Gene Lyons in Salon wrote the most awesome line. It is perhaps the perfect encapsulation of the liberal attacks on George W. Bush – and as such, is also practically a caricature of those attacks. I read it, cringed a bit, and then thought, “Well…..I’m not sure which part I would disagree with.”
If Pakistani terrorists had done to New Orleans what Bush’s hapless FEMA appointees did after Katrina, he’d have invaded Iran…
[digg-reddit-me]Camille Paglia’s Salon weekly Salon column seems a product of a different time. One of the consequences of this is that she neglects to provide links sourcing some of the more bizarre claims she makes. At the same time, Paglia’s ideologically-applied contrarianism leads her to make quite a few of these bizarre statements. Her columns read like a caricature of media attempts to be “objective” and “independent” dreamed up by Glenn Greenwald rather than a sentient mind. Paglia seems determined to make sure neither Democrats nor Republicans, neither conservatives nor liberals feel comfortable with what she was to say. Thus, she endorses every criticism made by one side of the other, and credits no one with solutions. The defining element of her style is to take seriously the hypothetical or actual criticisms of various groups whom she then stereotypes in the crudest manner possible:
Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors’ offices. They’ll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.
Paglia uses these stereotypes to demonstrate her disdain for and independence from those whose criticisms she is adopting. Her vaunted independence then serves only to mask an inability or unwillingness to differentiate between true claims and false ones as she navigates through policy issues without endorsing any coherent approach.
And today, she applies her mind to the health care debate. The result is predictable.
Paglia rather quickly demonstrates her complete ignorance of the basics of health care policy arguments by endorsing “portability of health insurance across state lines” as “the most common-sense clause to increase competition and drive down prices.” Paglia doesn’t see any reasons why Democrats might oppose this “common-sense” reform – so she presumes there must be some “covert business interests,” that Democrats are protecting. A simpler explanation might be that allowing the portability of health insurance across state lines would effectively deregulate the entire health insurance industry. Or at least, it would create a race to the bottom as health insurance companies would relocate to the state with the least regulation, after which states would compete to deregulate to attract this industry. Or maybe the Democrats are really in the pocket of some secret business that Paglia imagines.
Paglia goes on to ask “why are we even considering so gargantuan a social experiment when the nation is struggling to emerge from a severe recession?” She answers her own question without pausing: “liberals are starry-eyed dreamers lacking the elementary ability to project or predict the chaotic and destabilizing practical consequences of their utopian fantasies.” The idea that this moderate bill – which resembles nothing so much as the Republican’s counter-offer to Bill Clinton in 1993 – is actually a liberal “utopian fantasy” is an easy straw man. Instead, this bill explicitly seeks to stabilize our status quo.
As to the question of, “Why now?” – Paglia might have taken the basic step of listening to any presidential address on this or read almost any liberal op-ed from before August. The presented explanation was that health care reform has to be the first step in entitlement reform. And entitlement reform is the first step towards fiscal solvency. And with the bond market and the Chinese government getting nervous about America’s solvency in the long-term, steps to bring the long-term deficit (which is almost entirely driven by the rising health care costs) into line were necessary. You couldn’t read a liberal op-ed on health care without seeing the Peter Orszag phrase “bend the curve” until this August when concerns about “death panels” and “killing Grandma” became paramount.
Speaking of which, Paglia makes sure to trot out these charges yet again – warning of imminent rationing and the “gutting” of Medicare:
How dare anyone claim humane aims for this bill anyhow when its funding is based on a slashing of Medicare by over $400 billion? The brutal abandonment of the elderly here is unconscionable.
Truly, to brutally abandon individuals to live without health insurance is unconscionable. To forcibly ration by government fiat is certainly not anything most Americans would support. Perhaps because of this, neither of these is anywhere in any proposed health care legislation. The “slashing of Medicare by over $400 billion” was described slightly differently by Washington Post reporter T. R. Reid yesterday. He called it, a typical Washington spending “cut” – in that Medicare costs were budgeted to rise by $800 billion in the next 10 years, but now would be restrained to rise by half that. Medicare spending would still rise significantly. Washington is one of the few places where you can spend far more and still call something a “cut.” This reduction in the rate of spending would come from various places – one of which would be the Medicare Advantage program which would be subject to “a competitive bidding process that is designed to lower spending on the program.” What Paglia – along with most right wing critics – fail to understand is that health care reform is not about reducing spending, but about reducing the rate of growth of spending. If Paglia calls this “brutal abandonment,” one wonders how she might describe the state of the uninsured if she felt compelled to look to them!
