Blue Dog Reaganite

Domestic Policy Talk

Domestic policy discussion from the major media centers in the Mid-Atlantic...

The Left is getting impatient over the slowing progress of health care reform. The New York Times editorialized that the Democratic majority should use the manipulation of parliamentary tactics in order to push through the program without Republican support. Essentially, the majority party would have to determine that health care should be classified under the rules for budget reconciliation, a process which cannot be filibustered. A simple majority vote is all it would take to change the voting rules on health care and that in turn means another straight majority vote to pass the bill. With heavy Democratic numbers in both houses, that would mean virtual certain passage.

One recalls a similar fight over the confirmation of judges to the federal appellate courts back in 2005. Then, the Republicans controlled the Senate by a 55-45 count. Democrats were filibustering the appointment of several excellent Bush nominees. The GOP floated the idea of using a tactic similar to the one Democrats are now contemplating, in order to get the judges confirmed under a straight majority vote. The Left went ballistic. The very proposal itself was called “the nuclear option”. Editorials were filled with solemn pleas to retain the dignity of the Senate as a place where bipartisanship was a necessity. How quickly things change the minute the majority party changed.

The utter hypocrisy of the Times is no longer a surprise. The gambit itself is a high-risk one. If the Democrats push it through and the public is happy with the changes, it could usher in another long permanent majority for the party. Let the public be unhappy though, or feel like it was railroaded and the Democrats could be right back in the minority. My own thoughts? Personally, I would prefer this approach not be adopted, but that is because I don’t want to see reform, in this particular form, pushed through. If I were a liberal it would be different. The Obama-Pelosi approach to health care reform is the liberal dream of the past fifty years and I’d be more than happy to take the political risks associated with it. And let’s be honest—pushing something through on a majority vote is not cheating. But this constant bait-and-switch is. The sort of shameless partisanship that calls for differing standards applied to Republican judges and Democratic health care reform has to end. That politicians practice double-talk is almost understandable. That editorial writers feel that same need is ridiculous.

As long as we’re on the subject of Senate confirmations and voting rules, The Washington Post has noted the number of vacant government positions that are not filled. The Post believes that the number of appointees that require confirmation should be revisited. As it is now, presidents have to be extremely careful and conduct exhaustive background searches, well beyond what’s appropriate for the actual job in question. It’s done for political reasons, as you never know whose nomination will turn into a political football.

The Post is right that the number of posts requiring advise and consent should be reduced. Furthermore, the use of the filibuster should be barred for appointments to a Cabinet. It’s one thing to use this weapon on legislation or a Supreme Court job, which has lasting impact on the country. It’s quite another to demand a 60-vote supermajority for someone whose job is done as soon as their president leaves office.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is taking Barack to task over the federal debt, admonishing the President that the time for placing all the blame on Bush is well past. Indeed, it would be one thing if Barack were doing everything he could to cut spending, including calling members of his own party on the carpet for their pork-barrel habits. But he’s not. The proposals of this Administration, starting with its massive stimulus package, are making Bush look miserly by comparison.

Budget deficits can be an issue that are both overrated and underrated at the same time. Overrated, because a deficit per se is not a bad thing. As much I love Ronald Reagan’s common-sense soundbites that the government should balance its budget just as a family should, we have to remember that virtually all families carry debt. If you have a house payment or a car payment, you’re carrying debt. We draw a distinction between this kind of “legitimate” debt and that which is incurred by running up credit card bills. But the federal government has no accounting mechanism for making this kind of distinction. Consequently, we might overreact to a deficit that’s being run for a decent reason with a plan to pay it off.

Conversely, the issue can be underrated because it’s arcane and removed from the everyday lives of voters. We can see how expanded access to health care might help us, or how we’ll benefit from a federal contract to build a highway system, but we can’t see the hidden impact deficits have. But if foreign investors finance the debt by buying Treasury notes that makes the American government inherently beholden to them. Which in turn may make us a little hesitant about taking the kind of steps we need to take in the global economy to protect our interests. The consequences of which fall on the same people who benefit from the increased federal spending—but the consequences are longer-lasting than the benefits.

How To Reform Education

The health care battle continues to rage in the blogosphere, the real world and in townhall meetings. And Blue Dog Reaganite has been engaged in that battle throughout this crucial month of August, as the amount of space devoted to the proposals moving through Congress bears witness. But I thought I would take today to step back and address an issue that’s nowhere near the headlines, but no less important to the long-term future of the nation. That issue is education.

As is the case with most debates on domestic policy, this debate continues to revolve around the question of control. Who decides what children should learn? Who decides what values they should be inculcated with? Is it the parents or is it the government?  I come down decisively on the side of parental rights.

