Today marks the sixtieth consecutive year The Wall Street Journal has published Vermont Royster’s Christmas Eve column on its opinion page. The piece is a masterwork of liberty rightly ordered. Enjoy.
Early this morning, the United States Senate passed its version of health care “reform” legislation. Though Congress won’t be back in session until January 18th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be discussing ways to reconcile the bills so they can get it to President Obama for his signature. In a departure from the go-go pace of the last two weeks, there are signs that the legislation may not become law until February of next year.
Since an overwhelming majority of voters oppose either version of the plan, Democrats are leaving themselves open to serious opposition over the holidays; especially since media outlets and activist groups will have time to comb through the bills and highlight the waste and corruption tucked away in each. For CFIF and its supporters, the fight continues!
One of the fundamental rules of negotiating is being able and willing to walk away without a deal. Apparently, during the make-or-break round of the Copenhagen climate conference only China remembered the rule. Of course, the “deal” it secured with Western countries was far less than Obama, Brown, Merkel, etc. wanted – but that was the point.
To be sure, Western leaders desperately wanted a deal, and kept larding on concessions. Take out previously agreed to emissions targets? Okay. Remove specific reduction deadlines? Fine. How about eliminating independent verification of compliance? Yes. Like a “moderate” Democratic Senator holding out for the sweetest deal possible, China played the world for stooges, and won.
China not only didn’t need a deal – it didn’t want one. But if the “international community” was going to insist on “something” to show for the two-week confab, China was happy to give next to nothing and make it look like the West failed to be serious. For eco-philes the dismal end to “Hopenhagen” shouldn’t be that surprising considering China’s position, though for some it is:
Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, “not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?” The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now “in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years’ time”.
When considered in the context of China’s overall approach to foreign policy, the country’s obstructionism is not novel. Whether it’s protecting Iran from sanctions, propping up North Korea, or bankrolling Sudan, China is not a nation promising the kind of multi-lateral hope and change global government types are waiting for. For America haters everywhere, China’s rise to power does not portend a kinder, gentler world.
While options for defeating health care “reform” are dwindling for congressional Republicans, there may be another, better collection of politicians to derail the federal government’s looming takeover: state governments. It bears remembering that for all the talk of health care being a human right, the vehicle through which it will be delivered is a voluntary agreement exchanging state sovereignty for federal dollars. Say no to the federal dollars by opting out of Medicaid, and states are free to provide health care at a price their taxpayers can afford.
That’s the gist of the argument made by two analysts at The Heritage Foundation and discussed today in an article posted on Human Events. Granted, it may seem like a health care bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president is immediately binding on the states. But only if states refuse to opt out of Medicaid. Like all state-federal “partnerships”, state governments take federal tax dollars because it’s popular to spend money, and besides, a state might as well get back some of what it pays to Washington, right?
Maybe not. Instead, governors and state legislators would do well to seriously consider saying “no thanks” to Uncle Sam and looking for ways to deliver the same or similar benefits using state-only dollars. According to the same Heritage Foundation study:
If all states withdraw from Medicaid, their collective savings would be $725 billion over the 2013-2019 period, but they would exceed $1 trillion over 10 years. This assumes that states will continue to spend at least 90 percent of what they spend now on Medicaid long-term care services with state-only dollars. On a state-by-state basis, every state except North Dakota would come out ahead financially by leaving Medicaid but continuing long-term care spending with state-only dollars. Of course, if North Dakota reduced its long-term care spending, it too would come out ahead.
With Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) challenging their governors to take their Medicaid carve outs or pay the full price of “reform”, now is the time for states to start thinking how to regain their status as “50 laboratories” and let all that federal tax money go to some other cause. Deficit reduction, anyone?
Of all the criticism streaming in from the liberal blogosphere, it would be hard to find one as exasperated with President Obama than Emory professor Drew Westen’s recent piece for the Huffington Post. In the midst of a prolonged screed against the man he voted for last November, Westen manages to cogently distill the Left’s frustration with The One:
Like most Americans I talk to, when I see the president on television, I now change the channel the same way I did with Bush. With Bush, I couldn’t stand his speeches because I knew he meant what he said. I knew he was going to follow through with one ignorant, dangerous, or misguided policy after another. With Obama, I can’t stand them because I realize he doesn’t mean what he says — or if he does, he just doesn’t have the fire in his belly to follow through. He can’t seem to muster the passion to fight for any of what he believes in, whatever that is. He’d make a great queen — his ceremonial addresses are magnificent — but he prefers to fly Air Force One at 60,000 feet and “stay above the fray.”
