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The Turing Test, Senate Version

Brad Delong recently gave House Speaker Dennis Hastert the Turing test.

The Turing test checks for signs of intelligence:

How can we tell if something is intelligent? Alan Turing's answer was that something is intelligent if it can pass the Turing Test--if it can carry out an appropriate conversation with a human being, responding appropriately, maintaining the thread of meaning, et cetera.

DeLong finds that Hastert flunks the test.

Perhaps, then we should check for signs of intelligence on the other side of the Capital, in the Senate. I propose that we give a Turing test to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist with the subject of the test being the budget deficit.

Dr. Frist has an interesting set of ideas about budget deficits. He, of course, is against deficits. In fact, Dr. Frist is so set against budget deficits that he thinks that a balanced budget should be enshrined into the Constitution.

Dr. Frist is also a strong supporter of tax cuts. Not only has he supported all of President Bush’s proposed tax cuts, he favors making those cuts permanent.

Max recently posted a chart showing that if Mr. Bush’s tax cuts are made permanent, five programs will consume all of the revenue of the federal government. The chart shows:

projected spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and interest against the revenue we could expect if the Bush tax cuts were made permanent. The adjustments to spending and revenues result in lines that cross in 2012. This means that under a balanced budget, there is no room left in the budget for anything but the five items listed above. No homeland security outside of defense, no unemployment compensation, no EPA, no FBI (hmm), no domestic discretionary spending.

Now we come to the Turing test. Given Dr. Frist’s positions on tax cuts and balanced budgets, he can pass the test (“maintaining the thread of meaning”) with regard to the budget in one of two ways. First, he could advocate cuts in the five programs listed above. Alternatively, he could advocate elimination the remainder of government. Let’s see if we can discover signs of intelligent Republican life in the Senate.

Let’s first look at Dr. Frist’s position on funding for defense, interest, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Does Dr. Frist wish to cut defense spending? No, he wishes to increase it by $20 billion this year.

I presume that Dr. Frist does not want to default on interest payments on the national debt. We are looking for signs of intelligent life and the consequences of a default are so grave that advocating such a position would disprove the existence of intelligence.

What about Social Security? Does Dr. Frist wish to cut benefits? He does not. On his web page, Dr. Frist notes:

Above all, I am dedicated to preserving the very important commitment that the federal government had made to the American people to protect older Americans and the disabled against poverty and the loss of income.

He goes on to list six “guiding principles for Social Security Reform." Among those six are:

Modernization must not change Social Security benefits for retirees or near-retirees.

How about Medicare? It seems unlikely that Senator Frist would want to cut Medicare given that he was the point man on expanding Medicare to include a $500+ billion prescription drug benefit. He described the passage of that bill as a “truly historic advance for America”.

Now it is true that Dr. Frist argues that so called litigation reform will save money for Medicare. Frist claims that comprehensive medical litigation reform will save the government $14 billion over ten years. Even if that claim is true, it is small potatoes when compared with the numbers we are discussing.

That leaves only Medicaid. Does Dr. Frist wish to cut Medicaid? I find no reference to cutting Medicaid on Dr. Frist’s web page. I do find, however, a press release bragging about Dr. Frist helping provide additional Medicaid funding for Tennessee.

So, it seems that Dr. Frist is for balanced budgets and tax cuts but does not advocate cutting spending for any of the five programs that will consume all Federal revenue by 2012. To pass the Turing Test, he must favor elimination of all other Federal programs. Can he pass the test? He is not even close.

Dr. Frist is for a $4 billion increase in spending on Homeland Security.

He is also for increased funding for education, Veterans' health benefits, and AIDS.

There will be no money for a Justice Department but Dr. Frist is proud to have secured funding to build a new Federal Courthouse in Nashville.

Dr. Frist is for agriculture spending in Tennessee.

He is for spending on transportation infrastructure.

He is for HHS spending on medical research and for doubling the funding for trauma care systems.

Dr. Frist wants to spend on other things as well. He wants more than $10 billion to increase airport capacity. He wants to build a visitor’s center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He wants to increase the rates of Veterans disability compensation. He wants money to “increase access to and cooperation among our nation’s museums and libraries.” He wants to spend on child nutrition programs. He wants $25 million for residential academies to encourage the teaching of American History. He wants $3 billion to help farmers and ranchers. He wants to fund an increased number of AmeriCorps volunteers. He wants to pay states to increase foster care. He wants to fund space exploration and he wants to fund many, many other programs. In fact, Dr. Frist is proud of maintaining current levels of discretionary domestic spending. That is a long way from wanting to eliminate all of those programs aas well as the rest of the goverment outside the big 5.

Dr. Frist wants increased spending and tax cuts to result in a balanced budget. I want an ice cream diet and a lack of exercise to result in weight loss. Neither of our plans pass the Turing test. Our search for intelligent GOP life in the Senate has come up empty.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at March 17, 2004 11:46 AM | TrackBack