The United States, along with the rest of the Western world, decided long ago that it was the place of the government to guarantee the education of every child, K thru 12 and the public school system grew out of that commitment. And there’s no disagreement here with the basic principle of a society assuring access to reasonable levels of education for all its members. And even though college doesn’t come with the same guarantee, all programs designed to make tuition more affordable enjoy broad political support, including right here at this site.

We have the right principles in place, but it does not go far enough. The commitment to education should explicitly guarantee that every child will be educated according to the desires and values of their parents. If a family wants to send their kids to Catholic schools, or Jewish schools or Muslim schools they ought not have to pay extra for the privilege. They are already paying taxes to support the public school system, which may teach values and ideas they abhor. Why should they pay twice?

The entire system of financing education needs to be changed. No longer should the public schools be automatically given the tax dollars of everyone else. Public schools pass themselves off as value-neutral, but in reality they are in the hands of modern liberals. The Left teaches their own brand of values and their own secular religion and mixes it with math, science and all the rest. Why is this mode of education somehow superior to a Catholic school that teaches the Divine Founding of the Catholic Church and mixes it with math, science and all the rest? It’s not. All families should be given a “voucher” equivalent to the amount currently going to the school system, and they should be able to use it to pay tuition costs wherever they please.

The public school teachers’ union, the National Education Association is the most powerful union in the country today. Unlike the steelworkers, it hasn’t seen their jobs disappear overseas. It hasn’t even seen any loss of employment during hard economic times. The NEA has won tenure for its members, where even incompetent teachers can’t be removed. And they have used that power to ruthlessly protect all their members, even at the expense of the good teachers, and they have used it to push a left-wing agenda on the country as a whole.

Like any group with power, the NEA has shown no scruples when it comes to defeating ideas that might rob them of it. And the notion of “school choice”, as I have outlined, is no exception. The NEA charges that such a plan would destroy the public schools. Can a bigger indictment of the public school system be found? The only way the public schools would be destroyed is if everyone left. Yet here we have the leading teachers union in America all but conceding that such is exactly what would happen! Unfortunately, most pundits don’t think it through all the way to the end. They see the prospect of desolate public schools and assume that this means inner-city children being left behind. But again, the schools are only gone if the kids are gone to someplace their families have deemed better.

There are wrinkles in this plan that need to be sorted out. Children with parents who just don’t care are a legitimate concern and decisions would have to be made regarding who will decide where they should attend. If they need to be bussed out of a bad area and into an area with a better school, then that’s the expense that needs to be shouldered. And when it comes to teaching values, are we ready to have vouchers presented at schools that teach violence or terror tactics? The answer here is no and reasonable parameters would have to be drawn up to determine what schools should qualify. But those parameters should be as broad as possible.

It’s long past time to end the National Education Association’s control of education in this country. This teachers' union has protected its own narrow interests with the same intensity as the baseball players' union. And just like that latter protected steroid users and hurt the game as a whole, the NEA has protected bad teachers and a bad system and hurt the nation as a whole. It's time to start giving poor and middle-class parents real options too finally escape the NEA plantation.

Beltway Health Care Review

Another edition of the Beltway Review is here, and it's about what else but health care? The issue of August continues to dominate the news...

Jonathan Martin at Politico profiles conservative Democrat Alan Boyd, as the incumbent member of the House of Representatives deals with the grass-roots frustration over health care reform. Boyd is a classic case of the Blue Dogs that this site supports by name and watching the re-election prospects of politicians like this will tell us a great deal about the future direction of the American political system. If a Center-Right coalition is to govern this country, it’s men like Boyd who need to be re-elected. Yet they are usually the first ones sunk when a tidal wave like the one slowly developing against the Democratic Party starts to take shape. The reason? Blue Dog Democrats are quickly abandoned by the base of their party. The Left views them as more dangerous than Republicans, given their propensity to water down a pure liberal vision. And the GOP rank-and-file that sings the praises of the Blue Dogs during odd-numbered years like this one, returns to vote for its own at election time.

One should expect the Republican Party to go after vulnerable incumbents from the opposition, regardless of the reasons for their shaky political status. But grass-roots conservatives should recognize valuable allies when they see them and back off on the Blue Dogs. Together, conservative Democrats and Republicans can form a governing coalition, but it has to start by seeing each other as part of the same team.

Bob Herbert of The New York Times gives voice to the frustration of the Left in noting that people are starting to lose faith in Obama. Not simply the conservatives, people whom Herbert contrasts with “sane and intelligent people”. The radical columnist goes on to look at the 2008 election as a template for liberal hopes. In that campaign, the Republicans were surging in August after Sarah Palin’s nomination energized the party and drove the Left crazy, who couldn’t stand the fact that a strong woman wasn’t one of their own and had the audacity to have a normal family with all its problems and possibilities. McCain had nudged ahead in the polls. But by the time September was over, so was the election. Obama kept his cool while his loyal supporters lost their heads.