Paglia’s other claims are similarly shallow – equal parts histronics and ignorance. The modest bill proposed does not “co-opt[…] and destroy[…] the entire U.S. medical infrastructure” nor create a “huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy.” In fact, because the bill makes great efforts not to co-opt or destroy the hybrid health insurance system we have that it creates a maze of small bureaucratic institutions to manage the maze of hybrid models that make up our system. They key innovation of the current bill is not any set of bureaucratic institutions but the creation of a managed marketplace, the health insurance exchange.
Paglia’s take on health care demonstrates a complete failure to differentiate between true claims and false ones, as she demonstrates independence not only from partisan forces but from any objective reality.
[Image by Ann Althouse licensed under Creative Commons.]
[digg-reddit-me]I said I was going to make a point of noting solid criticisms of the Obama administration by mainstream conservatives and right wingers.
Mona Charen of the National Review wrote a solid piece that didn’t resort to blatant falsehoods as far as I could tell that made a solid case against health care reform. Her basic point is that she doesn’t trust the Democrats:
Every single page [of the health care bill] proclaims something that is dubious — that the Democrats know what they are doing.
Rather than talking about death panels, she points out that electronic recordkeeping has overwhelmed doctors with information they are not used to having to sort through – and thus has made hospitals less efficient. (She cites no study, but it is certainly plausible that this would be a short term effect.) Preventive care, she explains, while probably saving lives could end up costing more – as “more and more of us are tested for more and more diseases.”
Her big point is that this health care reform is “brought to you by the same people” who brought you Medicare and Medicaid – and that the costs of these programs were vastly underestimated. As she points out:
In 1965, Congress predicted that by 1990, Medicare would be costing $12 billion. The actual cost — $90 billion.
Long term forecasts of government spending – or really anything – are a fool’s game, and Charen is right to point this out. On a macroeconomic level, there are too many factors to take into account – and that’s not even counting “black swans” that change everything. In this case, the major factor causing the government health care costs to be so off was the explosion of health care inflation in the 1980s which has only gotten worse since. But it’s not clear that Medicare or Medicaid played any role in this – especially as their costs have been below that of private insurance.
Bill Clinton made a similar point to Charen’s yesterday in trying to make the case for why the health care reform should be passed:
There is no perfect bill because there are always unintended consequences…
Yet, Clinton maintained:
The worst thing to do is nothing.
As Steven Pearlstein writing for the Washington Post described the price of doing nothing (and was later echoed by Barack Obama):
Among the range of options for health-care reform, there’s one that is sure to raise your taxes, increase your out-of-pocket medical expenses, swell the federal deficit, leave more Americans without insurance and guarantee that wages will remain stagnant.
That’s the option of doing nothing…
This is the answer Democrats give to the sensible concerns of Charen and those like her: there inherent uncertainty in any attempt to change a macroeconomic trend, but given where we are headed if we do nothing, it’s worth trying.
The only other option is to give up.
This is exactly the sort of sensible criticism that – in my opinion – conservatives should be making. However, the answer should not be to do nothing, but to “tinker” instead of instituting massive top-down changes, and to adopt the measures that work after tinkering. For the most part, this is exactly the approach the current bills take – which is a testament to the fundamental insights of the conservative movement of the past few decades. To take into account this fundamental insight while promoting a liberal agenda is in fact the essence of Obama’s approach: It’s why 40% of the stimulus was tax cuts; it’s why the key health care reform is to create a market that allows individuals to make decisions based on information that is more transparent; it’s why the answer to global warming is a cap-and-trade program that decentralizes authority and whose main mechanism is a market. That this has been Obama’s approach is what has forced the right wing opposition to him to become so unhinged.
