Retired Wall Street kingpin Bruce Lisman has made a big splash in state politics with a blizzard of advertising from his self-funded right-wing advocacy group, Campaign for Vermont. (Well, it’s supposedly nonpartisan, but its issues are clearly conservative.) Of necessity, those brief ads are short on specifics and long on buzzwords and right-wing dog whistles.

It’s unclear where Lisman wants to go with this; he might be a future self-funded candidate a la Rich Tarrant, or perhaps a conservative sugar daddy a la the Koch Brothers. But the question is, what does Bruce Lisman really stand for? And if he did actually wield political power, what would he do?

The answers can be found in a May 2010 speech entitled “Finding Skin: How Vermont Can Become Its Own Version of an Economic Powerhouse Without Abandoning Its Values.” “Skin” is an allusion to “skin in the game,” a Warren Buffett coinage referring to organizational insiders who use their own money to buy stock in their enterprise. But the advertisement for the event included a mugshot-style photo of Lisman that made him look like he meant “finding skin” in a Hannibal Lecter sort of way.

The talk can be viewed online thanks to Channel 17/Town Meeting Television. I’ve watched the whole thing, which is not exactly fun; as a public speaker, Lisman is halting and colorless. But the talk reveals his outlook in detail, and the details are by turns striking, disturbing, and appalling. A full rundown follows, but suffice it to say that Bruce Lisman’s worldview is a pure Wall Street product (unsurprising in a person who spent two-thirds of his life there).

Lisman is a capitalist in the literal sense: he believes that capital is the most important thing for a society’s health. He believes that economic growth is the solution to all our problems, and that fostering growth is government’s primary job. He repeatedly emphasizes “transparency” and “accountability,” but he’s short on specifics. He seems to believe that government should run like a business — an article of faith among tycoons-turned-politicians, which has failed to work in real life whenever it’s been tried. (viz. Craig Benson’s brief, unhappy reign as Governor of New Hampshire.)  

Details after the jump, including Sh*t Bruce Says and The Lisman Agenda.  

The highlights: Sh*t Bruce Lisman Says

Here are some of the most outrageous things he said in his 2010 talk. First, as I previously reported, he described the 2008 economic collapse — which his own employer, Bear Stearns, had a big role in creating with its risky investment practices — as “this thing that happened,” a “Darwinian asteroid,” a catastrophe arriving from elsewhere, for which no human or institution could possibly be blamed. Which indicates either a tragically limited understanding blinkered by years of immersion in the culture of Wall Street, or a near-sociopathic level of disingenuousness. But let’s move on.

On the role of government, Lisman says:

“We need to declare that economic growth and prosperity is of first-magnitude importance to the welfare of our state, and is the ONLY answer for what might ail it.” … “The Governor needs to lead the economic development effort personally. The Governor has to make it the most important thing on his or her schedule every day.”

Wow, really? The Governor shouldn’t worry about recovery from Tropical Storm Irene, or health care reform, or social services, or corrections, or legislative relations, until after he caters to the needs of businesses and investors? Yeah, that’s not radical at all. Now, on to taxation:

“Any opportunity to lower taxes should go to capital gains and corporate taxes, not to individuals. The most precious thing in the galaxy is capital at risk. In exchange for risking their capital, they ought to be rewarded for that. If we care about economic prosperity and growing companies that create it, then we should reward them.” 

Gee, I thought the reward for risking capital was PROFIT, not a tax break. And I thought investors and corporations should bear responsibility for supporting the society that fosters their success. The rich are already richer than ever, and corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash. But if they get a tax break, then somehow capital will flow freely?

I’m no Wall Street genius, but I know that people invest because of opportunity. Our system is based on supply and demand — that’s Economics 101. If you don’t have demand, it doesn’t matter how strongly you goose the supply side. It won’t work. Now, on to taxes for the 99%:

“The taxpaying base is quite thin. Because of the progressive nature of it, there’s a cutoff that excludes more than 50% of potential taxpayers from paying taxes. My view: I think everyone is either in the enterprise or they’re not. You’d want everyone to pay something in.”

The Lisman prescription: tax cuts for the 1% and tax hikes for the poor and working class. Also, that “more than 50%” is an exaggeration of a common right-wing lie. It’s usually put at 47% who “pay no taxes” In reality they pay no income taxes, but they pay a variety of other taxes: payroll (including Social Security and Medicare), property, and sales taxes, if nothing else. And the reason many poor people don’t pay income tax is because of the Earned Income Tax Credit — which is meant to encourage the poor to work, even at low-paying jobs, because they get to keep the paltry wages they make.

As for social programs and supporting those in need, Lisman issues a superficial endorsement: he says we have an obligation to uphold the “social contract.” But he goes on to blow the dog-whistle of conservative complaint about the cost of the “social contract”:

“We need to define our social contract better. What does the social contract cost?” …  “If you were to take all our programs in the social contract and compare them to the national average, you’d get a glimpse of how much it’d cost to do the things we say we want to do. If we did that, we could decide how much we want to spend.”

Really? Comparing to the national average is your silver bullet, your big idea? No matter whether the comparison is relevant or meaningful? Would it be relevant to compare Northfield Savings Bank to Wells Fargo, and to run NSB in the same way? Of course not. Lisman also implies that the social contract ought to be a private matter instead of a government operation:

“Kindness and caring are in our gene pool. It’s embodied in something called the Social Contract — our obligation to help those who require kindness and caring.” …”If we can connect those defining traits with two others that make us true Vermonters, practicality and frugalness, we can renew that other great trait of Vermonters: balance.”

