Can hostage-takers blame a hostage situation on the President?

Yesterday I received an email, one of those supposedly "funny" forwards that are sent on by well-meaning family, which quoted an anonymous stock broker blaming the current state of the economy on "this administration." The email went on to encourage me to see if my broker agreed.

Let's ignore, for a moment, the tone-deafness of a plea to the general public encouraging us to talk to the stock brokers most of us don't have. Blaming this administration for all our economic woes is not only ignorant, but it's insulting in that it's part of a transparent agenda that depends on our stupidity.

But it takes two to tango, right? Obama can certainly be blamed for not making a case clearly to the American people. I can't argue with that. He's done a terrible job of framing the issues. Too many Americans thought the debt ceiling was about increasing the size of government, rather than paying the bills we'd already incurred, mostly under Republicans. It's worth wondering what compulsion drives him to such weak negotiating positions. Is it cowardice? Is it an obsessive desire for bipartisanship? Is he too in bed with Wall Street to call them on their role in the economic downturn, and too dependent on wealthy donors to ask them to pay their fair share? Is it a hyper-focus on the independent voter and on re-election? If so, he may very well be doomed to fail in the next election precisely because he sought to placate the middle and thus compromised his way to their right, demotivating enough of the left to erode his own base.

But blaming this economy on the ineptitude of the administration's negotiating abilities ignores something that deserves more of our attention. If we're in the state we're in because Obama can't properly negotiate with Republicans, why should we possibly consider turning the keys to the car over to the people who pulled us into a ditch because they really wanted to drive us off a cliff? Bi-partisan compromise deserves bi-partisan blame. If we acknowledge that Obama got rolled, then the bulk of the blame needs to be with the side that pulled him so far away from what he wanted.

It takes two to tango, but hostage-takers are not dance partners. Saying the Republicans are hostage-takers is not liberal propaganda. Mitch McConnell, the most moderate of the Republicans involved in leading these debt negotiations, admitted to the strategy. “I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.” In essence, "most" didn't want to bankrupt the country by refusing to pay our bills, but they knew Democrats cared more about preserving the economy than they did, and would be willing to give in to their demands. It's smart strategy. It's also shocking he would be so honest about it. But then, this is the same moderate Republican who admitted “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Not jobs. Not the security of the country. Undermining the President is the number one goal.

McConnell's honesty is refreshing, but it makes the email I received all the more infuriating. Imagine if someone walked up to you and said, is the clearest possible terms, "I'm going to punch you in the face. After I do, I want you to blame that guy over there for any pain you feel."

Wham! Stars.

As you reel back, would you ignore the man standing right in front of you with your blood on his fist and say, "What just happened? I don't understand what is causing this pain, but I seem to remember something about that guy across the room. He must have done this to me!"

Obama is certainly to blame for not confronting far-right Tea Party rhetoric more directly. He should have crossed the room and defended the American middle class from the guy threatening to punch us in the face. If we decide we need someone else to protect us because of his failure, that's sensible. We're bleeding, after all. But if we choose to look for protection from the very people who bloodied our collective nose just because they point at the President, we are responsible for the pummeling we're gonna' get.

GOP's Debt Ceiling Platform: "Screw Everybody"

I've been watching the debt ceiling debates with growing horror. A few months back, John Dickerson, senior political correspondent for Slate Magazine, laid out the narrative he expected we'd see in this debate. First, he predicted, thing would look tense. Then, both sides would say they'd reached an impasse. Then the President would sit both sides down and cajole them to hammer out a deal. Then they'd storm out and say the two sides had never been further apart. They'd continue this act in public while the real negotiations went on in private in order to strengthen their hands, and at the last minute we'd have a deal.

That's the way it went down with the last budget negotiations, and it seemed like this political kabuki would play out that way this time, as well.

And it still could...

...except that something feels very different this time. Republicans were scared of taking the blame for a government shutdown. They were still haunted by the ghosts of Gingrich past. This time, it seems the only ghost that bothers them is the ghost of Obama future. Mitch McConnel, the Senate Minority Leader, said, "My first priority is the defeat of President Obama." He's the one who seems to be the most reasonable Republican at the table. John Boehner, Speaker of the House, looks like he's going to deal one minute, then looks like he's going to get neutered by his caucus, then turns around and says he won't budge. Eric Cantor, House Majority Whip, seems like he's either focused on causing a government default, or on taking John Boehner's job, and, luckily for him, those might come about simultaneously.

Now, I'm no economist, so I won't weigh in on just how bad it might be if we default. There's a range of predictions by the experts. When there is a range (as with Global Warming), skeptics say, "See, there's no perfect consensus, so let's not worry about it." These folks do not seem swayed by the fact that all the predictions are bad. I haven't come across a single economist who says, "Let's default. It'll be grand!"

Many Americans (a minority, but a sizable one), favor defaulting. They think this is some kind of principled stand. I'm staling a metaphor from Emily Bazelon, but this is not a fiscally responsible, fiscally conservative, or even moral principled stand. These people are not saying, "Let's spend less." We've gone out and run up the credit card bill already. Now, when the bill comes due and the only alternatives are to make that call and ask for a higher credit limit or to declare bankruptcy, they are saying, "Let's rip up that credit card bill! That'll show 'em!" I don't know what moral universe those people were raised in, but I was taught that not paying your bills was at the very least an irresponsible act, and not doing it when you have the money is outright immoral.

And we do have the money! No one can dispute that we are capable of paying these bills. The debt is growing, but that means we need to re-examine two things: Money in, and money out. That's a worthwhile conversation to have. But we do have the money. So refusing to pay our bills should not be an option.