As American politics itself curdles some more into the core divide between fundamentalism and liberalism, the impact of the post-9/11 century deepens. And the murderous marketers of divine certainty make progress – at home and abroad.
Curdling seems to be the perfect analogy.
[digg-reddit-me]The Stupak amendment has brought out the least attractive side of many progressive pundits: a doctrinal, ideological, visceral disregard for opposing views. Right wingers regularly accuse liberals and progressives of this, and perhaps I cannot see it on most issues as I am firmly in the liberal camp. Or perhaps on abortion, there is an element of ideological certainty which is different than on other issues. I don’t see the same knee-jerk dismissal of opposing views as I do on the issue of abortion with regards to government intervention in the society or economy, various social issues, or American empire. It was fair to say, as most liberals did, that opposing the stimulus was madness, and the arguments against it were often fatally flawed. It was fair to label the “enhanced interrogation techniques” torture, for that is what they were. It is fair to see homophobia as the greatest motivator of opposition to gay marriage, even if it is not the only one. It was fair to call much of the opposition and debate over health care reform “unhinged” – as the debate bore little relation to the moderate bill being proposed.
Yet, as someone who grew up a Catholic, who went to Catholic schools all my life, who has read and wrestled with Catholic doctrine and thought, I get frustrated reading the ignorant and arrogant ramblings of many pro-choice pundits as they discuss the real motivations of the pro-life movement. By ignoring the stated motivations, these pro-choice pundits are able to attribute the opposition to abortion to an anti-woman animus. It seems to me such dismissals are meant to avoid tackling the core question, which is difficult, and nearly impossible to resolve or even discuss. As such, abortion is perhaps the subject least subject to the type of technocratic solution that most Democratic politicians and policy wonks seem to favor.
(Side note: The attempt by the Obama administration to work on this issue was commendable though – attempting to reduce abortion through contraception and education. Unfortunately, the Catholic bishops scuttled this deal as they oppose contraception as well as abortion – a longstanding position. As if to prove their clueless-ness, Matt Yglesias and Atrios at that point stated that this proved that the Catholic Church didn’t really think abortion was murder – because if they did, they would set aside their silly opposition to contraception. While I agree that the Church’s position on contraception (as well as sex in general) is silly, only someone who knows nothing about the Catholic Church would be surprised at this or think it calls into questiontheir opposition to abortion, as I explained at the time.)
In the midst of the fallout from the Stupak amendment, pro-choice pundits once again demonstrated that they misunderstand the politics of abortion. Atrios, for example, tweeted:
2010’s gonna be a bloodbath if dems vote to take away abortion rights
This impression – that support for keeping the status quo on abortion rights is popular – is in fact now, and has long been, untrue. A majority of the country does favor keeping abortion legal, but much of the same majority believes it should be harder to get abortions and supports significant conscience opt-outs regarding abortion. This majority includes a majority of women. Most people do not see abortion as simply “a medical procedure,” but as a profound act. Matt Yglesias dismisses this distinction made by the majority of Americans as “arbitrary” and as merely part of an effort to delegitimize abortion.
Yglesias, a favorite blogger of mine, wrote a similarly clueless post – in which he suggested that nothing was achieved with the Stupak amendment – as Republicans continued to oppose it, the National Right to Life continued to oppose it, and the Catholic bishops only supported the amendment rather than the whole bill. Of course, Yglesias ignores the clearest goal of the Stupak amendment – to get pro-life Democrats on board, without whom the bill wouldn’t have passed. As to the groups Yglesias addressed, the National Right to Life committee gives the pro-life movement a bad name – as it has become entirely co-opted by the Republican Party and now merely distributes propaganda for the party. But the bishops had previously said they would not support any specific legislation, even as they supported the goals of this health care reform. Their only reason to oppose the bill was whether or not it would be “abortion-neutral.” The Stupak amendment removed their opposition – and even lead Cardinal Francis George to call Republican Minority Leader Boehner to make sure “the GOP didn’t play any games,” blocking health care reform on the pretense of a pro-life position. Yglesias failed to take these into account because they interfered with the point he was trying to make: that pro-lifers are insincere in their opposition to abortion and instead just oppose the Democratic Party and the rights of women.