Implying that our current social safety net is “out of balance,” i.e. too generous. Lisman follows his call for “practicality and frugalness” with a childhood anecdote about his father distributing food to families in need. He doesn’t overtly argue that we should dismantle government aid programs and return to the salad days when we all cared for our neighbors, but the implication is there. (And private aid was never up to the task. The good old days, as Otto Bettmann said, were horrible. Private charity never came close to meeting the need, and a lot of people suffered and died for lack of help.)

I also like that casual reference to “us true Vermonters,” coming from a guy who’s spent only three of the last 40-odd years in Vermont, and has clearly assimilated the Wall Street worldview.

And now, let’s take a look at Bruce Lisman’s prescription for fixing what ails Vermont.

The Lisman Agenda

In his talk, Lisman ticked off a list of things that should be done to turn Vermont into that “economic powerhouse.” Here are some of them, with my comments.

“Declare that economic growth and prosperity is of first-magnitude importance to the welfare of our state, and is the ONLY answer for what might ail it.”

Really? Growth is the only answer? Who’s asking the questions here, bucko? Economic growth is the solution for environmental degradation, climate change, urban decay, racism, sexism, crumbling infrastructure? Hell, I’d argue that even when you’re talking growth and progress, the free market isn’t always the best driver. Example: the Erie Canal. It made a huge difference in the course of America’s history by providing the first opening to the West. Until the canal opened, America was a narrow strip between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains. Without the Erie Canal, westward settlement would have been delayed for who knows how long. European powers would have had the first opportunity to stake claims to the continent, and North America’s political map could well have been permanently divided.

The Erie Canal was completely funded, organized, and built by the State of New York. The Bear Stearnses of the day refused to touch it.

“We should pursue [economic growth] with the same sense of purpose that we have pursued a more perfect safety net.”

Gee, I didn’t know we had a perfect social safety net. I thought our progress had been slow, halting, uneven, and fraught with political divisions. If we pursue economic growth in the same way, then our economy’s going down the crapper.

“Declare that our government is a government for all the people, and we can prove it by pursuing remarkable transparency.”… “How can a state that is so small and so intimate keep us in the dark about so many things? Like our taxes and where our taxes go. It’s a complete mystery to us.”

Is that really about a lack of transparency, or a lack of desire on the part of citizens to find that stuff out? People are busy, distracted, and (if voter turnout is any indication) disinterested in government. They are certainly uninterested in the details of policy and budgeting. If state government were transparent, how many would avail themselves of the information?

I agree that Vermont needs more transparency. But I doubt that it’s the answer to all our problems, as Lisman seems to believe.

“Pursue performance-shaped budgeting. If you run a business and you invest $100, you want to know if it worked. Performance-shaped budgeting would tell us where our money is being spent and would tell us if our money is being well spent.” … “Every agency and spending program should have goals and ways to measure success in some defined period of time.”

A popular shibboleth of the “run government like a business” crowd. The problem is, government is fundamentally NOT a business. The vast majority of government programs don’t have well-defined beginnings and endings. They are ongoing in nature. You could analyze specific new initiatives, but not most of government. How do you determine success of social services or corrections or transportation or homeland security?

There then followed the previously mentioned call for redefining the social contract, with an apparent eye toward making it cheaper and less comprehensive.

“Finally, we need to embrace economic growth and prosperity but we shouldn’t try to predict the future. We shouldn’t choose companies or industries.” … “Rather, we should build a platform that provides equal opportunity for all kinds of companies and industries to do business here.”

Apparently Lisman would have opposed the auto industry bailout; better to let Darwinian forces determine whether we have an auto industry or not. I assume Lisman would also oppose local property tax breaks for individual developers, government subsidies to specific industries (nuclear power, take a bow!), agricultural price supports (there goes the Vermont dairy industry), or any of the other billion or so ways in which the public sector tries to influence the course of economic growth. And for the sake of consistency, I sure hope Lisman opposed the government bailout of Wall Street in 2008. Let that Darwinian asteroid hit full force!

The fundamental problem is that Lisman ignores the messy complexity of real life, and frames everything in terms of finance and economics. “The most precious thing in the galaxy is capital at risk.” Really? How about love, beauty, spirituality, creativity? How about serving humanity or the planet? Entrepreneurship and ambition? How about our precious freedom? “Give me capital at risk, or give me death!” Now that’s an inspiring slogan. Not everything in life can be boiled down to dollars and cents. In fact, most of the good stuff cannot be.

In sum, Bruce Lisman is a dangerous man, shrouding himself in moderate, common-sensical costume while seeking to promote a truly radical agenda that puts business in the center of everything, and government in the thrall of business.  

Postscript. I’m putting a lot of weight on a two-year old speech. And you might say, well, this is an old speech and may not reflect Lisman’s priorities today, My response:

— It’s the only thing we have to go by. Lisman doesn’t speak in public at length very often. His views as reflected in CFV propaganda are sketchy and often deliberately misleading.

— The principles in his speech line up very closely with the stated priorities of CFV. The speech goes beyond what CFV has publicly advocated, but there is little or no disagreement between the two.

— He’s very big on accountability. Well, he says some remarkable, and at times appalling, things in the speech. He should be held accountable for them.

A word on the title: “The business of government is business” is a quote from Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.” It is often falsely attributed to Calvin Coolidge — sometimes rendered as “The business of America is business” — and has helped define him as a heartless arch-conservative. His actual quote, however, is “After all, the chief business of the American people is business.” Which is quite a different thing. And when you see the actual quote, you have to conclude that, on financial matters, Bruce Lisman is to the right of Calvin Coolidge.