A majority of Americans believe this. But that might not matter. In this game of chicken, it looks increasingly like Republicans are more than willing to accelerate into a head-on collision. The polite explanation for this is that they are too dogmatic. That might not seem polite, but that's what's been coming from conservative pundits. They point out that the GOP is too wedded to anti-tax dogma, too hemmed in by Grover Norquists' pledge, too beholden to the Tea Party wing, to consider revenue increases of any kind. That not coming from liberals like me. That's coming from conservatives like Ben Stein, David Brooks, and even Norquist himself, who went out of his way to try to give Republicans some cover by letting them know that closing tax loopholes wouldn't violate his pledge. Many conservatives (who aren't elected officials) are just as worried about the GOP politicians' intransigence as I am.

I took that as a good sign. See, I was under the cynical misconception that money ruled Washington. I thought, as we came down to the wire, wealthy GOP donors would get on the phone and say, "Look, Representative X, I appreciate that you're trying to protect that windfall I get from the Bush tax cuts. And I really love what the low corporate tax rate does for my company's bottom line. I have a good laugh every time you smile at the camera and call me a 'job creator' while I send American jobs overseas. You and I, we're on the same page. But Mr. Congressman, you have to understand, I have a lot of money in the stock market. A lot. Stocks and Bonds. I don't want to pay higher taxes any more than anybody else does, but I stand to lose a lot more from a government default that tanks the bond market, then the stock market, than I do from a tax increase. I didn't get to where I am without being able to do simple math. So say that you won't bend and screw as many poor people as you can, but, in the end, make sure the government doesn't default, or I won't be able to throw that fundraiser for you in September."

Every time a conservative pundit came out in favor of a deal, I assumed these calls were being made. And maybe they are. And maybe, after Obama and the Democrats give up on everything their party holds dear, that will happen.

But I'm starting to doubt it. Maybe the kabuki is really good. But we've entered into the danger zone. If a plan were to come out right now, it still might be too late to get it through both houses of Congress and onto the President's desk in time to calm the markets. Which means those wealthy donors aren't swaying their representatives fast enough. This makes me even more cynical. Because if money doesn't move Washington, what does? Oh yeah. Maybe it's the thing that can't be reported politely by conservative pundits.

I don't think anti-tax dogma tells the whole story. I don't think loyalty to the Tea Party does, either. I'm staring to think it's all about power. The Republicans were canny to recognize that they had the President over a barrel. He can't afford a default on his watch. Unemployment is the best chance their weak field of presidential candidates have. So they knew they could bleed all kinds of concessions before striking a deal. President Obama told Eric Cantor, "Don't call my bluff, Eric." Now, maybe this was simply the weakest, lamest thing a president has ever said. Maybe a man as smart and educated as President Obama doesn't know that you shouldn't announce when you're bluffing, but he is and he did and he'll get called. Social programs will be slashed. The economy will take a hit. The poor will suffer. The middle class will shrink. But the debt ceiling will be raised, the Republicans will call it a win, and Obama will live to fight another day.

Or maybe there is a bill he would veto. Maybe he's not really bluffing. And now, the only way for Republicans to find out is to push through some truly draconian bill like Cut, Cap, and Balance (the exact same Republicans who, under Bush, never cut, never capped, and never balanced) and see if he blinks. Maybe this isn't kabuki after all. Maybe this is theater of a more realist variety. Chekov once told Shchukin, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it must absolutely go off." Perhaps the rifle is not the default, but the bluff. Now it is loaded and hanging on the wall, and by August 2nd it must be discharged in someone's face.

And this is what scares me. Because if it's not about money, if it really is about power, then all the donors can make all the phone calls and it won't matter as long as GOP politicians adhere to McConnel's number one priority. Maybe they really do want to test Obama's willingness to be a one-term president by giving him an impossible choice: Either betray everything you believe in to get the ceiling raised, or let the country default. Maybe they've done the math as well, and have calculated that even if the country defaults, they will come out slightly ahead in the lose-lose. Sure, our economy will crater, and even their supporters will be angry with them, but as long as they'll be more angry with the President, it's worth it. If that's the case, if they are really willing to rip up the credit card bill and declare bankruptcy just to win the next election, we are all in big trouble.

Because it's not just a lose-lose for Obama. It's not just a lose-lose for the people counting on a Social Security check, or the people who depend on the programs Obama will be forced to cut to satisfy GOP demands. If Republican officials are willing to enter into a lose-lose that includes the wealthy, they're really saying "Screw America. We just want the White House and both houses of Congress." And those are the last people we should want there.

The Party of No, Never, Except Sometimes

In case you missed it this week, the House of Representatives put on a circus of shame, dysfunction, and bombast. The Democrats put forth a bill, called the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2009, to pay for the health care of 9/11 first responders. Fearing criticisms that it would increase the deficit, they even put in a mechanism to pay for it, offsetting the cost by closing offshore loopholes for multinational corporations. Since both these should be slam dunks with the American people, they put in on the fast track, preventing anyone from adding amendments to the bill but requiring a two thirds majority to pass it. Some admitted they were afraid of poisoned pill amendments that would prevent them from voting for their own popular legislation. This begs the question: Were they naïve, cynical, or cowardly? Throughout the history of this congress, the Republicans have voted “no” in lock step on almost everything. Therefore, an argument could be made that the Democrats were naïve to think that this bill would be so popular some Republicans would cross the aisle to vote for it. Or maybe they were cynical, believing that they could score a political win by forcing Republicans to cross the aisle or be branded as heartless corporatists who put the tax status of wealthy corporations against the most obviously heroic patriots the country has to offer. Or maybe they were just cowards, so afraid of attack ads pillorying them for voting for or against the bill due to poisoned pill amendments that they couldn’t just bring it to a normal vote and pass it. Considering the Dems in Congress, I’m willing to believe all three about different representatives. They all seem to me to be starry-eyed optimists who keep foolishly expecting bi-partisanship, cynics who talk a good progressive game but keep voting for special interests, or cowards who are so afraid of courting controversy that they can’t even frame issues effectively and continuously cede the language of the debate to the Republicans. Shame be upon them all.