I’ll leave others to analyze the current president’s penchant to be prim when true negotiating grit is needed. And besides the backhanded compliment to Obama’s immediate predecessor, there isn’t much a conservative could add. It’s almost as if liberals are finally realizing what the Right has been saying since he became a serious contender for the White House: the man has no signature achievement other than promoting himself. If comprehensive health care “reform” legislation reaches his desk it won’t be because of his ideas or political capital – a point made well by Westen:
It’s the job of the president to be in the fray. It’s his job to lead us out of it, not to run from it. It’s his job to make the tough decisions and draw lines in the sand. But Obama really doesn’t seem to want to get involved in the contentious decisions. They’re so, you know, contentious. He wants us all to get along. Better to leave the fights to the Democrats in Congress since they’re so good at them. He’s like an amateur boxer who got a coupon for a half day of training with Angelo Dundee after being inspired by the tapes of Mohammed Ali. He got “float like a butterfly” in the morning but never made it to “sting like a bee.”
Then again, perhaps Obama is playing rope-a-dope with his liberal base. As long as he can claim to be the first president to deliver “universal” health care, his legacy will be secure. After all, it’s all about his, right?
I’ve been arguing in this space that one of the keys to a Republican resurgence will be tapping into the slightly libertarian, anti-government energy of the Tea Party movement. This strategy has the twin virtues of aligning with where the public is at right now and getting the GOP back to first principles after nearly a decade of intellectual drift.
For that reason, it’s encouraging to see that the new Public Policy Polling results in Kentucky show Dr. Rand Paul (Ron Paul’s son) with a commanding lead against the establishment candidate in the Republican primary.
While it’s as yet unclear to me whether Dr. Paul shares his father’s isolationist views on foreign policy (based on his campaign website, Rand seems ever-so-slightly more mainstream), his candidacy should be embraced on the right even if he does. Like Peter Schiff (who is running for the Republican nomination in Connecticut), Paul is a true believer in limited government, personal freedom, and Austrian economics. Having a few new U.S. Senators cut from that cloth would be more than worth the tradeoff on defense issues.
The party of the donkey might have a 257-178 advantage in the House of Representatives but Alabama Representative Parker Griffith has just announced that he’s switching over to the GOP.
Griffith has spent most of his time in Congress opposing Speaker Pelosi’s legislative priorities, including the government takeover of health care and the $787 billion failed stimulus. In fact, he was one of just eleven House Democrats to oppose the stimulus.
Griffith evidently saw the writing on the wall and recognized that having a “D” after his name would be a political liability in 2010. His district, AL-5 (northern Alabama), gave President Obama 38% of the vote in 2008.
There is no official announcement yet from Representative Griffith. Check back for further details.
FreedomWorks – What Next on Health Care?
San Diego Union-Tribune – Not a Shining Moment for the Senate
George Will – Obama’s Unsightly Triumphs
The Hill – Senate Set for Christmas Eve Health Care Vote
Politico – Pork Greased Health Care Passage
National Review Online – Can Stupak Save the Democrats?
Washington Times – Judicial Hellholes
Washington Examiner – In Defense of Senate Obstructionism
Federal Debt: $12.152 trillion
Ross Douthat, who took over as the New York Times’ house conservative after Bill Kristol‘s brief stint during the 2008 election, has become increasingly insightful as he has settled into his new perch. In an entry on a NYT blog today, Douthat dissects the criticisms of the GOP approach to health care by The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait (a liberal) and former Bush speechwriter David Frum (a self-loathing Republican). Douthat doles out judicious criticism to each, but his own diagnosis is much more provocative:
In the end, when the history of the health care debate is written, I don’t think any of the choices that G.O.P. lawmakers made this year will loom particularly large. The choices that they made, or didn’t make, across the last fifteen years are what made all the difference. Between the defeat of Clintoncare and the election of Barack Obama, the Republicans had plenty of chances to take ownership of the health care issue and pass a significant reform along more free-market, cost-effective lines. They didn’t. The system deteriorated on their watch instead. And now they’re suffering the consequences.
Absolutely true. As good as many of the free-market healthcare reform ideas swimming around are, the reality is that, with the exception of marginal advances on Health Savings Accounts — a necessary, but not sufficient aspect of reform — the GOP has done nothing to advance an alternative vision for health care. And the party’s one major accomplishment was a massive and unfunded expansion of the welfare state in the form of the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
One other interesting note from Douthat:
As far as the Republicans’ rhetorical emphases go, meanwhile, I’d really prefer to live in a world where the G.O.P. hadn’t decided to remake itself as the party of Medicare now, Medicare forever. But judged purely as a short-term political strategy designed to derail the legislation, it’s hard to argue with the results. Public opinion has turned dramatically against the bill, and every swing-state Democrat who votes for it is courting political suicide.