Are the events of 2008 going to repeat themselves in 2009? I don’t think so. In ’08, McCain may have been surging, but people were still unhappy with the Republican Party in general and George W. Bush in particular. Voters were looking for a reason to choose Obama even if he temporarily slipped in the polls. And outside events worked in Barack’s favor. The stock market crashed, so did McCain and the rest of the campaign was a formality.

But in 2009, people aren’t measuring Obama against an unpopular president and party. They aren’t even measuring him per se. They are measuring the uncertainties of health care legislation that’s being rammed through Congress rapidly and read by very few against their own insurance coverage. And if outside events intervene in this one, it’s much less likely to break in favor of the president. I fully agree that a charismatic, smooth-talking president who’s good on television should never be underestimated, and he’s got to be given at least a chance to pull off a comeback for his top domestic priority. But I wouldn’t be betting on it.

Two former Republican officials in the Justice Departments of Reagan and Bush I ask the question of whether a mandate to purchase health insurance is even constitutional. Speaking as one who believes an individual mandate should be a part of health reform, I agree with the writers who conclude that it’s probably not. So why do I then support it if the Constitution doesn’t allow it? Because I believe the Constitution should be changed.

This is deeper philosophical question than contemporary politics, ruled by soundbites and what you can discuss on Oprah, is ready to take up. But the entire social insurance state that sprang out of the New Deal is on very shaky constitutional ground. The 10th Amendment states very clearly that any powers not given to the federal government explicitly are given to the states. Nowhere was anything mentioned about the feds having the power to run a Social Security system, much less mandate the purchase of individual health insurance coverage. The unconstitutionality of the entire Democratic agenda going back to FDR, perhaps even to the establishment of the Federal Reserve Board in 1913, is an article of faith among paleoconservative intellectuals and I am hard-pressed to say they are wrong.

Where I part company with this critique is that the ability to change the Constitution is written into the very document itself. The U.S. Constitution is not an infallible document, given on Mount Sinai, and it should be not held up as such. It was a set of rules for a society that was mostly agrarian in the 18th century. The New Deal was an appropriate response to the rise of the industrial society and the reality that people no longer lived on the land with large numbers of extended family. But the instigators of the New Deal short-circuited the process. A fundamental change in society itself, and the subsequent political changes that would accompany it, is a serious enough debate to take the time to propose and pass constitutional amendments that will explicitly widen the authority given to the central government. As it was, the New Dealers just did what they wanted and justified it later. They were right on most of the substance of their proposals, but wrong in the way they went about it.

In that lies a lesson—if you really care about an idea, you’ll do it right. Whether it’s taking the time to amend the Constitution, or putting in the time to figure out how to finance it or taking the time to explain yourself to voters, those who use demagoguery to rush through ideas, don’t show us how much they care. Their lack of effort only shows us how little they really do.

The Death Panel Debate

The issue of “death panels” has become the emotional hot-button topic as health care reform continues to take on the look of a not-yet-matured baseball team that starts off hot and then falters in the dog days of August. The “panels” refer to a proposed requirement that end-of-life counseling be provided by the government. To conservatives, this is one small step toward the feds euthanizing the elderly population to control costs. To liberals, this is the latest example of right-wing talk radio and TV overblowing something and using scare tactics. I am fundamentally on the side of conservatives and this column is devoted to explaining why.

Neither Obama, nor any of his major advisers, nor any of his most fervent supporters, have put forth any kind of credible plan to control exploding medical costs. Yet if a public option is introduced and increasing numbers of people enlist in it, the pressure on the federal budget is going to increase enormously. Even if the public option is dropped, the problems of cost-control aren’t going away. Where exactly does Barack plan to control costs, if not by cutting off care to the elderly, especially the terminally ill? In an interview back in April, the president gave a revealing insight into his moral compass on this issue when he said the following: “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”

I’ll concede that there has been a lot of overstatement and fearmongering among certain elements of the conservative media, notably Fox-TV’s Sean Hannity. Much ink has been spilled here trying to correct overstatements, even when I don’t agree with the policy being mischaracterized. And we’ll further acknowledge that the current legislation doesn’t have “death panels”, as is charged. But when you consider that Obama has no other plan to control costs, that the government is suddenly going to start mandating end-of-life counseling and then consider those things in light of statements like the one the president made back in April, one is being entirely reasonable in thinking that we’re embarking on a very dangerous path.