What Democratic politicians realize – but progressive pundits do not – is that Democrats will only win if they can with the Catholic vote. And the largest impediment to winning the Catholic vote is the issue of abortion, for which Catholics bear a great deal of the blame for the schizophrenic position of the majority. There is a hard core of conservative Catholics, but they are a small portion of America’s largest religious group, which includes almost all of the fastest growing ethnic subset, Latinos. They are also the ultimate swing vote, having voted for the presidential candidate who won the popular vote (and except in 2000, the winner), in every election since 1960 save Richard Nixon’s 1968 win.
At the same time, the attitudes of younger Americans have also moved away from the Democratic Party line, as the young favor gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, and restrictions on abortion.
If Democrats do not figure out how to either convert pro-life voters to pro-choice voters, or to soften their opposition, they will not hold onto power. So, what are Democrats to do? To win over the Catholic vote – and a significant percentage of the younger pro-life vote, there are a few simple steps:
Coincidentally, this bears a great deal of resemblance to the approach Obama has taken to his political opponents generally, including on the issue of abortion – using respect and civility as a potent weapon. And this is why both serious Democratic candidates in 2008 sought to soften their pro-choice stands.
[Image by Steve Rhodes licensed under Creative Commons.]
[digg-reddit-me]At this point, whatever you think of Nancy Pelosi’s policies – or her personality – you have to admit this: she’s ruthlessly pragmatic, knows how to wield her power effectively, has excellent political instincts, and is one of the more effective Speakers of the House in recent memory. In an interview with Ezra Klein, Pelosi described her legislative philosophy:
“You get the votes,” she said, balling one hand into a fist, “and you take the vote,” and she punched her other hand. “Because you never know what can happen.”
Pelosi’s 11th hour compromise Saturday night – accepting the Stupak amendment – proved she was willing to do what it took to get the health care “bill that no one loved but almost everyone still believed in” passed. The Stupak amendment brought two key constituencies on board: the Catholic bishops and pro-life Democrats. As Minority Leader Boehner prepared to use legislative maneuvers to scuttle the bill on the grounds it would make everyone in the health insurance exchange pay “an abortion premium” – Pelosi’s acceptance of the Stupak amendment lead Cardinal Francis George, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to call Boehner to make sure “the GOP didn’t play any games,” blocking health care reform on the pretense of a pro-life position. At the same time, the Stupak amendment also allowed the bill’s sole Republican supporter to sign on, Congressman Anh Cao. The fallout among the pro-choice Democrats has been severe – but Pelosi must assume it’s manageable. Given the fact that this provision will likely be stripped from the final version of the bill, it seems a small price to pay to pass this historic legislation.
At the same time, Klein points out that Pelosi’s decision to push cap and trade legislation through months ago looks prescient today:
I’m not saying that cap and trade has great odds this year, but whatever chance it does have is a function of Pelosi passing it back in June. She got the votes, and she took the vote.
The House has now passed two bills tackling two major issues that have been growing worse for the past two decades but Washington has been unable to address due to partisan gridlock. Obama deserves much of the credit. But Nancy Pelosi has proven to be a formidable pol – and it is her leadership most of all that has gotten this legislation as far as it has.
Now, all eyes turn to the Senate – for both health care and cap and trade. In the coming months we will find out whether or not Washington is able to deal with either of these issues, or to once again put them off, drawing closer to the moment that is too late. But in the meantime, Nancy Pelosi has done her job.
[Image by Public Citizen licensed under Creative Commons.]
[digg-reddit-me]Oh, Michael Ledeen, to whom every Democrat is Chamberlain and every Republican is Churchill! And every crackpot is Adolf Hitler. Reading Obama’s statement to Iran on the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy – which is celebrated in Iran, Ledeen concludes that Obama is merely “mewling and whining, asking for the Iranian regime to make nice,” in “full Carter/Chamberlain mode.” He links to a report calling Obama’s remarks: “Another respectful statement – if wrapped around a threat.” Yet, Ledeen quotes one section – in which Obama explains all of the things we are doing (and not doing) with regards to Iran that the Green Wave supports. Ledeen objects that our foreign policy regarding Iran has mainly been supported by the Green Wave. And he neglects to quote this passage:
Iran must choose. We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for. The American people have great respect for the people of Iran and their rich history. The world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights. It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.