But I think the Republicans in Congress were worse. Some claimed they were voting against it because they were upset by the procedural maneuver that prevented them from putting amendments on the bill. As the bill was pretty straightforward, this is a pathetic excuse. Either they are for providing health care to 9/11 first responders and paying for it by closing a tax loophole on multinational corporations, or they oppose one of those things to such a degree that it outweighs their support for the other. I guess there is a third option. They could oppose both. If they truly support both these portions of the law, there is no need to amend it. It doesn’t need to be qualified to create loopholes in the closing of loopholes, or to have pork added by the party that claims to be for fiscal responsibility. The procedural argument is a canard, a hoax, a falsehood, a lie, a sham, complete and utter bull.

Now, some Republicans had the integrity to voice real concerns. It’s too bad that integrity wasn’t joined to real honor or compassion, because the concerns were shameful in their own ways.

Some were concerned that a fraction of the money might go to first responders who were illegal immigrants. That’s right, they are so hateful towards illegal immigrants that if someone chose to run into the burning World Trade Center to save their fellow human beings, or was willing to wade through the rubble of those two buildings looking for survivors, breathed in the toxic fumes, and is now coping with debilitating health complications as a result, but that person had overstayed their work visa, that was cause enough to prevent all the people who made the same sacrifices from receiving care.

Others stated boldly that closing the tax loophole for multinational corporations constitutes a tax, and they are so religiously anti-tax that they could not support it regardless of where the money would go. Now, you could argue that making a person pay a tax they’d fled is somehow a new tax, but that’s pretty weak. Making that weak argument at the expense of people who ran into burning buildings to save the lives of complete strangers… that’s the kind of principled heartlessness one normally only sees in Mafia movies. Its not personal, 9/11 heroes. It’s just business.

Regardless of their stated reasons, no matter how odious, you have to give the Republicans credit for one thing at least: their unity. 155 Republicans voted against the bill, with only twelve in favor. I guess you could say the Democrats were more unified, since 243 of them voted for it and only four against it, but it was their bill and the notion of caring for the 9/11 first responders is wildly popular. I’ve tried to find some data on just how partisan this Congress is compared to others (someone please post a link if you can find something objective), because I’m always skeptical of such claims. They remind me of claims that certain political races are particularly negative, ignoring the degree of mudslinging that has gone on historically. Sure, people perceive this to be a hyper-partisan Congress. Polling numbers on this are very strange. People claim to want bi-partisanship. But, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, voters find the Republicans to be slightly less partisan, and the number of self-identified Republicans outpaced the number self-identifying as Democrats (though both increased). But here’s what’s weird: 66% of people believe that the partisanship in Washington will increase over the next year. Now, unless those new Republicans all fall in the 13% who think it will become more cooperative, they are telling pollsters that they will vote for the party they find to be more bi-partisan, but that the country will be more partisan. Are they saying they expect their candidates to lose? Has “bi-partisan” simply become a way of saying you like a party, regardless of their voting history? Do they expect Republicans to take one or both houses of Congress and then butt heads against a lot of White House vetoes? That sounds very reasonable, but let’s remember that Americans have historically admired bi-partisanship and voted for gridlock.

Despite public perception, gridlock is not what we’ve achieved so far. As John Dickerson pointed out on the most recent Slate Political Gabfest, history will look back at this partisan Congress and realize how remarkably productive they’ve been. Yes, they’ve failed to produce meaningful energy legislation. Yes, they haven’t even touched immigration reform. But they did pass health care reform, and as much as I think the product was weak to the point of being pathetic, it was still a minor improvement and that’s more than any Congress or President could claim in a half a century. They also passed regulatory reform for Wall Street (again, weak legislation, but it was still a hard fight against a lot of Wall Street pressure), and the Economic Recovery Act (too small according to almost every reputable economist, but as big as they could get once Republicans rediscovered religion on the deficit). All this in the midst of The Great Recession (or the Bush Depression, or the Larry Summers Big Banks Free-for-All, take your pick), two inherited elective wars, and the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. They’ve done it by the thinnest of margins, but they’ve pulled off the legislative trifecta that Obama ran on. He’s done what he said he’d do. And, increasingly, people hate him for it, and hate the Congress that made it happen.

Now, maybe people are just simple. Maybe they just want unemployment to stay low and the economy to grow at a fast pace, and as long as it’s humming along they don’t care about anything else. But I have a feeling there’s more to it. Commentators have been debating, since the presidential election, whether or not this is a “center-right” nation, as many on the right kept saying over and over. The left would counter that a center-left politician was elected by popular vote (as well as by the wacky, vestigial electoral college), and that if you measured by certain bell weather issues (abortion, gay rights, etc.) Americans actually favor the left side of the spectrum. The right would counter that on other issues (national defense, tax policy) America is on the right. But when I look at the vote in Congress this last week on the Zadroga Act, I wonder if it’s not more complicated than that. Sure, we could debate which issues are most important, and how many should be considered to sum up the national political preference, but I expect we’d still get the wrong answer, because my theory is that the country shifts, and shifts pretty wildly, depending on who is in power. Here’s why: The Republicans, and Conservatism in general, makes for a better opposition party, but a terrible party in power. The Democrats, as weak-kneed half-Progressives, make a terrible opposition party. They are actually the better party in power, but always fail to meet expectations and do a pathetic job of arguing for themselves, especially in the face of strong opposition. Add to this recipe Americans remarkably short memories, and you create a kind of jello that wobbles back and forth along the political spectrum during each election cycle.

Why are the Dems a better governing party? Let’s look at their accomplishments. In the last century, the wars we won (WWI and WWII, Kosovo) were all started by Democrats. So was Vietnam. Quagmires are losses. Dems 3 and 1. Republicans have one clear victory in Grenada, arguably a tie in Korea, and a seeming win in Kuwait that turned out to be a loss in that it left Saddam Hussein in power and led to another quagmire. That’s Repubs 1-1-1 if you don’t count two quagmires in this century and illegal wars in Chile, Cambodia, El Salvador, Iran, etc. etc. Now, the Repubs may claim the Cold War, but if Reagan’s deficit spending the enemy into bankruptcy gets him credit over Truman then that’s not the kind of victory any fiscal conservative wants on his record.