What’s more chilling is that the procedure Barack considers such a moral dilemma is a simple hip replacement. What happens if a seventy-something is diagnosed with cancer and needs chemotherapy? Let’s turn the clock back to 2005, when the tragic case of Teri Schiavo rocked the nation during Holy Week. The public reaction to the case—which mostly sympathized with Schiavo’s corrupt ex-husband in his efforts to pull the plug—showed that even voters with culturally traditional tendencies have bought into the myth that the quality of life is more important than the sanctity of life. Yet another reason to be concerned that any government counseling on end-of-life issues is going to be biased in the wrong direction. Barring a major cultural shift, the public is very unlikely to support tax increases if they are necessary to provide care to the terminally ill.

Liberals have protested that the counseling provision was introduced by a Republican member of Congress. This moves me not at all. More than a few Republicans are on the wrong side of the euthanasia debate, while more than a few Democrats are on the right side of it (albeit the Democrats on the right side tend to be more at the grass-roots rather than in public office). I don’t see Republicanism as synonomyous with virtue.

The death panel debate shows the importance of shifting the health care discussion toward the whole concept of individual ownership of insurance. Those of us who believe that there is a moral obligation to continue ordinary medical treatment and feeding as long as a person is alive can get coverage that reflects that value. The government can stay out of end-of-life counseling. Can you imagine the reaction of the Left if a socially traditional government decided to start providing “counseling” to women considering whether to have an abortion? If the Left believes that government should stay out of these areas, let them hold that view consistently.

This also illustrates the importance of having a serious national debate over how to control rising medical costs. As a believer in individual ownership of coverage, I’ve put forth my view that letting the marketplace function more like that which exists for auto insurance will have a positive impact on controlling costs. Others would add that limiting lawsuit awards would have a similar controlling effect. The Obama-Pelosi coalition on the Left has rejected both of these ideas. Therefore it’s incumbent on them to come up with a valid explanation of how they intend to keep expenses under control. And if they don’t, and statements like the one from Obama quoted above continue to be made, they can’t be surprised if they get the mistrustful reaction that’s happened in the death panel debate.

Beltway Review

Kathleen Sebelius, the Health & Human Services Secretary in the Obama Administration, set the cat down amidst the pigeons yesterday on the Sunday talk shows. Sebelius said the "public option", a government health plan that would compete against private insurers was no longer considered an essential part of reform. This contradicts liberal Democratic doctrine and the previous words of the president himself. Two predictable consequences followed--her words were interpreted as the president backing down on a major part of his agenda, something that would be a huge victory for Republicans. And Obama's liberal base got angry fast. By nightfall, off-the-record sources were telling The Atlantic that Sebelius misspoke.

There is simply no way that Sebelius "misspoke" on something this significant. It was only a "misspeak" in the classic traditons of D.C. politics, in that the mistake was blurting out something that was true, but not kosher to say just yet. And that truth is that Barack's health care plans are in serious trouble on the Hill, and it will take a major reversal to turn the tide. Another truth is that the Democrats must pass some sort of bill to save face and their own hides in the 2010 elections. If that means abandoning the public option, they will do it.

A public option per se is not necessarily a problem. One exists in auto insurance and it hasn't led to socialized auto coverage. People prefer private coverage. There's no reason to think that would be different in health care. In fact, given the seriousness of health insurance, relative to auto, people are likely to be even more committed to getting a private plan that meets their needs. But given the size of the health care industry--one-seventh of the U.S. economy, the question would be if left-wing utopians would let the market function normally, with a public option as a part of it, or if they would burden private insurers with so many regulations that the public plan would have an unfair advantage. And then, as people entered the latter program, to turn that into socialized medicine. It's a real concern and why voters beyond Sean Hannity's viewers are uneasy about a plan dictated by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics, says that Barack misread his mandate. In fact, the misread went well beyond Obama and into the entire liberal establishment that congregates on both coasts. This sort of misread is something Beltway pols and commentators do constantly, and it never ceases to amaze me. The line of thinking, circa 2008, said essentially that Obama's victory marked a major shift in the ideological orientation of the country. Fervent supporters saw 2008 in light of 1932 when FDR came to power and revolutionized the country with the New Deal. These superficial commentaries miss so much it's hard to know where to being, but let's try and summarize:

There was no Great Depression to spur major change in 2008. The economy might be slumping, but 9-10 percent unemployment is not 25 percent, as it was in the 1930s. When 90 percent of the people in the job market have jobs, you do not have the makings of societal revolution. Furthermore, when FDR came to the Oval Office, the U.S. was still coming to grips with transformational shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This combined with the Depression to create a perfect environment for major legislative initiatives.