Me: I’d gladly trade away potential GOP wins next year for defeating the health care bill now. After all, the point of political victory is to influence policy outcomes. And once the government embeds itself in the healthcare industry there will be no turning back — like our British counterparts, most of the domestic policy agenda will become focused on who can better manage a bloated welfare state. The next few weeks may thus see the biggest epochal shift in American politics since the constituent parts of Reaganomics made their way through the Congress.
Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) on Harry Reid’s (D-NV) health care compromise with Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson:
You’ve got to compliment Ben Nelson for playing, ‘The Price Is Right.’ He negotiated a Medicaid agreement for Nebraska that puts the federal government on the hook forever. This isn’t the Louisiana Purchase, it’s the Nebraska windfall … this isn’t how this process is supposed to work.
Sadly, the “Louisiana Purchase” already took place during Senate negotiations. Now, taxpayers are “on the hook” for Louisiana and Nebraska. This is not because Nebraska and Louisiana are especially important for health care reform, but because two politicians from those states were able to game the system better than their colleagues.
This is why our national debt is over $12 trillion.
This morning, the Senate invoked cloture on its scheme for government-run health care. Under Senate rules, there will now be 30 hours of debate divided equally between the two parties, and then there is a strong possibility that the Senate will pass the legislation.
For Majority Leader Harry Reid, getting to this point was no easy task. The typical horse trading that takes place on Capitol Hill was on overdrive lately as Leader Reid had to beg, borrow and deal to buy off each cynical Senator.
As much as the media and politicians on the Hill excoriated Governor Rod Blagojevich for selling President Obama’s old Senate seat, buying votes is a common occurrence in the nation’s capital.
As this piece from Politico demonstrates, what happens in Senate chambers typically borders on bribery.
For example:
In an attempt to rationalize this border-line legislative bribery, Senator Reid opined, “You’ll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislating is all about. It’s compromise.”
Buying off votes = compromise? Selling a Senate seat = felony?
Associated Press – Health Bill Clears Senate Test
Rep. Bob Barr – Health Care Bizarro World
Politico – Health Plans on Collision Course
The Hill – Sen. Nelson’s $100 Million Payoff
Las Vegas Review-Journal – Climate Folly
Michael Barone – Liberals Collide with Public Option
American Spectator – Democrats Break Ground
WSJ Editorial – Change Nobody Believes In
Federal Debt: $12.147 trillion
On yesterday’s “Hardball”, Democratic strategist (and promiscuous presidential campaign kamikaze) Bob Shrum got into an almost unwatchable scrimmage over global warming and the Copenhagen Conference with Pat Buchanan. In a tag-team effort with host Chris Matthews, Shrum tried to side-step the epistemological questions surrounding climate change by invoking the analogy of carrying fire insurance.
This meme, which has started showing up in Democratic talking points lately, tries to get around climate uncertainty by invoking the “precautionary principle”: that it’s prudent to take decisive action proportional to a catastrophic threat even if the potential of that threat being realized is miniscule. This irrational doctrine has been part of the environmental left’s catechism for decades, but its appearance in the political sphere shows that liberals are becoming sensitive to the fallout over Climategate and trying to reframe their position as a common sense hedge against catastrophe. Wrong.
The Precautionary Principle sounds good in a vacuum (who caucuses for increased risk, after all?), but is (ironically) non-empirical in its application. All of life is a matter of weighing probable rewards versus probable risks. Jettisoning this cost-benefit principle on a serious policy issue is dangerous — and the insurance analogy shows why.
Think about how fire insurance actually works. You pay a miniscule fee to hedge against the minute possibility of a catastrophic outcome. But that’s not how carbon abatement schemes work. First of all, there’s no pool to socialize risk within. As an inherently global “crisis”, everyone is supposedly effected — so it’s impossible to cross-subsidize in the way that insurance plans do. But more importantly, you wouldn’t buy fire insurance that costs exponentially more than the likely damage from a fire — and that’s what the economic disaster represented by cap and trade and other such schemes would mean.
Liberals can’t get their head around the fact that there’s only so much value swimming around in an economy (regardless of the money supply). If you use some of it in one place, you can’t use it in another. And when government mandates its use, it’s almost always less efficient than the private sector. This is called an opportunity cost. It’s usually covered in the first few days of an elementary economics course. This is what happens when we elect people who cut that class for a Sierra Club meeting.
Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) just announced that he will support the Senate health care bill, seemingly handing Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama the 60 votes needed to pass the legislation by Christmas.
According to The Washington Post:
Asked if he had secured the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) told reporters, ‘It seems that way.’
