Blue Dog Reaganite

Society's Most Basic Right

In writing the two columns a week for this blog, I’ve tried to maintain a certain structure and rhythm which readers may have taken notice. Once a week, usually on Wednesdays I take an issue and dig into it. The other column, usually on Saturday, is commentary on 2-3 news pieces from that day’s headlines. It offers a good balance—a blog that focuses exclusively on breaking news loses it larger sense of purpose. One that only talks about big picture issues losing its relevance to what’s happening on the battlefield today.

Over the next few months, I am going to formalize this approach. On Wednesdays, one by one, I am going to take up major issues and outline the vision of Blue Dog Reaganite, enabling readers to have a full sense of what this blog stands for. Then on Saturdays, we’ll continue discussion of breaking stories.

Today’s series starts with what I consider to be the seminal issue in the American politics, indeed throughout the West—the right to life.

I still remember the moment. I was 14 years old as the presidential election of 1984 was getting heated up. Democratic nominee Walter Mondale had picked pro-abortion Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. Ferraro’s Catholicism only heightened attention to abortion, particularly when her cardinal, John O’Connor of New York called her out in public. A magazine running a discussion of this story, also ran a piece on the nature of abortion itself. As I read about what was done to the infants in the womb, the anger rose within me. Who would do such a thing to the most helpless of all creatures? Why would a nation tolerate this? And as the years went by, the complete mystery heightened. We accept that the things like racial discrimination and pollution are not acceptable and that the government has every right to enforce our moral beliefs in this regard. But somehow that the government has no rights to protect the dignity and value of the most innocent of human beings. It gets even more bizarre, when you consider that in some political circles most devoted to legalized abortion, there is equal zeal to protect the sanctity of life for dolphins, seals and even deer.

The very reason for having a government is the protection of the innocent. We reject extreme libertarianism and turning society into the law of the jungle, precisely because of this belief. This has manifested itself differently at different points in history. At the turn of the 20th century, we rejected taking a hands-off economic approach to such an extreme as to deny workers appropriate safeguards. Laws protecting the right to organize unions and bargain for better pay were passed. As were regulations on workplace safety. These are so universally accepted today that even conservatives, notably Ronald Reagan, did not support turning back the clock to 1890. In the 1960s, America rejected the notion that freedom of association went so far that owners of public facilities—restaurants, hotels, etc—could take that to such an extreme as to deny African-Americans entry into their business. And that employers could not use race as a reason for denying someone a job. We still believe in freedom---for an employer to run their business as they choose, but also recognize that freedom has limits.

That same balance has to exist in the protection of human life. Everyone should have freedom to determine how they want to build their families. The cry “keep the government out of my bedroom” rises up when abortion is discussed. These people should not flatter themselves—no one has any desire to be there. They have the freedom to decide what goes on there on their own. But when a human life is created, society has an obligation to ensure that those who cannot defend themselves, have adequate legal protection. And again, as a society, we accept this premise on a variety of levels already. We don’t believe parental freedom extends to the right to do child abuse. Or to leave toddlers alone. Children are protected by law in these instances. As they should be when they are in the womb.

This debate has become toxic in America. If you watch TV or movies, people who believe what I have written here are regularly portrayed as narrow-minded sex-obsessed bigots. The same people who do those portrayals then turn around and declare themselves appalled by the amount of hate in our culture, after they’ve injected the poison into it. I won’t deny that a pro-life person—myself definitely included—can be guilty of getting too worked up in the heat of debate. What I don’t agree with is the notion that we’re all that different from anyone who feels passionately about any subject. While this is the most important of the topics I get worked up about, I’ve also gotten heated up when arguing foreign policy, domestic policy, whether Michael Corleone was right to kill Solozzo and McCluskey in The Godfather and whether the Wisconsin football team can get a New Year's Day bowl game in the post-Alvarez era. If you have opinions and are human, you’ll fall short of perfect discourse sometimes. I suspect if our counterparts in the abortion debate were honest with themselves, they might admit to the same shortcomings.

But even if every pro-life person were exactly as portrayed on TV (and again, if you believe that, I strongly suggest you visit a pregnancy center or even a pro-life demonstration sometime and see how the silent majority acts and thinks), that still doesn’t mean a human being should die because of it. If a civil rights activist were insufferably self-righteous would we bring back segregation because of it? If an environmental activist acted like an ass, would we give corporate polluters a blank check? Let’s keep in perspective what we’re really debating here—and that’s whether government has an obligation to protect life in its most vulnerable form. If it doesn’t do that, what exactly is the purpose of civilizations forming a government in the first place?