Reading Obama expressing support for the Iranian people, bearing witness to the Green Wave, and making a veiled threat against the regime, Ledeen concludes:
A sad day to be an American, don’t you think? As Churchill said of Chamberlain, we can say of Obama: You had a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.
In fact, he’s already got it. It always happens when you become an accomplice to evil.
Yet I am not sure what it is Ledeen wants us to do. He has written consistently and often about the need to change the Iranian regime – but is he really so naïve as to believe that a few symbolic gestures by Obama are all that it would take to cause the downfall of that regime? Does Ledeen believe that some money spent on democracy promotion will destroy it? Does he give any credence to the idea that such funding would undermine these organizations? What does he make of the fact that many of these organizations rejected the funds the Bush administration set aside for precisely this purpose? Reading Obama challenging the Iranian regime, Ledeen suggests it is merely “mewling” and that war is inevitable – has he reversed positions and now suggest we invade or bomb the country – in support of the people?
Ledeen’s remarks on Iran clearly demonstrate one of the fallacies of the neoconservative worldview. It is a worldview that did not learn the lesson of Hungary in 1957 where the CIA radio stations promised military support if the citizens rose up, which the citizens did only to be slaughtered. Nor the lesson of the First Gulf War, where George H. W. Bush called on the Shiia to rise up against Saddam, and then stood aside as Saddam made peace and crushed as American forces watched. Nor the lesson of Georgia, where neoconservatives declared, “We are all Georgians!” and proceeded to do nothing as Russian tanks overran the country. Neoconservative foreign policy has consisted of writing “rhetorical checks” that they have “no intention (or ability) to cash,” or more graphically “hip-shooting onanism.”
In every instance, America took the “right” rhetorical position at first but was unwilling to back it up by sacrificing American lives. If neoconservatives truly believe we must have regime change, then they should make the case for why this fight is worth Americans dying, instead of making easy references to Hitler and Chamberlain.
As a people, Americans support the Green Wave. And as a government, the Obama administration should put what pressure it can for the principles it believes in: including the right to self-determination. But American troops and money can’t buy Iranian self-determination – only the Iranian people themselves can:
This is not about the United States and the West; this is about the people of Iran, and the future that they – and only they – will choose.
[Image licensed under Creative Commons.]
Kaiser Permanente. Ezra Klein interviewed Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson this week – and got two fascinating posts out of it so far (with the second part of the interview still to come.) The most interesting post for me was the one that included a number of graphs, including this one. Ezra bills these charts as “An insurance industry CEO explains why American health care costs so much” – which comes down to this fact: in other countries, government set medical fees.
The Cold War Lives On. Cecilie Rohwedder of the Wall Street Journal tells the fascinating story of how several herds of deer still seem to be stuck in the Cold War.
Evaluating Hillary. Joe Klein has a balanced and insightful evaluation of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. It is a bit early – as he acknowledges. But while the piece is worthwhile, he gives too little credit for the positive progress made by Hillary and the Obama administration in checking the deterioration of U.S. interests around the world, especially with regards to public diplomacy.
Armey of Tea Baggers. Michael Sokolove for the New York Times Magazine has a nice profile of Dick Armey, in the news of late for his Freedom Works organization and the tea parties they’ve been organizing. The difference between Armey the public speaker and Armey the man comes out in the story, as Armey the man seems like a bit of an ass, but a reasonable fellow; while Armey the public speaker is a demagogue, for example stating:
Nearly every important office in Washington, D.C., today is occupied by someone with an aggressive dislike for our heritage, our freedom, our history and our Constitution.
The trick of the organizing Armey is attempting is that he extols the virtues of the individual while trying to unite these individuals into a collective “we” who will fight to protect “our heritage, our freedom, our history.” He is speaking the language of a member of a beleaguered minority – while claiming majority support. Political pressure in the right way should relatively easily disturb the balance he is now able to so effortlessly achieve.
