A Pragmatist Decides How to Vote

By Thomas Michael Stewart

“Pragmatist” has become a negative word in politics.  These days, when people say that a politician is a pragmatist, they usually mean someone who has no strong principles and will say or do anything that seems expedient at the time.

The corruption of this word is unfortunate.  As originally defined by American philosopher William James (1842-1910), pragmatism meant nothing more than that the worth of every new idea must be measured against the way that idea performs in practice.

I’m about to graduate from college, and I want to know that there’s a job waiting for me when I do.  So, come November, I’m not going to vote Democrat or Republican.  I’m going to vote for the presidential candidate whom I regard as the closest to being a true pragmatist.

Our most successful presidents have been pragmatists.  In recent memory, we can point to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.  Both were pragmatists.  Reagan was a committed tax-cutter who was willing to raise taxes when circumstances warranted it.  Bill Clinton was a liberal who wanted to expand government, but was willing to turn 180 degrees and proclaim that “The era of big government is over” when the mood of the country changed.

What about Barack Obama and Mitt Romney?  Mr. Obama came into office facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression – a crisis that, admittedly, was not his fault.  To stop the free fall, Mr. Obama pumped $800 billion into the economy.  Not all of that money was spent wisely, but I believe that catastrophe was averted.  Nevertheless, economic growth remains sluggish.
The pragmatic thing to do, once the results of massive government intervention had proved disappointing, would have been to look for alternatives.  Instead, Mr. Obama chose to believe that government could reinvent the American economy and return it to prosperity.  So he gave us Obamacare, Solyndra and the Chevy Volt –  along with near record-high gasoline prices.
Has Mr. Obama learned from experience?  His campaign rhetoric to date suggests that he has not.  He’s presided over the weakest economic recovery since World War II, but it’s clear that if he gets another term he intends to continue the same kind of policies that he has pursued so far.

But would Mitt Romney be any better?  If Mr. Obama has a mystical faith that federal spending and government regulation will bring prosperity, Mr. Romney seems to be no less devout in his conviction that tax cuts and laissez-faire capitalism will do the same.

So which of the two candidates is closest to being a pragmatist?  It’s a tough call, but I’d give Mr. Romney the edge.  First, because Mr. Romney’s faith in tax cuts is tempered with reason.  He wants to lower tax rates while at the same time eliminating many tax breaks.  If he’s sincere in this, the result will be not only lower  rates, but a tax code that is closer to being neutral.  In other words, he is trying to create a tax code that doesn’t try to manipulate the economy through tax incentives. Why?  So that taxpayers will base their investment decisions on their best judgment instead of how much they expect to save at tax time.   More neutrality in the tax code has got to be good for the economy.

Second, Mr. Romney was a successful business executive.  He knows how the market works and what motivates other executives to make significant capital investments and thereby create jobs.  As an intellectual, Mr. Obama lacks this real-world expertise.  So he is forced to rely on government solutions because he really doesn’t know what else to do.

Third, Mr. Romney is offering himself to the American people as a practical problem-solver.  For example, he’s produced an economic recovery plan that has been endorsed by 400 leading economists, including four Nobel Prize winners.  So there’s good reason to believe that a Romney administration would pursue sound, market-tested solutions to the nation’s economic problems.
I doubt that William James would wholly approve of either of our two major candidates for President.  But to me, at least, Mitt Romney seems the more pragmatic of the two.  That’s why he will get my vote.

Thomas Michael Stewart, a resident of Eugene and former student at Marist and Sheldon High Schools, is currently a senior at Princeton University. He has contributed to Lane Solutions in the past.

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