Political Problems At Home & Abroad

Foreign policy has joined health care in the headlines and in the talk shows over the past couple weeks, with both presenting problems for President Obama. The problems are short-term, long-term and in this year’s November elections. Three writers, including two top political strategists weigh in with their thoughts:

Kimberly Strassel of The Wall Street Journal takes a look at Barack’s swing state problems, with a special look at the Virginia gubernatorial election coming up in November. GOP candidate Bob McDonnell has successfully tied Democratic rival Creigh Deeds to Obama and moved out to a lead as a result. Obama carried Virginia in 2008. Along with his win in Indiana these were indicative of huge problems for the Republicans and winning in the Commonwealth State would be a sign that returning to the previous order is underway. Strassel notes that McDonnell was successful when running on a pro-business agenda and avoiding cultural concerns. But that changed when his opponents found a paper he wrote long ago critical of feminism and homosexuality. McDonnell has run scared from the attacks that came from the Left and some independents have drifted back to the Democrat. Current polling shows the lead cut from around 15 points to just 5 points. Strassel argues that this shows the GOP should not wade into the cultural battlefield.

Sorry Kimberly, but if the Republicans are only going to be concerned about the business community’s agenda at the expense of the unborn and the traditional family, they are eminently worthy of the label “party of the rich.” And some of us will retain an openness to our Democratic heritage and hope that party returns to its defense of the working man and middle class, rather than doing the bidding of Planned Parenthood and the Pink Palace.

Dick Morris, the astute political strategist who managed Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996 and later switched to a supporter of George W. Bush warns that Democrats face political suicide when the full costs of Obama’s health care plans become known. The mandate for insurance that’s supported by most Democrats—and also by Blue Dog Reaganite will result in a big additional expense for those who are currently uninsured by their own choice. These are young people, many of whom no doubt voted for Barack in large numbers because of their desire for change and for health insurance. It might fall under the category of being careful for what one wishes for, if it’s people who have chosen to spend their money on recreation rather than health coverage. And increasing subsidies to these people means cutting back on benefits for the elderly, a sure path to political oblivion.

All of this would be a huge political problem for any president, regardless of how he prepared himself for the battle. But Obama’s political preparations for this moment were absolutely awful. He ran an issueless campaign for both his party’s nomination and in the general election and won primarily because voters wanted to get behind him and simply poured their own hopes and own thoughts and own ideas into him. Which is called turning a politician into a messiah. Barack can’t help being charismatic and a good speaker, and indeed it’s nothing to apologize for. But he certainly didn’t further his cause by talking about hard truths and that real costs would be needed to pay for his plans. It’s therefore not surprising that problems would result when people realized that their messiah wasn’t who they thought he was.

Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist who’s worked for an array of candidates including Jimmy Carter and John Kerry over the years, explores some polling data regarding the mission in Afghanistan. Mellman’s party has been behind the Afghan mission, which he correctly notes is different from Iraq. Argue all you want about Saddam, but he’s not the one who directly attacked the United States. Al-Queada did and they were headquartered in Afghanistan. But the problems of turning this nation into a law and order democracy aren’t going smoothly and the liberal base is getting agitated over the pace of the mission. Undoubtedly those concerns are going to be shared by a lot of independent voters. America has never been a nation that was into being an empire and we generally like to return home quickly. Afghanistan is threatening to bog us down. But because of how closely that nation is affiliated with September 11, 2001, the political risk of advocating withdrawal is huge. If another attack comes it’s not only a disaster for the nation, but the political party that led the withdrawal is in for a backlash like we’ve never seen.

The Future Of Europe

In the column below I briefly touched on the Obama Administration’s decision to drop missile defense for Eastern European countries. This sort of antagonizing of our allies is a curious decision from a president who vowed to rebuild our bridges to the world, and gives rise to wondering who exactly he considers “the world.” A decidedly Euro-centric strain of thought would hold that Western Europe is indeed, “the world.” I thought a liberal president would be the last to ever resurrect such an idea that went into steep decline following World War I.

Of course I don’t really think Obama is Euro-centric is an outlook. But in this particular case he is showing decided favoritism to the nations of the West over and above those of the East. And it really points to a much deeper question the United States must consider—just how serious should we really take Europe when formulating our long-term strategic plans?