Now let’s look at domestic programs. The Dems have the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The Great Society, and Desegregation. Republicans will remind you that desegregation was largely a battle with southern Democrats, and that’s true, but those Dixiecrats left the party and were welcomed with open arms into the Republican party, and I’m sorry to say that racists are like vampires; if you welcome them into your home you get what’s coming to you. Republicans will also remind you that they have Lincoln on their ledger, and that’s true, but he was in every way a Progressive, and is still hated by many conservatives, so, though Dems can’t claim him on their scoreboard, conservatives can’t have their stovepipe hat cake and eat it too. Similarly, Nixon gave us the EPA, though I’m not sure conservatives want credit for that. Teddy Roosevelt gave us the National Parks, but he left the Republican Party to start the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party, which would certainly prevent him from passing the modern litmus test for conservatism. Gingrich and Clinton both should get credit for welfare reform in the nineties, but then they should both get credit for the millions wasted on the Lewinskygate scandal, so that’s something of a wash for both parties. Now, maybe I’m forgetting the wonderful domestic accomplishments of conservatives. Please remind me in the comments section below. But I know I’m being inherently unfair, because conservatism doesn’t measure its success in new programs. Conservatives say “No!” It’s just that Americans like new programs, new services, new benefits. By and large, we want a safety net. In that way, we are center-left, if not outright left as a country.

We just don’t want to pay for programs/services/benefits. In that way we’re center-right if not far right. And this is why the conservative position appeals right up until it doesn’t. William F. Buckley Jr., the father of modern conservatism, most perfectly described what conservatism should be, and what it is whenever the conservatives are out of power. “A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'” I not only love the poetic beauty of this quote, but even as a liberal I can respect the need for this position in our political system. Progressives, no matter how hard they try to be fiscally and morally responsible, can only produce social change through the political system by producing new government services. These cost money, and even if they are fully paid for by cutting in other areas, they do so by cutting out ineffective but unobtrusive services in favor of ones that will more firmly entrench the power of government into the lives of citizens. We do need progressives to keep government relevant, and to force it to meet the needs (and selfish desires) we ask of it. But without conservatives, government will inevitably encroach on our money and our freedom.

This need for balance causes various types of dysfunction. Government doesn’t work when we need change but have conservatives in power. It also doesn’t work when we are changing too much, need someone to cry, “Stop!”, but have progressives in power. But these two scenarios aren’t the reason for America's vacillation between the sides of the political spectrum. If they were, America could remain centrist and the parties would dance around at the middle as the circumstance changed. Unfortunately, our political system doesn’t allow conservatives to remain conservative. Crying, “Stop!” in unison is a great strategy for an opposition party. They remain unified, somewhat ideologically pure, and can present themselves to the electorate as the stronger, more principled party. Progressives, who innately want to get something done, have a very hard time saying no to everything. It’s just not in our make-up. But we can’t agree on what kinds of change we want, so we often find ourselves forming circular firing squads (or, in D.C. parlance, “going off-message”). But the party of “Stop!” can’t remain so once they are in power if they want to hold on to that power. If the Dubya years aren’t enough evidence of that, we can go back further. During the reign of Bush I, that president not only increased taxes (fiscally responsible, but not fiscally conservative), but started an elective war and waffled on NAFTA. Reagan ran up a huge deficit, and only set the top marginal tax rate lower than Obama’s proposed 39.6 during his last 13 months in office. And that was an anomaly for Republican presidents. Low top marginal tax rates are the exception for Republican presidents, not the norm:

Taft: (1909-1913)--income tax began in 1913 at 7% for top rate
Harding: (1921-1923): 56%-73%
Coolidge (1923-1929): 24%-56%
Hoover (1929-1933): 24%-63% (63% after Roosevelt took power)
Eisenhower (1953-1961): 91-92%
Nixon (1969-1974): 70-77%
Ford: (1974-1977): 70%
Reagan (1981-1989): 28%-69.13%
Bush I: (1989-1993): 28%-39.6% (39.6% after Clinton took power)
(source: Tax Policy Center)

Republicans generally exceed Democrats in their appropriations of pork for their districts. And why? Because voters love pork. According to a PEW research poll conducted in July and August of this year, a Rep. who brings lots of pork back to a district gains a greater advantage than considerations like his/her association with Barack Obama or Sarah Palin, his/her support from the Tea Party, or his/her independence from the Republican or Democratic Party. Cry “Stop!” at History all you want, but it won’t get you re-elected. Tell your constituents that you brought home the bacon, and they’re your biggest fans.

In fact, when examining our history since the rise of modern conservatism, I’m not sure we’ve ever seen true conservatism as a ruling philosophy. What, exactly, would “Stop!” look like? Would the government shrink in size and power? That hasn’t happened. Would personal freedoms increase in relation to federal authority? During the Bush II years, the government was simultaneously trying to encroach on people’s right to marry, their right to protest (remember “Free Speech Zones”), their right to habeas corpus, their right to privacy (the “Total Information Awareness” program) and on and on. I know it’s not fair to evaluate conservatism by the government’s inept response to Hurricane Katrina, but if the conservatives could point to a history of limiting the government in areas beyond tax policy, how would that response have been different? If Ron Paul had been president, rather than Dubya, and he’d spent the run up to Katrina abolishing FEMA along with the Department of Education and the IRS, there might have been more resources (no Iraq War or Department of Homeland Security, remember) but would that have translated into an active and effective response by a Paul Administration? Or would they have put that responsibility on states? Or on individuals to take “personal responsibility” and “pull themselves up by the bootstraps”?