Furthermore, no one wants to acknowledge that since 1960, the only real mandate a presidential election confers is that the winner was better on television than the loser. Even our charisma-challenged presidents since then (Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Bush II) had the fortune to run against opponents were even more deficient on the tube (McGovern, Ford, Dukakis, Gore/Kerry, respectively). This is true with presidents I supported, such as Ronald Reagan, as well as ones I opposed, such as Bill Clinton. The 2008 election told us definitively that the American people think Barack would be a better talk-show host than John McCain. It told us little about how they would react to his policies. The country that went mostly red in 2004 for Bush, did not suddenly convert to liberalism when voting for Obama. The Democrats simply got a candidate who had the media skills to win a presidential election.

A sign of how much trouble Obama's domestic agenda is in can be seen in his attention given to foreign policy. The president is looking to shore up support for continued American involvement in Afghanistan, something has been on record in support of at least as long as he's been a candidate for president (and probably longer). Ideally, I would prefer to see control of this country turned over to the U.N. now that the Taliban is driven from power, but if a reasonable plan can be devised for stabilization and withdrawal, I'd support continued U.S. presence.

Key Races In Virginia & New Jersey

Talk of a Republican comeback is in the air, as the Democratic complaints about the “mobs” showing up at health care meetings rises and the heat on their officeholders rises accordingly. Simple numbers would favor the idea of GOP resurgence—as I’ve pointed out several times before on this blog, they really can’t sink much lower and it was inevitable that the Democratic gains would eventually regress to the mean, if I can talk like a mathematician, if only for a moment.

The ultimate test of any comeback will come in the 2010 midterms, but early hints will come in two key gubernatorial races coming up in November. Virginia and New Jersey hold their elections in odd-numbered years. Both states currently have Democratic governors, and both are susceptible to flipping red this time around. Let’s look at both.

VIRGINIA

From a competitive standpoint, this is a fun one to watch. Virginia has a one-term limit, so moderate Democrat Tim Kaine will have to step down. Creigh Deeds is the Democratic nominee and will face off with Republican Bob McDonnell. This is a grudge match from the 2005 Attorney General’s race. In that one, McDonnell nipped Deeds by only 400 votes. That election was before the GOP meltdown really kicked in, but it was still an environment more favorable to Democrats than is likely to be the case this November. Virginia is a state that leans red, but was carried by Obama in November. This race is a must-win for Republicans, and I’d rate McDonnell the favorite, if a narrow one.

In terms of the issues, I’m not sure what difference it will make. A glance through McDonnell’s record doesn’t tell a whole lot. I love the pedigree—anyone who graduated from Notre Dame and went on to grad school in Boston is okay with this Irish Catholic fan of the Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics, but I know little about what he’s about. However, it’s safe to say he will be better than Deeds, who is radically pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage. To give Deeds credit though, we should point out that he’s taken strong stands on illegal immigration, in calling for illegals to be ineligible for state benefits. He voted for making English the official language of the state, an idea Blue Dog Reaganite applauds. And he deserves the gratitude of all decent Americans for having beaten Clinton flunkie Terry McAuliffe in the primary.

A Republican win in this state would suggest regression to the mean is underway, but winning Virginia can’t constitute a GOP resurgence. For that, we’d need to see them win in a much more competitive, even hostile environment. And that leads us to…

NEW JERSEY

Jon Corzine is the Democratic incumbent running for re-election. He spent six years in the Senate for running for the top job back home. I won’t go so far as to say he’s everything wrong with the Democratic Party, but he’s not representative of its best elements either. Corzine is an apologist for the Clinton regime. He was an early and fervent supporter of homosexual “marriage”. He would stand in the way of any education reforms that don’t involve catering to the National Education Association. And in a Democratic state like Jersey, it would seem he’d be a shoo-in for re-election. But such is not the case. All current polling shows him trailing Republican challenger Chris Christie, by anywhere from 5-10 points. Not insurmountable, but enough to ensure Christie will be well-funded in the fall, rather than left to die on the vine by donors who look to get behind a winner.

Christie’s stance on abortion is tolerable, if not ideal. He supports moderate regulations, such as parental consent and stopping the barbaric partial-birth practice. His rhetoric is unfortunate in this regard, in saying he would not use the state government to “ram his pro-life views down the throat” of the people of New Jersey. Protection of innocent life is the only area where government safeguards are referred to in such obviously hostile tones. Can you imagine Al Gore ever saying he didn’t want to “ram his global warming views down the throat” of the American public?

The challenger is still worth electing, and not simply on the “lesser of two evils” grounds. He has a very strong platform on education, supporting school vouchers that will ensure all parents have the same opportunity the liberal elites do to send their kids to private schools. This is a move that would break the monopoly the public school teachers’ union has on education, which explains the array of misinformation and scare tactics that surround it. Christie is also against gay marriage.