It seems unthinkable that we are even in the position of posing this question. After the American Revolution, the newly established United States worked to retain its close ties to the mother country, and even Britain’s attack on the capital in the War of 1812 wasn’t enough to undo that commitment. To put it in perspective, Britain’s attack of 1812 wasn’t matched until 9/11. What are the odds we’re going to seek a long-term friendship with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden within the next ten years? That’s roughly what happened with the American-Anglo relationship in the 19th century.

The U.S. and Britain were allies from the outset of World War I, and it was only a matter of time before we eventually entered that war on the side of England and France. The same went for World War II. And in the aftermath of the latter war, the U.S. committed itself to the complete rebuilding of Western Europe and to its defense. We entered into a variety of multilateral security agreements that were highlighted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, commonly called NATO today. The principle behind NATO was, and remains, a simple one—an attack on one is an attack on all. And a military strike against any member country—which includes all of Western Europe, and now much of the East in the post-Cold War era—must be treated by the United States with the same seriousness as the attacks of September 11. At least if you take the terms of the treaty seriously, which, in the interests of honor, I think we should.

But are those committments we've made really wise? It might have made sense to commit ourselves to the common defense of Europe in the postwar era. The Soviet bear was on the march. Western Europe was devastated. The United States, having been protected by two oceans, save for the attack on Pearl Harbor, was in peak economic and military shape. There was a strong argument for moral obligation and equally strong one on behalf of our own pragmatic security interests. Do those still exist?

My answer is no. The nations of Western Europe are fully capable of defending themselves. They’ve chosen to invest their resources into building socialist states and subsidizing their industries to enable them to undercut American firms on the global market. Furthermore, the decline of religious practice in the West has led inexorably to the decline of the family. We can save philosophical or theological questions for a different venue, but this hard-nosed political reality remains—Europe does not reproduce at a rate sufficient to replenish itself. This is at a time when their need for workers is increasing, to get the tax base they need to provide the lavish state-guaranteed pension benefits to those retiring. Where are they going to get the new immigrants necessary? There’s one demographic whose population is exploding, and that’s the Islamic community. And hence, Muslim influence in places like Paris and London is quietly growing. Anti-Semitism is coming back. Homophobia is on the move—that’s a term I generally dislike, because it’s manipulated in the United States to mean anyone who’s against gay marriage or believes the lifestyle is abnormal, as I do. But to the increasing numbers of hard-core Muslim extremists those things justify the death sentence. And that is surely something none of us want to see.

It all adds up to this—there’s no future for Western Europe, at least as we know it. Those are not words written glibly or without thought. My own roots are in the West, as are the roots of this country. But Western Europe is dying, because it lacked the will to live. It lacked the will to pass on its own heritage to their people and to live for something beyond the present moment. They instead succumbed to materialism and immediate pleasure. I won’t say I can’t understand the temptation. Indeed, as I write this, I realize how much I’ve allowed those attitudes to infect me personally lately. And if it happens to enough people personally, it adds up to nations in decline.

The United States must realize that this is not a problem that one solves. It’s a predicament to which one must adjust. And we need to adjust the prism through which we view the world. Our long-term strategic interests are not served by catering to nations in decline. I don’t automatically ascribe the same gloomy report to Eastern Europe, and a serious examination of our commitments there should take place. But in the West the verdict is clear—it’s time to start cutting them off and loosening ties until they restore their own will to live.

Poland Or France?

Poland and Czechoslovakia are livid at Obama’s decision to scrap a missile-defense system that George W. Bush was working to provide their countries. The inclination of the Obama Administration seems to be in favor of backing off our defense of these longtime Eastern European allies in favor of improved relations with Russia.

I will admit to mixed feelings here, rooted in a lack of sufficient knowledge of everything that’s at stake on the border between Russia and Eastern Europe. I’ve got a strong sentimental affection for both angered countries, particularly Poland. The Poles produced the greatest heroes of the 20th century—from St. Faustina Kowalska to Maximilian Kolbe to John Paul II. I came of age in the Catholic Church by attending a strong ethnic Polish parish in Pittsburgh that I still consider my alma mater, in a way that will never apply to where I went to college. And I married a good woman of strong Polish heritage and partake in a variety of Polish traditions with my in-laws. But I’ve got even stronger feelings toward Ireland, the home of the Flaherty clan and where my dad is buried, and I’d never consider suggesting that the United States subordinate its foreign policy interests to my familial attachments there, so I wouldn’t be ready to do it for Poland either. So in short, I want to be with Poland and the Czechs on this issue, but need to be sure that the U.S doesn’t unnecessarily antagonize Russia. This is no longer the Cold War and we can’t continually treat Russia the same as the old Soviet bloc. It’s not a nation that’s as pure as the driven snow, but it’s not the Evil Empire either.