Marco Rubio. NPR profiles the man who – if I were betting – is the future of the Republican Party, after it escapes the Sarah Palin death spiral: Marco Rubio. (Listen to the audio of the story if you can.) He’s very conservative – and makes many political mistakes in positioning himself against common sense, which by all rights should come back to haunt him when he is chosen as a Vice Presidential nominee – for example, coming out against the fact that government spending can stimulate the economy. This betrays a basic disregard for macroeconomics, at least when put as unsubtly as Rubio does. But he keeps well within the mainstream of Republican positions on these issues, so as unhinged as those positions may be, he will be insulated from charges of kooky-ness.
But he’s Hispanic; his wife is a former cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins; he’s a darling of the far right, but seems smart enough to tack to the center in a general election campaign – and the fact that he’s already accepted by the far right means he will be able to get away with it; he speaks convincingly of America as a nation of “go-getters;” he seems to have a natural charisma and charm, and is at ease with those who disagree with him; and finally, he’s ambitious as hell and has enough self-regard to believe he can beat the extremely popular Governor Charlie Crist for his Senate seat.
[digg-reddit-me]Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Charles Krauthammer, and other right wingers have begun to converge on a unified theory of Obama – a systematic critique of who he is, what he stands for, and what he is trying to do. Part of this theory – one of the core themes being developed – is that Obama is the most far left American leader ever. Rush Limbaugh expresses this as well as anyone – and I’ve spliced together two clips from his interview this past Sunday with Fox News. (Full interview here.)
Let’s take two of these quotes out for a moment:
We’ve never seen such radical leadership at such a high level of power…
I don’t know of any Republican who would try to take over one sixth of the U.S. economy. I don’t know one Republican who would put forth this…this…irresponsible cap and trade bill. I don’t know one Republican who would actually do that.
To understand why this is such a bizarre thing to say you need to look at some history. It illustrates what I mean when I call the Republican Party and the right wing – and much of our public debate as it attempts to find the middle ground between the right and left – unhinged. Take a minute to look at the history of the policy proposals regarding the two examples Limbaugh cites – health care and cap and trade.
Health Care
The plans moving through Congress now have an historical precedent in most of their aspects in the two serious Republican attempts to reform health care after LBJ’s introduction of Medicare and Medicaid – Richard Nixon’s health care proposal in 1974 and the Dole-Chafee bill in 1993. Between the two bills, they contained a technocratic institution to reign in health care spending by looking at medical practices – similar to the IMAC that Sarah Palin called a death panel (Richard Nixon’s proposal); an individual mandate, an extension of Medicaid eligibility (the Dole-Chafee plan); an end to insurance industry abuses – for example, banning people with preexisting conditions, subsidies or vouchers for individuals who couldn’t afford health insurance to purchase it, and the creation of a standard minimum level of benefits for health insurance plans (both plans.)
Those who developed the base model that of health care reform now – used these models as the base onto which they grafted a health insurance exchange and a public option. They combined market forces with decentralized decision-making – the exchange on which private companies would offer health insurance – with a more top-down centralized approach – the public option which would compete with the private companies. Clearly, though the plan is distinctly liberal, it was developed by people who have a deep appreciation for some of the central conservative critiques of government planning and New Deal/Great Society-style liberalism. The plan is also clever politically – as a great majority of the American people, in their wisdom, see great value in having a choice between public option and a private one. Michael F. Cannon of the libertarian Cato Institute accidentally justified the rationale behind this popular sentiment:
Any payment system creates perverse incentives…which is why we need competition between different payment systems to temper the excesses of each.
Unlike the Dole-Chafee bill which sought to undermine the current system with the hope that something else would develop, the plans working through Congress now are more conservative as they seek to preserve the status quo while introducing an alternative model that people could opt into if it works.
You wonder how far to the right the Republican Party Rush imagines is if he claims he doesn’t know any Republican who would propose anything like this.
How about Mitt Romney, Bob Dole (who incidentally endorsed a version of the bill currently moving forward), Richard Nixon?