Perhaps I’m blind to a similar kind of incongruity on the left. To me, FDR’s administration seems pretty consistently progressive. Johnson’s legacy was betrayed by his own folly in Vietnam, but his Great Society was unarguably progressive. And, as much as I’ve been disappointed by the emphasis in privatization in the latest health care reform, the tepid nature of Wall Street reform, and allocation of TARP funds to “too big to fail” banks rather than a massive investment in high speed rail and renewable energy technologies, I have to admit that the Obama administration has been predictably center-left. How have progressives failed to be truly progressive when in office? Do their failures constitute the same kind of disconnect between their ideology and their outcomes?

If not, this isn’t a simple case of power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. The case of the Zadroga Act might illustrates the weakness of the Democratic Party, but it points to something more fundamentally flawed about the Republican Party. It’s a case of a party that grinds the nation to a halt when it’s at its best, but, when it’s rewarded for it by the voters, it drives it into the ground.

Health Care: I'm ready to declare a Republican victory.

I don't write these words often: The Republicans are correct. Today I listened to Meet the Press and was very disheartened. As a firm believer in the superiority of single-payer and, dare I say it, socialized medicine, I have to agree with the Republicans on the show who asked that Obama "hit the reset button" and start over. Because I've read all about the Baucus Bill and the bills going through the house, and even though we don't know exactly what shape the final bill will take, the Republicans are right to say it won't live up to Obama's core principles.

Now, to be clear, I don't think Republicans believe in or desire to reach Obama's core principles. When he says he wants everyone covered, I think they agree only in so much as they want everyone to buy over-priced, deeply flawed health insurance plans. When he says he wants it to be deficit neutral, I think they love the idea, as long as it involves no tax increases or cuts to any of their programs. Mostly, I think they love the fact that he's voice standards he can't meet, so they can say he's a failure because he's produced growth in the size of government and higher national debt, two things they had absolutely no qualms about when they had the presidency and both houses of Congress. "Please, Mr. President," I hear them whisper, "keep articulating the virtues of fiscal discipline as a nod to Republicans, so we can rake you over the coals if you do the very things we did when we had the chance."

Yes, I think there is some cynicism on the part of the Republicans in Congress, but I also think there's some genuine ideological motivation. They may not have cared about their ideals before, but they do now. Fine. The sad fact is, they're right even when they're wrong. I think they're wrong that government is this perpetually evil entity that wants to swallow us alive. They're wrong that health care is somehow fundamentally different than clean drinking water or police protection or fire fighters or national security. They're wrong when they claim the free market produces the best results in all spheres of life, including health care. They're even wrong when they say the American people don't want the government to be involved in health care, or to have a public option. But they're absolutely right when they point out that there's a disconnect between what Obama wants, and what these bills would provide.

Which brings me back to my biggest frustration with the Democratic Party. Republicans may not hold views I agree with, but they hold them more strongly than the Democrats. In fact, I believe Republicans hold views that less than half of the country shares, to the extent that they wouldn't be able to win elections based purely on abstract policy debates. But elections aren't abstract policy debates, and whenever Americans are feeling even the slightest bit squeemish, they look to the party that projects confidence, consistency, and strength. John Kerry, I believe, didn't lose the presidential election of '04 because he couldn't win over enough people who were really engaged in the issues. He lost because there are a lot of people in the middle who picked up on the flip-flopper meme and didn't understand, or care, about the ins and outs of procedural votes in the Senate. They wanted consistency, they saw the terror alerts bobbing up and down, they heard rumors of hints of terrorist chatter, and they stuck with the guy who never wavered, even when they didn't agree with him or even particularly respect his intelligence or character, because they admired his single-mindedness.

President Obama is not stupid. I'm sure he knows this. Playing cool and collected helped him in the campaign, when McCain was acting erratically, making a desperate choice for VP, botching questions, and wavering when faced with over-the-top hecklers. But Obama didn't want to make the Clinton mistake of ramming something through Congress, so he tried to split Solomon's baby and stick to explicit principles while turning the details over to the Dems in Congress.

But instead of tacking to his left, giving him something he can sign in a heartbeat, they've tried to find the middle. Which is a problem when the other side knows that if you just stick to your position, the middle keeps moving your way. The Republicans don;t bother trying to find middle ground. Why should they? If they stay firmly on the far-right, the middle, between Blue Dogs and other folks who are concerned about being from genuinely competitive districts, moves in their direction. The Dems need every Democrat from some gerry-mandered district or safe senate seat to hold just as fast to the left as the Repubs do to the right. Then let the Blue Dogs and the senators from Maine craft something decent, and the other Dems can vote for it, looking as reluctant as they want, and some Repubs will do the same, and Obama gets his victory. Instead, the Dems have crafted something no one likes, and the Republicans don't have to budge because they know there aren't going to be enough Dems to pass it. I genuinely believe it's an issue of party discipline. The Dems have crafted crap in an effort to find middle ground, rather than crafting something ballzy and forcing the Republicans to take a stand on it one way or the other. Great strategy, Democrats. "What, do you dare stand in opposition to crap?" they shout across the aisle. "Yes, we're opposed to crap," Republicans say with confidence.

So we will get the status quo, which is worse than crap. Without genuine health care reform, the dangerous cost of the various bills in Congress now will look paltry compared to the effects on the over-all costs of not doing anything. Think a 1% tax on people making over $250,000 sounds bad for the economy? Wait until, as the Business Roundtable (not a liberal group by any stretch) predicts, health insurance costs $28,000 per employee. Think your business will offer you that? Think manufacturers will still want to employ anyone here?

If the Democrats had some cajones, they would have proposed a dramatic change to the national health care system, taking it out of the hands of employers and creating a generous safety net, with choice left in for people who wanted health insurance that covered things beyond the scope of government-provided care. What would have happened? Business would have likes it. Doctors and nurses would have likes it. Hospitals would have liked it. Insurance companies would have hated it. Libertarians would have raged. Fringe groups would have freaked out, marching on Washington with angry signs, many of which would contain over-the-top statements about other issues entirely and some of which would even have had ugly racial slurs. Fox News and their ilk would have railed against it. Republicans in Congress would have flatly refused to play ball. But a couple of them would break ranks because they wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of history, or wouldn't want to face the consequences if it were a success, and that would have been enough to pass it.