But what I do find interesting about this issue is this—weren’t liberals like the president and his leading foreign policy advisers all in a huff that George W. Bush was antagonizing “the world” and damaging U.S. standing? Perhaps this shows that Bush was never really sticking it to “the world”, only to France and Germany, and the elites of Western Europe. Barack is now sticking it to the East. Whether closely allying ourselves with either is the way for the U.S. to go remains to be seen. But if given the choice, I’ll take the Poles over the French any day of the week. Call it a question of national character.

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David Broder of The Washington Post reflects on the problems faced by Montana senator Max Baucus, who is chair of the Finance Committee and recently abandoned efforts to forge a bipartisan solution on health care, introducing a Democrats-only bill. Broder’s piece is a brief—but revealing look at the culture of Washington D.C. For people who debate this issue beyond the Beltway, the health care question is about things like universal access, the freedom to control or your own care, or a variety of other things depending on your ideological point of view. To political professionals, it’s about putting a trophy in the case (Broder’s analogy, not mine). And apparently Baucus has a lot riding on this one, since he lacks a trophy thus far.

Is it overly naïve to suggest that we keep “can he win the big one?” talk to sports? To read this article, Max Baucus is supposed to be the Marty Schottenheimer of the Senate, a long and successful career, but no crowning moment. But in sports, the universally acknowledged purpose is to get to the top. In politics, the purpose is supposed to be doing what you think is right, even if it means coming up empty-handed in the pursuit of legislation. Yes, now that I look at, I think that sounds overly naïve too. For all the talk about doing what’s right for the people, our leaders still have their own personal place in the history books at the top of their priority list.

Martin Schram, writing in The Washington Times opines that liberals are paying a political price for ducking the issues of malpractice reform and verifying the status of illegal immigrants before making them eligible for health insurance. Indeed, the trial lawyers have the Democratic Party in their back pocket and will stand in the way of any attempt to cap malpractice suits. But the rising costs of liability insurance mean doctors pass those costs on to everyone else. And there is, quite frankly, no good argument whatsoever for providing federally guaranteed health benefits to someone who’s broken the law to get here. There may be a humanitarian case for health care in individual situations, which is best determined by private charity. But the guarantee of access is something that should go to those who waited in line and entered the country legally. By failing to address these issues, Democrats have cost themselves support of many people—including right-leaning people who are tired of the insurance companies’ racket—that might otherwise get behind comprehensive health care reform.

Labor Elites Show True Colors In Boston

An era ended with the passing of Teddy Kennedy a couple weeks ago. While other Kennedys remain in politics, none are real heavyweights on the national stage, and the age of Camelot is over. The campaign for Teddy’s seat looked like it might be an opportunity for more traditional Democrats. Stephen Lynch, a congressman from South Boston—the most famous Irish Catholic neighborhood in America and the inspiration for this writer’s novel that’s over on the left hand side of the site—was ready to make the race. Lynch is a populist Democrat on economic issues and votes mostly pro-life. He would have appealed to the lunch-bucket base of the Democratic Party and had crossover appeal to Republicans. He was exactly the kind of Democrat that was prominent in the party prior to 1968. Furthermore, he would have been well-positioned in the party primary, as liberals Michael Capuano (another House member) and Martha Coakley (currently the state’s attorney general) would have split the vote of the wine-and-cheese crowd, while Lynch had an open field to the meat-and-potatoes voters. But Lynch has opted against running? Why? Organized labor has declined to back him.

Lynch’s decision makes political sense. Without the backing of the unions, he won’t have the base he needs to launch a campaign. But why are the unions not getting behind this man, who came from the projects of Southie and worked in the iron factories? Why are the unions not backing a man whose values and voting record correspond to the interests of their rank-and-file? This is yet another example of union leadership being split from the authentic interests of their membership. The elites of organized labor are in bed with the Left of the party. Within the Democratic Party, Boston is often a bellwether of change across the country. Lynch’s campaign and potential victory would have been a bigger threat to the Left than the election of a moderate Republican, likely a pro-abortion, pro-big business candidate like William Weld or Mitt Romney, who have each won statewide office in Massachusetts. Lynch’s withdrawal is a victory for the Left and a defeat for true Democrats across the country.