The Senate is expected to work its way through a series of procedural motions over the next few days, with a vote on the legislation scheduled the evening of Dec. 24th. A conference with the House to produce a final bill would likely extend into January, Senate aides said.
Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning released his manager’s amendment to the Senate health care bill. Read it here.
The Majority Leader is still planning to hold the first cloture vote on the bill as early as 1:00 a.m. Monday morning.
In the rush to secure enough votes to pass the comprehensive health care “reform” bill before Christmas, Democrats in the Senate seem to agree that while a “public option” is out, an “individual mandate” is most certainly in. Simply put, if passed, every American would be required by federal law to purchase health insurance or pay a fine. Although there are some subtle distinctions between then Governor Romney’s proposal and a “pure” individual mandate, after only three years in effect, the Massachusetts legislature opted for purity over subtlety. Thus, the result of Romney’s carefully crafted compromise turned into the blueprint for the first iteration of ObamaCare.
How odd it would be for Romney if his presidential prospects depended on the success or failure of the Democrats’ version of universal health care. Already, libertarian and conservative commentators are starting to make the connection between the federal bill and Massachusetts. Come the primaries, it will take a nanosecond for opposition researchers and spin doctors to lash ObamaCare to RomneyCare. If they do, and the current distaste for nuance still prevails, Romney’s likely explanations of this-but-no-further policy making could be his undoing.
A new Research 2000 national survey is out today showing a liberal revolt against the Senate health care “reform” bill. The survey of 800 likely voters, commissioned by the ultra-liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America, found that only 33%of those polled favor health care reform that includes an individual mandate but no public government-run insurance option – essentially the Senate bill. 56% of all likely voters surveyed opposed such “reform.”
Hey, Mr. President. How’s that strategy of “pass something, anything, regardless of what the people want” working out for you? The Senate may end up passing a health care bill that an overwhelming majority of your liberal base opposes.
When it could be $87 billion. The $77 billion swing is the difference between making a real payment towards bringing down the exploding federal deficit and a token gesture. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Education Secretary Arne Duncan confirms a plan put in motion when the department got “emergency powers” during the credit crisis last year to continue access to student loans. After explaining why the federal government is prohibiting private banks to participate in federal student loan programs, Secretary Duncan concludes with a cursory listing of what will be done with the projected savings.
As for the $87 billion we’ll save from ending the troubled FFEL program, the administration seeks to use that money for important programs that will improve our economic future. We propose to substantially increase scholarships in the Pell Grant program and other financial aid for low-income students. We would start new programs to raise college graduation rates and strengthen our community colleges. We will expand our investment in early childhood education. Plus, $10 billion would be set aside to reduce the deficit.
But if a little deficit reduction is good, isn’t a lot better? Realistically, if Duncan was serious about deficit reduction he’d apply the entire savings to that end. As it is, $77 billion of the money saved will go towards new spending in the form of higher loan amounts, “strengthening” community colleges, and “investing” in early childhood education. None of these programs will pay for themselves in a way that off-sets their direct cost to the federal taxpayer, which, according to Duncan, is the main reason federal control in this area is needed.
What’s Paul Krugman’s advice to liberals like MoveOn and Howard Dean upset over current health care negotiations in the Senate? Pass the Bill.
It seems that liberals like Krugman want a bill just for the sake of passing a bill. Politics and not principle appear to be his main motivation, which is strange coming from an economist and college professor.
Ideological purists like Howard Dean and MoveOn object to Harry Reid’s version of reform. But why? The current Senate bill supposedly lacks the government-run public option that liberals have been salivating over for the past year. What remains from Senate negotiations is a hodgepodge of mandates, new regulations and higher taxes.
The one issue both sides of the aisle should agree on during the holidays is that the current health care bill is awful; it’s really really bad.
Conservatives and libertarians should hate the bill because it contains hundreds of billions in new taxes, an unconstitutional mandate for individual health insurance, an expensive employer mandate, costs over $2 trillion and it does nothing to bend the health care cost curve downward, among many other reasons.
Liberals should hate the bill because it (supposedly) contains no government-run public option, politically connected health care companies practically drafted the legislation, PhARMA supports it, socialist Senator Bernie Sanders doesn’t, it fails to cover 100% of the uninsured and it doesn’t bend the health care cost curve downward.
Dr. Krugman may attempt to use his perch at the New York Times to rally progressives toward a final health care push, but the ugly truth is that health care reform has become the product of Washington, D.C. politics. That’s never a good thing. President Obama rallied against Washington-style politics during his campaign but it appears that his bill and his political strategy have embraced the zero sum ultra-partisan approach that he derided so frequently in the past.
Dr. Krugman’s headline should have been “Kill this Bill.”
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