly, irrational and gratuitous hermetic worldview to which Henniger writes.
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