The good news is this—as long as men like Lynch are in office, at least in some capacity, there is hope that eventually they can move up. Kudos to Southie for the election of such a man as their congressman, and here’s hoping that the cards will eventually align for him to get a shot at statewide office.

In the meantime, traditional, pre-1968 Democrats like myself are once again left choosing the Republican candidate. Here’s hoping Curt Schilling takes a flyer on the race. Beating Capuano or Coakley has to be easier than pitching in Yankee Stadium on a bloody foot. But jokes aside, don’t dismiss the possibility of a Republican, as Schilling is, winning in Massachusetts. The victories of Weld and Romney in gubernatorial elections have shown that GOP wins are very possible. The party has no real strength at the grass-roots and will never really run the state, but a dominant personality can win. Schilling is nothing if not charismatic and vocal. In the unlikely event he were to make the race, his challenge would be to show real depth on the issues and ease the concerns of voters who might admire him for what he did for the state’s beloved baseball team, but need to be assured that he’s not just a celebrity running for office. I’d like to see him take a shot at it. Could the Kennedy Dynasty be replaced the Reign of Red Sox Nation in Massachusetts politics? It’s a longshot, but so were the Red Sox when they were down 0-3 to the Yanks in the 2004 American League Championship Series.

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As long as we’re on the subject of the Left’s abandonment of the lunch-bucket Democrats even as they mouth pious rhetoric about helping them, The Boston Globe has run an editorial criticizing President Obama for his decision to drastically increase tariffs on low-end tire imports from China. The reasons cited are the usual litany of apologies for the free trade cause—the Chinese will retaliate, American consumers will be hurt, etc. But these do not wash. The American market is the most coveted prize in the global economy, and suggesting that our companies being denied access to China is on the same level as Chinese companies being denied access here is a claim that does not add up. If protectionist measures like the one Barack has implemented, keep out imports, then American firms can make up for any lost business abroad with better control of the domestic market. This in turns makes us more self-reliant, a virtue that has national security, as well as economic implications.

The argument about damage to American consumers is also short-sighted. Whatever benefits that are gained by saving a few bucks on tires are more than lost when industries shut down. The kind of industries that are lost cost jobs that go disproportionately to registered Democrats and communities like South Boston. Which makes the timing of the Globe’s editorial, right in conjunction with Lynch’s withdrawal from the Senate race, all too sadly ironic.

Fallout From The Speech

President Obama appeared before a joint session of Congress to push his health care reforms this week. But the most memorable remark was not uttered by the president, but by a backbench congressman. Joe Wilson (R-SC) made the headlines for shouting “You Lie!” when Obama declared his proposal would not extend benefits to people in this country illegally. Barack accepted Wilson’s apology saying “We all make mistakes.” Nancy Pelosi’s House isn’t quite as forgiving and there are demands to censure Wilson.

I believe Wilson should be censured. If this becomes the norm, no president will be able to address a joint session without it turning into a shouting match. How might the GOP have reacted if someone like Maxine Waters (D-CA), a wild-eyed radical from California, started shouting when former President Bush appeared in the halls of the legislative chamber? Wilson’s offense is hardly the most serious we’ve seen in politics. But nor is the punishment. Censure is basically an empty gesture saying “We don’t like this.” It would be meant to provide some peer pressure to stop this sort of thing from happening in the future.

Of course Pelosi and her minions are hardly as pure as the driven snow and their sudden concern for civility is a matter of political convenience. This is the crowd that invited the classless Cindy Sheehan, a war protestor who allowed the death of her son to be manipulated by the anti-war crowd, to sit in the chamber when Bush was speaking. And Pelosi’s people stood by silently while Bush was regularly reviled as a Nazi and did nothing to speak up for civility. But their hypocrisy doesn’t make Wilson’s actions right. Nor does a belief that Wilson spoke the truth. If he did, there are better ways to go about it. Censure is a mild punishment that fits this mild crime.

Whatever one thinks of Wilson, Obama’s supporters must at least acknowledge this—putting the focus on the Congressman is convenient because the president just doesn’t say anything really worth talking about and he doesn’t show any real leadership on this issue. His own supporters in the Congress have been begging for him to provide real specifics. Obama’s early resistance to doing so could be understood from a political standpoint—why bog yourself in details before the negotiations even start and before public reaction has had a chance to be gauged? But this bill is now at a critical point and cards have to go on the table. Barack is either unwilling or unable to take himself beyond syrupy rhetoric. It gives rise to a belief that he just doesn’t have a lot to add to the dialogue. If that’s the case, his proposals will fail. Which is fine with me, but it seems hard to believe that he would take defeat without a real fight. Let’s see what happens the rest of the fall.