Instead, here's what I see happening: The Dems try to produce a by-partisan bill which makes as little change as possible to the current system. Businesses are luke-warm. Doctors and nurses like it. Insurance companies hate it. Libertarians are enraged. Fringe groups have freaked out and marched on Washington with angry signs, many of which contained over-the-top statements about other issues entirely and some of which even had ugly racial slurs. Fox News and their ilk have railed against it. Republicans in Congress have flatly refused to play ball. And now, after all that, some liberals will peal off because the plan isn't far enough to the left, and they don't want to face the consequences if it's a dismal failure to do the things the vast majority of Americans agree it should do. So it won't pass.

This is Democracy at its best and worst. As I've said before a million times: Democracy is the best system of government ever devised for giving people exactly the governance they deserve.

So, here's my prediction. Democrats will put some very bad legislation on President Obama's desk, if they can get it there, and he'll hold his nose and sign it, and the Republicans will declare victory. Or the Democrats won't even be able to shovel their bill onto Obama's desk, and the Republicans will declare victory. Because they're right about the bill. They are correct. They win.

And America loses.

Dog Poo in Motion: A Political Fable

My sister- and brother-in-law are down visiting, and, much to our cats' dismay, they've brought the dog. Tonight, when I stepped out onto the back porch to smoke my pipe, I found a medium sized, curled up dog turd off to one side. I made a point not to step on it, but otherwise ignored it while I smoked, until I realized it was moving. It turns out that a dark brown slug had decided to change course, and had curled around himself, obscuring his antennae and inadvertently masquerading as something else entirely. As I watched the slug straighten out and choose a new path, I realized there's a political moral to this story.

Large groups of people, like political parties or entire nations, are like slugs in some ways. They move slowly. They are bloated. Politically speaking, they are basically shaped like slugs, with a few people on the far right and far left but most people spread relatively evenly on a spectrum in the middle. They choose their directions slowly, ignorantly, and greedily. Once they get moving, they are basically propelled by a combination of momentum, some undetectable undulations, and slime of one kind or another. And, most importantly, when they can't decide which way to go, they begin to look like something of a mess.

I think both our country and both its major political parties are at such a point right now. I have my preference about our direction (universal health care, gay marriage, a genuine response to global warming, a more moral distribution of power and wealth), which incline me to want the Democratic party to figure out a unified direction and start heading there. Frankly, I think the Dems, especially in Congress, are so indebted to moneyed interests, so focused on being nice and bipartisan, and so fearful of hazy, vague taunts of "socialist" and "liberal", that they can't inspire. However, I also know that real debate is essential for a healthy democracy, so I'd like to see the Republican party choose a new direction, even if it's one a don't agree with, rather than circling around leadership like Governors Sanford and Palin and contributing about as much to the national debate as Jon and Kate Plus Eight. Both parties are spiraling around themselves, and, as a nation, we've curved into this fetid, unsanitary shape. We should acknowledge what the slug is teaching us: From a distance, one could be forgiven for mistaking us for a dog turd, so we'd better get moving somewhere fast.

Selfishness and Sacrifice: An Honest Health Care Reform Debate

Congress is now up its neck in a debate about the nature of health care reform. From out here in the sticks, it looks to me like about a third of the representatives and senators are worried they'll pay a heavy price if they don't produce real health care for everybody, another third are worried they'll get clobbered if they produce anything resembling a tax increase or a cut in health care for the super-covered, and the middle third are worried about both. The most likely outcome, as I see it, is that they will all come to a consensus that the easiest position to defend is to do nothing of consequence and figure out how to blame the other side come election time. And they are probably right. And people will die early or unnecessarily as a consequence. And that is preemptively pissing me off.

Now, I've made it clear that I'm an Obama supporter, but that doesn't mean I'm some liberal version of a Rush Ditto-head. One of my beefs with Obama is that, too often, his attempt to usher in a new era of more polite politics devolves into a situation in which people get to pull the same kind of crap they always have, but they aren't called on it because they are so busy trying to be nice. And I'm not just talking about the Republicans in congress. The stimulus bill was a bunch of pork-laden crap, and there were really good reasons to oppose it, but these weren't the reasons I heard Republicans voicing. I think they were trying to figure out a way to be nice and enter into this new era of politics, so they criticized it for increasing the national debt. Now, the national debt is a real long-term problem, but no one should take a single Republican who was in office during the Bush presidency seriously on that front, since they all approved a couple wars and massive tax cuts at the same time. If the national debt is a serious concern, you whine about it during a debate about an unnecessary war, or you mention that when you're considering tax cuts for the rich. During an economic crisis, you either point to your consistent track record on the issue, or you shut the f--- up. No, the Republicans should have been shouting because the stimulus plan was misdirected. If that amount of money had been turned over directly to tax payers in the form of a progressively devised direct payment, the Republicans could have called it a tax cut. This would have been better for them, since a tax cut for the neediest Americans might open the door to a group who (let's face it) is wising up to the fact that the Republicans have not been working on their behalf for the last thirty years. Big win for them when they are looking to broaden their demographic appeal. Meanwhile, the Democrats could have touted the progressive structure of the stimulus as a sign that they took their mandate to heart, doing what the Bush gang did in spinning the bad polling about moral issues into a right wing mandate, only in reverse. They could have satisfied the far left, who they will certainly disappoint on other issues, and shown the lower-income red-staters just what a progressive tax structure might look like for them: a check. Instead, the Republicans essentially voted against Pelosi, making them look like "The Party of No", and the Democrats pushed through a stimulus plan that heavily favored the "too big to fail" CEOs, making them look like "The Party of Guys with Matching Priuses and Ferraris". Now, imagine a stimulus bill that, a year ago, had taken the form of significant checks, skewed significantly toward the lower and middle class. What do us poor folks do with that? The less responsible go out and buy TVs, tickets to Nascar, whatever. Good: that's some needed economic stimulus. The more responsible buy things like first homes or cars. That makes a significant dent in the housing crisis and helps bail out the auto manufacturers. The most responsible pay off their credit cards and put their checks in the banks, which helps to rescue the balance sheets of the banks themselves. Would it have created as many jobs as giving money to state governments to build roads? Possibly. Would that stimulus have hit the economy more quickly? Certainly. Consequently, it might have created more jobs, and better, more permanent ones, and it also would have prevented those super-massive bailouts for corporations. Now, as congress considers a second round of stimulus, the argument will not be about whether we should do this, because now folks are concerned about their jobs so they will put that money in the bank, and the banks are one of the sectors we've already rescued. Instead, the debate will be about the debt, which both sides have no real moral authority to gripe about. And that brings us back to health care.

