Bad Metaphors?

I wrote a previous post about metaphor use in politics. So my question now is, what constitutes a good or bad metaphor?

Here is an opinion piece by Paul Krugman. One of the metaphors in politics right now is "the economy is a stalled engine." The implications are that we need to jump start the engine, give it a quick burst of energy, and everything will be good again.

Well, first I suppose I should say my piece about the Obama -McConnel tax cut deal. It's great that they're trying stimulus, but the tax cuts for the wealthy are a terrible idea. MPC decreases as you deal with people who have higher and higher incomes, since there just isn't as much stuff for them to spend their new tax break money on, which means that the tax cuts on the wealthy won't actually generate much more spending. Tax cuts for the poor, who actually do need to spend a larger portion of their income in order to continue with their daily lives and thus have a higher MPC, will result in a larger increase in spending, since the poor are more likely to spend any money they would receive from tax cuts.

Of course, simply giving the wealthy tax cuts wouldn't be that much of a problem... if it wasn't for the deficit. Both the Democrats and Republicans use deficit reduction to support their arguments, but so far all we've seen is increases in the deficit. This tax cut on the wealthy simply serves to pile onto that deficit. Now, in my opinion, we shouldn't be so concerned about the deficit right now: Japan was worried about their deficit, and raised taxes too soon; they went into a recession and haven't come out for 20 years. We should really be trying to fix the recession first, and then later try and solve the deficit. Of course, that doesn't mean that we should pile onto the deficit; we should, however, as Krugman says, get the most bang for our buck. Tax cuts for the wealthy aren't the way to go for that.

As for the simulus itself, what we need right now is increased spending. Stimulus spending, or government spending, is spending. Therefore, it's good, and it's what we need right now. However, as Krugman says, we do need more spending, not the miniscule amount we're getting now.

So, anyway, the metaphor. So far I've mentioned immigration as dangerous waters, medical care as war, and the economy as a stalled engine. Which metaphors are good, and which ones are bad?

Well, in my previous post, I basically said that immigration as dangerous waters was a "bad" metaphor, since it skewed peoples perspectives on immigrants. All metaphors skew perspectives, since they are representing things in terms of other things. Political metaphors, especially, are designed to skew the perspectives of voters. Does this make all political metaphors bad?

Paul Krugman thinks that the economy as a stalled engine metaphor is a bad one. After all, the economy is not a stalled engine, and should not be given a jump start like a stalled engine. Krugman is right; the economy needs more, longer lasting stimulus spending, not a short boost. However, this argument can be applied to most metaphors: A is not B, and A should not be treated as B. So what differentiates good and bad metaphors? In the end, all metaphors fall short in some aspect, since two unlike things are necessarily different, and thus a metaphor will not be a perfect comparision in at least one way. I believe that the quality of a metaphor is entirely reliant on how people use it, and how people interpret it. I think the economy as a stalled engine, then, is a fine metaphor: sure, the economy needs more than just a jump start. But you know what? With the congress we have now, we're not going to get much more. So let's get a jump start: it's better than nothing.