Nothing spells political trouble for health care reform in particular and the Democratic Party in general then the decline of support among elderly voters. This column from political analyst Dick Morris (who worked for Clinton and supported Bush, so he’s as close to bipartisan as one can get in a profession dominated by hyper-partisanship) spells out the details. Party ID among the elderly is now a dead heat. This has much greater consequences than any other voting demographic, and that demographic matters more in midterm elections. The 2010 elections, like any other midterm year, is going to be dominated by the voting groups who take their civic duty seriously, even without a presidential race at the top. And no vote turns out like the elderly vote does. Democrats have always been able to rely on this group—hence their use of scare tactics every time a Republican president proposes changes to Medicare or Social Security. Turn the clock back to the 1980s. Ronald Reagan started the decade by sweeping in a GOP Senate and a coalition of conservative Dems and Republicans in the House that had de facto control. But buttressed by the elderly vote, liberal Democrats retook working control of the House in ’82. And they took the Senate in the next midterm in ’86. If they lose this group, they will not only fail to pass major health care reforms this year, but they will be in serious trouble next year.

As long as we’re on the subject of politicians who insult presidents and Democrats who are headed for trouble in 2010, this column details why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) leads the list of Senate Democrats facing rocky waters next November. One recalls former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s famous adage that all politics is local. The political graveyards are indeed filled with members who rose to prominence in Washington and lost their support back home as their fortunes became locked into the fate of their national party rather than the locals. Reid, who once called President Bush a liar, has a lot of repair work to do if he is to avoid following his predecessor, Tom Daschle, into electoral defeat at home, even as he scales the heights in D.C.

The Ownership Society

The health care debate is just one battleground—albeit a major one—in a fundamental battle over domestic policy. Specifically, it is about the role government should play vis-à-vis the marketplace. To liberals, the marketplace is something to be overcome, with public rules and regulations to ensure everyone acts in accord with their overall vision for society. To conservatives, the marketplace is a virtual deity, whose “judgements”, to the extent that the collective wisdom of consumers and producers acting independently can be called that, are the closest thing to infallibility we will see on this earth. And most people fall somewhere in between the two.

Blue Dog Reaganite believes in the marketplace and that its judgements are more likely to be right than those of the government. But I also believe that the Right often goes too far and ignores the reality that the government must temper the imbalances that come from an unrestricted free market. And individuals can’t be separated from the society in which they live, and that with freedom comes obligations. These philosophical question runs through three key domestic policy questions. In addition to health care, there’s the issue of retirement planning and education.

The common thread is this: each issue involves something that is vital to participation in society and people taking personal responsibility in these areas are important enough that the government has to place mandates on individuals. And once a mandate is placed, the government has a corresponding obligation to help those who legitimately can’t afford it. On the flip side, these questions are all personal enough that allowing the maximum possible freedom is desirable.

When it comes to education, no one doubts that at least a basic one is an absolute prerequisite for entering the workforce and being contributing members of society. Americans would cry out in protest if people couldn’t afford to get K-12 education and were left on the street. We go to great lengths to ensure everyone with good enough grades and the desire to do so can attend college. We believe in personal responsibility—that people must take their own steps to work hard and get good grades. But we would reject any notion that took personal responsibility so far as to say that a person who made mistakes in their life should be denied the chance to get into school because their mistakes made them unable to afford the basics—or in this case if their parents were unable. So there is a government guarantee of access to education, and a mandate that everyone must attend for a designated period of time.

In retirement planning, no one doubts the importance of setting money aside for old age, when one can no longer work. We believe in personal responsibility in this area, enough so that there is no protest that some people who chose to live indulgently in their working years retire later and less lavishly than those who saved. But we would reject taking personal responsibility so far as to leave those who may have been foolish in their youth and middle age out on the street. The punishment would not fit the crime. Society is willing to guarantee subsistence income to any elderly person. And because of this there is an obligation—to contribute to the Social Security fund, and that obligation is enforced on every paycheck.

We’ve covered health care very extensively over the last month, so you can read the archives of August posts for a lot of the specifics here. But the fundamentals are the same. We don’t want anyone left on the street, so to speak, because they made bad choices. And the drive for an insurance mandate is meant to enforce the other half of the societal contract.