Can he win? The race is sure to tighten, as Democratic money and consultants pour in to rescue a state they must hold. But I like Christie’s chances to pull an upset. An essentially even race, regardless of who prevails, would not be a good sign for Democrats. And a GOP victory would be a major blow, a sure sign that resurgence is not merely talk and more than just regression to the mean.

Beltway Heats Up Over Health Care

A brief look around the Beltway, as the health care battle heats up...

John Leo at RealClearPolitics calls out Madame Speaker for her alleged shock at the presence of swastikas at health-care rallies, effectively calling Obama’s plan the work of fascism. Leo goes through the litany of instances of the Left comparing Bush to Hitler. Indeed, as Leo notes, such comparisons became so commonplace they ceased to attract attention. Pelosi was curiously silent during all this.

There’s a couple lessons to be drawn from this. The first is that just like the introduction of poison gas back in World War I, you can never assume that its use will only be restricted to your side. Eventually the opposition will get a hold of the same weaponry. Conservatives, tired of liberal media bias, went and got their own network in Fox News and through talk radio. Liberals, after seeing Bill Clinton impeached by a GOP House, were hungry to impeach Bush when their own party re-took Congress in 2006. The rationales cited generally came back to “You guys did it to Clinton.” To her credit, Pelosi dismissed these calls for revenge as quickly as they arose.

The other lesson is one that should have been paid more heed in the campaign—you cannot credibly accuse the opposition of something without cleaning house on your own side first. John McCain tried in vain to point out to voters that for all his unity talk, Barack Obama had never challenged his own party orthodoxy on anything. Essentially, Barack’s idea of unity is everyone agreeing with him. McCain, on the other hand, had challenged Republican dogma on a host of issues, ranging from taxes to campaign finance reform to the use of torture on military prisoners. When he spoke of bipartisanship he had walked the walk. This shouldn’t be taken as my endorsement of all of McCain’s stances, but he made real efforts at bipartisanship that were aimed at making tough choices himself first. If we put that in biblical terms we might call it removing the plank from one’s own eye before removing it from someone else’s. When it comes to protesting rash comparisons to Hitler, the Left should best focus on its own plank-filled eye.

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As long as we’re on the subject of rash comparisons, left-wing Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift implores the Democrats to fight right-wing “mob attacks.” What exactly is a “mob attack?" When I hear the phrase, I think of things like Kristallnacht, a 1938 night in Germany, when mobs were cut loose to smash the windows and destroy Jewish businesses, setting the stage for Hitler’s Final Solution. Another example might be Robespierre’s France during the awful period of the French Revolution, when mobs raided convents and monasteries, killing priest and nuns, and thousands were hauled off to a bloody death at the guillotine. The killing became so massive, that the water of Paris was literally contaminated with blood. Other examples might include that mobs of the Roman Empire present at the conviction of Sejanus on charges of treason. After being strangled, he was thrown down the stairs where the crowds tore his body to pieces, then hunted down his family and anyone remotely connected to him, and killed them.

What is Clift’s idea of a mob? It’s people coming to a townhall meeting on health care reform and getting angry enough to lose their temper. Note that there’s no violence, no one is in any physical jeopardy. Clift refers to these as “Democratic meetings”, even though they are open to the public. Yet another case of a columnist who’s lived in a secluded world inside the Beltway for far too long.

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Charles Lane of The Washington Post addresses the end-of-life controversy that surrounds a provision of the current health care legislation. The provision would essentially bribe doctors to “consult” with senior citizens every few years regarding their options, especially if they are terminally ill. Lane charges the Right with overblowing this into a requirement that seniors sign their death warrant. However, he also acknowledges that it’s not as benign as liberal politicians claim. Indeed, during the tragedy of Teri Schiavo, the right-to-life community was widely derided for getting the government involved in people’s personal affairs. Yet, just as with abortion, it does appear that the Left is not all about choice either. Plans for national health care require some sort of cost-control. In my previous column, I went into this in more detail and won’t reiterate it all here. But if you don’t let the marketplace do it, you eventually have to do it by rationing. And why wouldn’t rationing start with the terminally ill?

This is a problem that won’t go away until clear definitions of when life begins and when it ends are written into law. That necessarily involves discussion of religion and of God. And it shows you can only go so far in writing public policy in such a way that treats all belief systems equally. That should be the ideal, but there are situations like these where clear choices have to be made and one side or the other is going to be trampled. And there’s no reason the faith and belief of the Catholic Church, and those closely aligned with it, forever have to be the ones taking the worst of it.