When it comes to the health care debate, like Stimulus I, the debate will be about the wrong thing. It will be about whether or not we should have a public option, and the alternative of the status quo will be presented as revenue neutral and economically viable. And that pisses me off.

Now, I know the danger of over-simplifying an issue. We see it every time the issue of abortion comes up. One side tries to paint the other as a bunch of sluts who kill babies as birth control willy-nilly or, alternately, as a bunch of stupid religious zealots keeping women in some kind of chauvinistic sexual bondage when they aren't busy killing doctors. Both these positions might exist on the margins, but they are in such infinitesimal numbers that any popular vote to enact either side's agenda would be a loser. Imagine a ballot measure to charge any woman who had an abortion with homicide and lock her up for thirty years, even if the baby would not have survived and possibly threatened the health of the mother. Beyond the immorality, talk about a budget nightmare. No way that would pass. Or imagine the inverse; some kind of schema of mandatory abortions for some women. Would either initiative even come close to passing without people being deceived by some campaign to mask the true nature of the legislation in ridiculous rhetoric? Of course not. So any debate about abortion needs to be about the two things we're most uncomfortable confronting: the fact that we will have abortions (which we're all uncomfortable with) and we will have unwanted children (which we're also all uncomfortable with). That's a much more complex debate, but it's the one we need to engage in.

The health care debate, on the other hand, needs to be simplified to some degree, to get us away from the wrong argument, so that we can get to the real debate, which will be complex, but far less deceptive and heartless. We live in a country that, despite its economic woes, can afford to provide health coverage to every single citizen. We simply can. We have a system that is increasing in cost at an almost exponential rate, and it will eventually get to a point where we can't afford it. Health care is already one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcies, greatly harms many businesses' competitiveness if not their outright success, and will eventually bankrupt the government as well. And yet, the debate is about whether we can afford universal coverage. That's simply infuriating. We can't afford not to have universal coverage... or we have to change the law so that people without coverage do not have to be served by hospital emergency rooms, and can be allowed to die.

This may sound like a kind of modest proposal, but it's not an exaggeration: as long as our system requires that people with no coverage be provided with care, we have to figure out a way to provide them with coverage and get them to pay in while they are healthy. We already have universal health services. They're just really unequally and inefficiently delivered. People without health insurance don't pay, but they cost a lot. People with the most resources pay for their own care, but do not pay enough to cover the uninsured. That's clearly not sustainable. So we need to decide, will we let the uninsured simultaneously bankrupt the system and die unnecessarily in the process? Or, will we figure out a means by which the people with more resources pay more but receive two pretty significant bangs for their buck; they get to live in a country where their businesses and government can continue to be successful, and they don't have to live in a country where people are dieing unnecessarily all around them?

Now, here's something you will not hear coming out of the mouth of any congressional representative or senator who opposes universal health care, or its little brother, the "public option", or its bastard child, the public co-op: "It is more important that the wealthiest among us maintain both their incomes and the quality of care they've become accustomed to than that the government remain financially viable and poor people live."

They may say part of it out loud. They'll say we must maintain the quality of care. Fine, but if we expand that to everybody it costs money, and if we don't people die and the government goes bankrupt.

Or they'll say we can't afford to insure everyone. Fine, then we need to stop serving everyone at more expense in emergency rooms than we would if they had individual doctors and preventative care, and simply let them die.

They may say we're classists, or socialists, or Marxists, or some new slur for people who recognize that some people make more money than others, if we try to make wealthier people pay more of the cost. Fine, then we can have a flat tax on everyone, which poor people will not be able to pay, and it won;t be financially viable and we're back where we started, or we're back to letting the poor people die. I suppose there's another option there: We could let the poor go to debtor's prisons for not paying their health care taxes, then provide them with care there, driving up the costs for everyone, and create universal health care at a much higher price that way.

Universal health care is not only the one option which prevents a lot of unnecessary death, but, if done correctly, it's also the more financially sustainable choice. Anyone who says anything else is really saying their current coverage, at their current price, is worth more than both the lives of poor people and the quality of their country as a whole. I know the hard-core, Adam Smith capitalists truly believe in the virtue of selfishness, and I commend them for their strength of their conviction, even if I don't agree. I just want someone to marry the courage of their dogmatic adherence to capitalist virtue to the courage to say so publicly and clearly, especially on an issue where the intrinsic winning-and-losing nature of capitalism, the vaunted "creative destruction", results directly in people dieing. These quiet, seemingly compassionate capitalists are a bunch of hypocrites and cowards, and that's the nicest way I can put it.