In the three instances above, I’ve outlined the case for government action. Its one component of what makes me a traditional pre-1968 Democrat, a Blue Dog (a Northern-style one anyway). But the other component is the Reaganite part of the equation. There is no reason societal mandates can’t be done by harnessing the marketplace, rather than treating it as something to be overcome. We should strive for individual ownership and direction in all these areas.

No one should have to pay for a state-run school if they prefer to send their kids elsewhere. Instead of receiving the guarantee of access to a publicly owned school system, parents should instead receive a voucher that they can spend at the school of their choice. The same societal guarantee and mandate is in place, but money is used to enhance individual choice rather than limit it.

In retirement planning, the money that is currently going to the Social Security fund should be eligible to be directed into workers’ 401(k) or other such accounts if they so choose. The same societal guarantee and mandate is in place, but people should be able to invest the way they choose, rather than having to pick the public option. For those who may look at the current performance of the stock market as evidence that this is a bad idea, I would ask this—how many well-off liberals do you think have pulled their money out of the market and asked to instead increase their payment to the Social Security Trust Fund? Actions speak louder than words.

And the same logic should apply to health care. A mandate that individuals own health coverage. A guarantee for those who can’t afford it. But the tax system should be structured to encourage individual health policies, the same as exists in auto insurance, property insurance and life insurance. Let’s not trade dependence on the employer to dependence on government.

The vision I have laid out was called “The Ownership Society” by George W. Bush, and consequently has a Republican label on it. And the GOP rank-and-file would indeed support much of what is written here. But Democrats, particularly moderate to conservative ones, should recognize that it’s not abandoning the role of government, nor the party’s best traditions to support individual ownership within this framework. Such a vision would be truly progressive, in the finest sense of the term.

Beltway Review

As another Labor Day wraps up, this blog post on The Washington Examiner reports that support for labor unions is at an all-time low. The public supports unions by a bare minimum of 48 percent to 45 percent, a statistical dead heat and a far cry from the comfortable support unions have traditionally enjoyed. This is an issue that brings out mixed reactions in a lot of people and one’s reaction to unions is often less about political philosophy and more about perception and personal experience. If the word “union” conjures up images of school teachers on tenure and government bureaucrats who can’t be fired, coupled with major league baseball players resisting steroid testing, then you’re not going to be real fond of organized labor. For others though, that same word brings to mind the auto worker or the steel worker or the coal miner working collectively to get better wages, benefits and working conditions, you might be a bit more positive. If your own personal experience has seen you work with great employers who cared about their people and tried to do right by them, then you are likely to see union organizers as annoying pests at best and bullies at worst. But if you’ve worked for a trail of unscrupulous bosses who grinded you up while paying out little, that you might take a more benign view of an institution designed to marshal the collective power of workers.

I believe unions are a needed check against bad employers. I also believe that organized labor has been the willing and pliant tool for left-wing social causes and used the dues of their rank-and-file to get the money for their activities. So my support comes with a cautious arm at length. And I do not support the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would prevent union elections from being on secret ballot and would empower activist bullies.

Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics writes that Obama is headed into a difficult September, with key decisions on three crucial issues ahead—health care, Afghanistan and Iran. We’ve discussed health care at length over the summer in this space and will be doing so again, so I’ll pass on that. But Obama’s choice in Afghanistan is crucial—he must support the necessary troop increases needed to secure that country. Our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was undeniably just—even the Left’s criticism of taking over the nation that openly housed Bin Laden was muted. And one of the more reasonable criticisms made of George W. Bush’s Iraq mission was that it distracted attention from Afghanistan and the ultimate hunting down of Bin Laden. Barack simply cannot let this mission fail, and it’s one he’s given his rhetorical support.

Barone notes that an interesting thread in all three of Obama’s key choices is that each one, at some level, presents him with a clear path—either choose to govern in accordance with his leftist political base, or with the broad center of the country. His cool response to a crisis in the stock market in September ’08 enabled him to pull away in the presidential race. Will he be able to stay calm this time around in the face of a tenacious base of liberal activists?

Mike Lupica of The New York Daily News is angry that parents are unhappy that Barack wants to address their kids in school, and in a puerile and juvenile column, goes on to call said parents every name in the book. Even Minnesota’s GOP governor Tim Pawlenty gets caught in the Lupica name-calling machine for a statement as mild as “I don't think [the President] needs to force [his speech on education] upon the nation's schoolchildren…”

I’m also one of the loons that Lupica refers too. For all the protests that the president’s speech is not political, every move a politician makes is inherently political, and this is not exactly something done behind closed doors and away from the public eye. If a president is going to get this kind of audience to the nation’s schools, then fairness dictates that a Republican leader ought to be able to appear as well, just as we have on the State of the Union.