The Flaherty Health Care Agenda

The battle over health care reform has taken to the streets as Congress goes on August recess, and we’ve already seen reports of some nastiness at townhall meetings. Bipartisanship remains in short supply, which is unfortunate for those of us whose views can only be enacted by drawing on the best that both sides have to offer. In reviewing my previous comments on this subject, I realized I hadn’t devoted an entire column to offering a complete health care reform proposal, as opposed to just commenting on individual component parts as they came up. So with the decisive month at hand, I’m going to lay out my own agenda for health care refor, what might be immodestly called "the Flaherty Agenda."

I would build reform around two key pillars, one from each party. The market for health care coverage must shift away from the employer-based system we currently have and into something similar to the market for auto insurance. People should own their own insurance and have the flexibility that comes with that. Along with this, the government should guarantee that everyone is included into the health care system.

This would start off by changing the tax code to make individual ownership of health insurance more realistic. People should be allowed to write off their premiums. They should be able to establish tax-free savings accounts to put money for health care expenses. One of the great innovations of George W. Bush, this would enable people to purchase high-deductible plans and set aside the money they save on premiums into a Medical Savings Accounts. The money might be needed to pay for the deductible, but could also be used toward home ownership, education, or any other worthwhile goal. You would still have the security of insurance coverage, but through a little creativity, you make sure the dollars spent don’t go down into the bottomless pit of the insurance industry.

Individual ownership of health care would also be the stimulus for controlling health care costs. The single biggest factor in exploding costs is that consumers, myself included, are not cost-conscious in shopping. We know what our co-pay is because that’s the only expense seen, but have no idea what expenses are being tacked on after that. But if the money to pay for those routine office visits is coming out of a Medical Savings Account, there’s incentive to shop for the best deal. And there’s incentive for physicians to make sure their own fees stay competitive.

With freedom comes responsibility though, and just like with auto insurance, individuals should be mandated to own coverage. Running to the emergency room for non-emergency reasons is incredibly inefficient from a financial sense. And when hospitals have to collect unpaid bills, the expenses are passed on to the rest of us. The most efficient way of paying for health care is through insurance, via a normal process. For the most part I share the view that citizens shouldn’t be forced to buy something they don’t want, even if it’s good for them. But health insurance is different. The odds are that somewhere along the line you’ll need it, and the reality is that Americans are not going to let someone die untreated, simply because they made an irresponsible decision. Again, the analogy to auto insurance applies—you may not want it, but you’re required to have it. Because if you suddenly need it and it’s not there, someone else ends up paying the bill. Owning a health insurance plan is a part of being in civil society. The mandate is also a vital part of keeping costs down, by making sure the healthy stay in insurance pools with those more susceptible to illness, lest the latter see their rates skyrocket.

Ninety percent of what I’ve written—with the notable exception of the last item—is straight out of the GOP playbook. Now we take the next step. If we are going to require health insurance ownership, the government needs to help out those who might not be able to afford it. The current means-based system, built around Medicaid is the answer. Anyone who can demonstrate need would be put on a government plan. While the public plan need not be lavish, it should also not be bare-bones. A single mom trying to get her life in order should have prenatal visits covered. A recovering alcoholic, still with a bad liver from a previous life, should get the care they need. Holding people accountable for bad decisions is one thing, but it goes too far to impose what amounts to a sentence of dying slowly, by denying them the normal health care measures available to everyone else.

Society’s generosity in this regard should not be taken advantage of. An alcoholic who won’t go into treatment needs to be denied public help. A single mom who’s on drugs and won’t get clean should be denied (though her kids should not). In this case, it’s not society shutting them out, it’s them refusing to accept the helping hand up being offered. The examples thrown out could be endless, but I think the general point is clear. Help people out, but not if they won’t help themselves.

This proposed combination of individual ownership coupled with a government guarantee is squarely bipartisan, but I should note that as proposals go through Congress, the practicality of working out compromise solutions tends to leave me siding with Republicans. Here’s the reason: if you could only enact half of what I’ve proposed, it would be infinitely better to do only the individual ownership components, rather than only the public components. Skyrocketing costs are the single biggest problem in getting everyone covered, and enacting this GOP-friendly part of the program would establish the market as a mechanism for controlling expenses. This in turn makes it possible for private charities to cover more than they do currently. While I don’t share the view of my conservative friends that private charity can do it all, this landscape would certainly be an improvement on the current situation. You couldn’t do the mandate of ownership (without the guarantee of government backup that becomes inhumane), but that only makes everything more appealing to Republican eyes.