Now, this kind of bald truth might not fit well in Obama's new, more polite politics, but it has to be said if we'll move to the real debate, which will still be incredibly complicated and will require politeness and decency. See, once we get beyond the acknowledgment that we have to move to some form of universal coverage, we still need to figure out exactly who is going to sacrifice, and how much. Health insurance companies, unless we leave in a bunch of unnecessary redundancy, will have to shrink down to efficient distributors or cease to exist entirely, and that's a significant sacrifice, though it's only from a small group of people. I expect those folks to fight to the bitter end, though they have to be able to see that they're doomed eventually. Doctors will want to make sure they get to maintain their salaries, though many will be grateful they get to spend more attention on treating patients than on haggling with insurance companies. Individuals outside the health care field will want to make sure they still have the options they currently enjoy. That's reasonable, as long as they realize that some fifteen million people have zero options, so they may have to make some sacrifices, too. (Over all, I think this gripe is greatly inflated. Does anyone really think that if only one government run insurance plan existed, their personal physician would not accept it, and would only serve patients who chose to pay out of pocket? Show me that doctor, and I'll show you a cosmetic surgeon.) Individuals will also have to acknowledge that there will be forms of rationing, probably in the form of delays of non-life-threatening elective procedures, though even here I expect some compromise situation can be developed where people can choose to pay extra to have procedures expedited so that everyone receives a baseline of care and the wealthy can get better care at their own expense. Developing the system, and addressing these concerns, will be difficult and will require courage. In fact, the more courageous we are at the outset (closing down insurance companies, for example, rather than leaving them in to add a profit margin to the cost of health care) the better the entire system will be in the long run.

But the one thing that we simply cannot accept is the kind of cowardice that allows Congress to push this off into the future, toward an immoral and unsustainable end. And that, I fear, is exactly what we're going to see over the course of the next month as this false debate is used to push the issue down the agenda. And it begs the question: Why are the people in Congress working so hard to avoid pissing off some of their constituents and losing their jobs, if they really want to make someone else deal with these issues anyway?

Now Bill Kristol can be wrong somewhere else!

Let's take a little break from the 25 Random Lies About Me project (more to come) so I can return to one of my favorite subjects: the remarkable way Bill Kristol manages to always be wrong.

So Kristol got canned at the NYTimes and is now writing a less frequent column for the Washington Post. Look, I understand that papers want to find somebody to be their conservative voice, but George Will, Charles Krauthhammer, and David Brooks all do the job just fine without reading like... well, like Bill Kristol. And if people want a Neo-Con, they can read Christopher Hitchens. Bill Kristol is a Bush water carrier, and Bush has left for Texas, so he's a man without a platform.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his advice to Republicans today in the Post. He concedes that Republicans "need fresh thinking in a host of areas of domestic policy, thinking that builds on previous conservative achievements but that deals with the new economic and social realities." But he offers no ideas himself. Instead, he says they will have to be politically agile to make up for their lack of ideas. Then he offers his political strategy:

"Obstruct and delay."

"Obstruct and delay"? That's Kristol's idea for a Republican strategy?

A Republican friend of mine was telling me just the other day that Obama would lose in 2012 if the economy hasn't recovered. But we both agreed that the only way he could weather that is if the Republicans did nothing but obstruct and delay, thus earning the ire of every person who could possibly benefit from this government program or that one. And let's face it, we could all see a windfall from some government program. Obstructionism will hurt my friend, the conservative police officer just as it will hurt me, the liberal school teacher. It will hurt the assembly-line worker just as it hurts the CEO. When Republicans obstruct and delay, they take the burden off the Dems, who would have to be choosing winners and losers, and make themselves responsible for every loser. This is a political strategy bereft of both intellectual heft and political savvy.

Way to go again, Bill!

Democrats are wrong and Republicans are stupid?

In the New York Times Campaign Stops blog, Douglas MacKinnon has a piece where he lays out an argument for why McCain could still win. Ignoring the polling numbers, MacKinnon relies on a sad fact about Democrats, which even Obama is quoted as saying in the piece: “Don’t underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”

MacKinnon thinks the Democrats could fail again by underestimating the Republicans. That's a fear I share. But he explains it as follows:

"Republicans think Democrats are wrong, but Democrats think Republicans are stupid, and that’s why Democrats lose."

I've wrestled with this, and felt my share of liberal guilt about dismissing a large swath of the American population as stupid. But this statement is reductive. Republicans don't just think Democrats are wrong. Despite the fact that I live in a small town, because of my political views people like Sarah Palin believe I live somewhere other than the "real America". Because I believe in those words John McCain put in air-quotes as he spat them out, "Women's Health", many Republicans find my beliefs tantamount to infanticide. Because my interpretation of my Christian faith demands that I take a strong position as a pacifist, many Republicans think I'm a coward, or, at the very least, that I don't support people like my brother-in-law, who is currently serving in Iraq. People can respectfully find one another to be wrong. It's hard to respectfully call someone an unpatriotic, cowardly baby-killer.

Meanwhile, I see Joe-Sixpack Republicans who have suffered through years of stagnant wages while the plutocrats have become wealthy beyond imagining holding fast to the illusion that their hard work will make them part of that top one percent of earners. These folks decry socialism not out of some ideological sense of fairness to Paris Hilton, but out of fear left over from the Red Scare, and out of a genuine ignorance about the state of economic inequality in our country. I hear the descendants of immigrants voice the same kind of xenophobic slurs that translate to the mantra of generations of bigoted Americans: "We're the last ones who should get in." I've watched anti-abortion or fiscally conservative single issue voters pull the lever for a party that has a proven track record of increasing the number of abortions during their watch and of increasing the size of government and the federal deficit every time they occupy the oval office. I've watched people who claim to believe in enlightened self-interest vote against their own self interests over and over again. I would love to find a gentler word than "stupid", but nothing comes to mind.

I am willing to acknowledge that the Republicans, until this election, have had a more formidable political machine. If that's the measure of respect, then I respect them more than I do the Democrats. But that's George W. Bush style respect; respect earned through fear. I hope that, after four years of an Obama administration, Americans can rediscover a different definition of respect, wherein people lay out arguments based on facts and well reasoned political philosophy rather than race-baiting, fear-mongering, and reductive labels. When we still disagree, which we will, we recognize each other as informed, thoughtful, patriotic citizens who believe in each other's goodness and shared hope for our country. I want to feel that kind of respect for Republicans, and receive it from them in turn, but I'm not there yet, and the Republicans I know aren't there either.