Lupica is a tough-talking little guy who’s the poster boy for those who feel the need to compensate for some perceived physical inadequacy. He normally writes his shrill commentary in the sports section, but with the Yankees pulling away in the AL East, the Mets in the tank and the NFL still around the corner, he’s apparently decided to expand his lack of knowledge into the political world. How about a compromise? Barack can force himself upon the nation’s children, but Lupica stops forcing himself on the political pages? At least Barack can be civil to people he disagrees with.

What Does The Public Option Mean?

The heated month of August, not just in terms of summer temperatures, but for the health care debate, is over. Congress will return to session having caught an earful from angry voters over health care reform. Obama is sliding in his approval ratings to a level at which his re-election can be cast in reasonable doubt. Republicans are resurgent, having found an issue around which they can unify their fractured coalition. And Democrats are divided, with liberals angry that the president backed off “the public option” and calling for all-out partisanship to get a bill passed, and moderates believing that such a retreat is necessary to secure a bipartisan program that will stand the test of time. Recently, comments from a prominent Democratic leader invited food for thought.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is a man of the Left in every way in terms of his own views. He’s a camera hound who makes Brett Favre look like a hermit by comparison. On the flip side, he’s used his position as head of the Democrats’ Senate Campaign Committee, an organization that distributes campaign money to Senate candidates, to invite pro-life and pro-gun Democrats into the party, even if he himself is at odds with them on these issues. In discussing health care, he believes Obama needs to launch a stronger argument for the public option, specifically drawing an analogy to the education system. The president, Schumer believes, should point out that in education we have both private and public schools. There is a choice. And that the public option in health care would amount to the same thing. It was a good analogy, and it unlocks both the positives and negatives of this proposal in one fell swoop.

Let’s start with the positives. The link to the education system debunks the key claim of the public option’s critics, which is that it will lead inexorably to socialized medicine, with its complete lack of real freedom. People still have freedom when it comes to choosing a school. We might add that most states have a public option when it comes to auto insurance, and has not led to a loss of free choice in this area. There is no reason a public option couldn’t function the same way.

But though I call that the “positives”, it’s really more neutral. It simply means that the idea might not be as world-ending as its leading conservative critics have charged. Whether it’s a positive or not depends on how it would be implemented, and its here that the analogy to the education system is not at all reassuring. In this space one week ago (two posts down), I laid out some thoughts on the schools. It is true that people have a choice in education. But how many can really afford it? The “public option” in education has spawned the growth of powerful special interests—the teachers’ union in this case—that has effectively hotwired the system so that only those who are well-off can go to private schools, while everyone else remains stuck on the public reservation. Tax dollars go almost exclusively to the public option, while private choices have to get money—through either donations or tuition—from people who can, in effect, afford to pay twice. Talk about a system geared to serve the rich.

What if health care goes down the same path? We’d have everyone in the health care system, and that would be all to the good. But will parents in the inner city be stuck with substandard care, while suburban families have access to the best? Will wealthy liberals opt out of the public option and pay for the best doctors, while denying efforts to give less-fortunate families the same choice? Will we end up with the equivalent of tax dollars going exclusively to the approved public choices, while private doctors have to send out fundraising letters? Will the public option spawn a huge special interest union dedicated to fighting for its own interests at the expense of all else? Let’s be frank—such is a very real possibility.

There is a possibility that real good could come from a public option. I have absolutely no use for the private insurance companies as they now exist. They have all but extorted money out of their customers as they continue to raise premiums and find reasons to deny or short claims. Their process is so cumbersome that one wonders what there is to fear from a government bureaucracy. In one of his finer moments in this debate, Barack pointed out that if the private insurers were doing as good a job as they claim to be, they would have nothing to fear from a public option—nobody would choose it.

If the marketplace were allowed to function normally, a public option can work. If it doesn’t, it will create a system that favors the rich. Senator Schumer’s analogy to the education system may provide persuasion that a public option doesn’t mean socialized medicine. But it doesn’t provide solace to those of us whose biggest fear is just how such an option would be implemented.

Everybody have a good holiday weekend! I’ve got a busy schedule lined up, with two baseball games, and some extra hours at work, so I’m not sure I’ll make my normal Saturday posting time. But I will be back either Sunday or Monday.