Whereas if you go the reverse route and enact only the Democratic guarantees, you have everything in place for costs to go through the roof—consumers are still hidden from the ultimate costs and with the government picking up the tab, there’s even less incentive for medical providers to keep their fees under control. It sets up a potential disaster scenario of rationed care, something that would be no less than a moral and societal catastrophe.

With Barack Obama in the White House, Nancy Pelosi running the House and the Senate run by 60 Democrats, it’s the latter scenario that’s unfolding. This is why, even though there are some good component parts to the bills proposed, I want to see them defeated. Better to come back to the drawing board when politicians and voters are serious about a bipartisan solution. Because right now, that’s so much empty rhetoric.

Health Care Clears First Hurdle

Health-care reform cleared one key hurdle late this week, as Energy & Commerce Committee approved a bill by a 31-28 measure, sending it to the House floor for a full vote that will likely take place after the August recess. Even if the measure should pass, it would have to be reconciled with whatever health-care bill passes the Senate, and then the compromise measure would have to be voted up or down by both the upper and lower chambers.

The closeness of the vote and the bitterness of some of the battles do not bode well for the future of reform legislation, and that makes the stakes even higher for the recess, when officeholders will hear directly from their constituents. Both sides are gearing up for battle, and I would anticipate a lot of townhall meetings getting pretty ugly across the nation.

But while the liberal side will be every bit as active as the conservative side, it’s difficult to see the landscape becoming any more favorable for them upon returning to Washington than it was in recent months. The opposition is now energized and the GOP rank-and-file has a mission and purpose it really hasn’t had for a long time. There is unity among the grass-roots and their elected officials and that has not been the case in the Republican Party since 2004. Democrats still run the show in Washington and their numbers advantage won’t disappear in autumn—but if they could only scrape out a three-vote win in a committee run by one of their most radical left-wing members (Henry Waxman of California), they aren’t dealing with a lot of margin for error.

My own thoughts on the legislation that cleared committee are this—while I agree with a mandate for individuals to own insurance, and therefore would support public subsidies for those in need (both of which are included in this bill), I cannot go along with it unless there are corresponding measures that work towards making health insurance more affordable for individuals. That means tax breaks for those that buy individual coverage. Without this, the mandate and subsidies will only increase in expense.

Furthermore, Waxman beat back a provision that would have protected pro-life consciences. Late Thursday night, a coalition of Blue Dogs and Republicans teamed up to vote down a requirement that insurers cover abortions. Waxman used a procedural gambit to force another vote and twisted the arm of one Blue Dog to change his vote, thereby winning. Waxman’s belief in free choice does not extend to pro-life voters who don’t want to be forced into financing abortions. For that reason alone, he is the wrong person to be in charge on an issue that’s important to everyone, and for that reason alone, his bill should be shown the way to the trash can.

The declining approval ratings of Barack Obama are going to be very much at issue in this critical August period. Rich Lowry, of National Review writes that Obama should have been more humble in his approach. Lowry argues that had he gone for a less expensive stimulus plan and a more piecemeal approach to health care, he’d have peeled off Republican support and given himself bipartisan cover on his plans. Lowry calls for Barack to try and reconnect with independents.

A big problem with this whole analysis is this—Lowry does not want Obama to succeed in passing his agenda. There’s nothing wrong with that. Lowry simply does not agree. But why write in deep concerned tones, about Barack’s overreach? Because if I were a liberal, I’d be all for the way the new president has approached things. This is the Left’s moment in American politics. Not only with Obama in the White House, but Nancy Pelosi running the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that was sealed by the arrival of wild-eyed Al Franken from Minnesota. If the Left wants to push through its agenda, there’s never going to be a better chance. Lowry’s problem with Obama’s approach is not that it may result in his eventual defeat, but that it may result in his eventual victory. Just come clean and say it.

Lest there be any confusion, let it be clear that while my opposition to Barack’s program isn’t as across-the-board as Lowry’s, it’s still there. But if we had a point in history where my own kind of politician held the White House, the Speaker’s chair and huge majorities in both bodies, I’d sure as hell want them to go all-out to seize the moment and pass controversial legislation. It’s not arrogant to do so. In fact, it’s humble. It’s recognizing that you won’t have this moment forever, and you need to act while the time is ripe. Arrogance would be thinking that your side will forever dominate the political scene and chances to push through sweeping legislation will always exist. Lyndon Johnson, the great master of the Senate, used to say that if he won a vote by too large a margin, it meant he had given up too much. He only conceded on enough to get the bare majority necessary.

The Left won’t govern American politics like this forever—or even much longer. But while one can therefore understand their motivation, one should also be motivated--if they can be stopped in August, they can pushed back for the foreseeable future. And the groundwork for a more sensible approach to reform can then be laid.