The one thing that makes this plan distinctly liberal is the public option. Yet, if anyone believes that after dropping it, the Republicans would support a health care bill, they haven’t been paying attention.
(For more on the similarities on health care, see this post from yesterday.)
Cap and Trade
On climate change, the story is even more dramatic.
Cap and trade started out as a hair-brained scheme to solve the problem of acid rain thought up by a Reagan administration lawyer, C. Boyden Gray. Environmentalists and liberals hated the idea. They saw it as a license to pollute, a “morally bankrupt” “license to kill,” or more reasonably as a “scheme for polluters to buy their way our of fixing the problem.” They preferred the more “command-and-control” approach of top-down regulation. Regulators resisted the idea – as it forced them to surrender “regulatory power to the marketplace.” Industry opposed it, claiming it “was going to shut the economy down.”
But George H. W. Bush thought that free market principles could realign the incentives to fix this problem – and he wanted to placate the Canadians who were bearing the brunt of the acid rain.
So he pushed through a cap and trade scheme to eliminate acid rain over these strong objections. It beat all expectations. Eventually environmentalists came around and industry continued to thrive. This Republican success on solving a major environmental issue without top-down regulation made cap and trade a popular, bipartisan idea. Eventually, Bill Clinton saw it as a way to tackle global warming. But as a significant minority of Republicans continued to question whether or not global warming was real and whether or not it was man-made (along with every other scientifically moot question that industries raised) any possible deal was postponed. Still, as late as 2008, the Senate had strong bipartisan support for a cap and trade program – with Joe Lieberman and John McCain taking the lead. Now McCain is a major opponent of the cap and trade legislation, complaining about the lack of support for nuclear reactors in the bill as a reason to oppose it. This when as late as a year ago, he reiterated his statements of the past eight years in saying that global warming demanded “urgent attention” – that we must “act quickly” to “dramatically reduce our carbon emissions” with a “cap-and-trade” program.
As I said regarding health care, if anyone thinks that McCain will come around to support this legislation that is so similar to what he supported as essential a year ago if the Democrats just tossed some more money into nuclear energy, then you haven’t been paying attention. McCain will likely start calling it a “power grab” and a “government takeover” of the world, echoing Cheney and Krauthammer by the time the bill is up for a vote.
Conclusion
In both cases, Republicans proposed ideas based on core conservative principles – on a respect for the free market, on avoiding rapid change, on avoiding top-down regulation. And now Democrats led by Barack Obama have taken up these proposals – amending them somewhat to take into account liberal ideas such as a distrust of large corporations and a concern for community goods – hoping to pass bipartisan legislation.
What they are met with instead is screams of “Socialism!” and “Government takeover!” and “Unprecedented!” “Attacks on liberty!” and “Why do you hate America?”
Stephanie Guttman writing for The Corner at the National Review saw a key distinction between Democrat Corzine and his supporters and Republican Christie and his. Corzine, making a joke about his mother being a Republican, said, “She’s 93 years old so, we’re not going to worry too much about that.” He got “a big laugh.” Christie meanwhile, told the story of a 90-year old supporter who told him he would vote against him in four years if he didn’t keep his promises. With her reporter’s ear, Guttman noticed that:
The line also got a big laugh, but it sounded more joyous, less sneering, and less subtly derisive.
Mmmm. Yes. Well, there’s only one conclusion to take from this:
[T]he Corzine remark mirrors a callousness, a coarse attitude about the “dispensability” of the aged, that one sees in the debate over health care reform.
Also, Republicans are “joyous.”
On a related note, I saw a Republican shoot a baby in the face yesterday after which he proceeded to steal the baby’s candy; and I saw a Democrat jump in front of a speeding train to save a different baby (because a Republican had shot the face off of the other one.) I guess that proves that Republicans are baby-killers and love guns and candy while Democrats love babies and are selfless.
I can’t wait to see Guttman’s take on a difficult issue like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute (which incidentally is what she actually writes about!)!
I’ve written some things which I’m sure make me look like an idiot – but I’m pretty sure I haven’t written anything as stupid as this Guttman post.
