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John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them.
If a senator strolled indifferently by as John retched in pain, we would think that person pitiless. But isn’t it just as monstrous for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John?
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This conventional wisdom about Obama's first year isn't just premature—it's sure to be flipped on its head by the anniversary of his inauguration on Jan. 20. If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency. This isn't an ideological point or one that depends on agreement with his policies. It's a neutral assessment of his emerging record—how many big, transformational things Obama is likely to have made happen in his first 12 months in office.
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Baltimore, on the other hand, isn't telling the crisis pregnancy centers what to say after a woman walks in the door (despite all the made-up trashing of abortion that ensues). The city council just wants women to know what they're getting. The proposed signs would make clear what the crisis pregnancy centers are and what they're not. If they're playing it straight and owning their identity, in the end what's the problem?
Archive for November, 2009
29
Nov
09
links for 2009-11-29
27
Nov
09
links for 2009-11-27
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Patient and humble are not words that come to mind when you think of Joe Biden; yet even his limitations may suit him for this new world. Biden is the one who knows many little things but no big thing. As gifted as he is at retail politics, he has none of Barack Obama’s talent for the sweeping formulation or inspirational language, which perhaps explains why he has fared so poorly in presidential campaigns. Biden does not project even slightly in the realm of myth. But for this very reason, he is allergic to magical, wish-fulfillment thinking. “Guys,” he’ll say — this is how he describes addressing the Joint Chiefs of Staff — “what if it doesn’t work?” An administration full of youthful true believers, enraptured with their heroic leader, needs a skeptic and a scold. Obama may need one himself.
26
Nov
09
Fiscal responsibility, part II
(Originally posted at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)
I don’t understand how Conor can say this with a straight face:
You’d think after rightly complaining about the Bush Administration’s unprecedented irresponsibility for eight years, leading Democrats would understand that we’re trapped in a terrible hole, but instead they just keep digging, figuring that while they’re in power, why not lobby for a massive new health care entitlement, game its scoring to make its cost seem more palatable to voters, and pay for it by pretending that it won’t cost any more than what we currently spend. […]
Republicans may be full of it when they promise that if returned to power they’ll cut spending and pay down the debt, but at least they recognize the need for those measures, and that they’re an appropriate priority.
The reflexive, evidence-free dismissal of the CBO scores (High Broderism at its finest) at the beginning of Conor’s post is enough to convince me that he isn’t actually interested in hearing liberal ideas for bringing the United States back on a firm fiscal footing. That said, it’s worth reminding Conor that in the three decades since the Republican Party became the dominant political coalition in American politics, the deficit has been reduced exactly once, and that was during Bill Clinton’s presidency. All three Republican presidents of the “conservative era” – Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush – were responsible for significant increases in the deficit, and in the case of the latter, a tremendous increase in the overall national debt.
Here’s a graph that illustrates the point (I found the data here):
Moreover, it’s not even really accurate to say that Republicans recognize the need to reduce spending, and Democrats don’t (by implication). The Obama administration’s central conceit on health care reform has been that absent systemic change in the way we deliver and pay for health care, the United States is facing fiscal ruin. As such, the only real requirement the administration has for health care reform – as per Peter Orszag – is that it “bends the curve.” We’ve heard more about cost controls and deficit reduction from this Democratic administration than we did in eight years of the previous Republican one. Indeed, if there’s been anything notable about nearly every major Democratic policy proposal we’ve seen this year, it’s that both congressional Democrats and the White House have been adamant that they pay for themselves at least in part.
I hate to be super partisan about this, but it’s one of those situations where you can’t actually avoid it. The simple fact is that while neither party is perfect, Democrats at least have something of a claim to the mantle of “fiscally responsible.” President Clinton was the first president in a generation to balance the budget, and President Obama’s economic team shows an obvious concern for the long-term fiscal viability of the United States. They’re just also concerned about not letting the United States fall into economic ruin, hence the various stimulus-related deficits.
On that note, I want to make one last point: when considering Republican and Democratic deficits, you can’t make a one-to-one comparison without also thinking about the actual content of spending. Or, to borrow from a post I wrote a long time ago at my own blog:
Spending trillions of dollars financing a massive reinvention of our transportation infrastructure – an unquestionable public good – is a lot different then spending trillions on say, video games. Which, while awesome, aren’t exactly a wise investment (I’m looking at you Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear). The real measure of fiscal responsibility isn’t deficit spending as much as it is the return on said spending. If President Obama’s spending puts the country on a sustainable fiscal footing in the long-term, even if it is significant, it will be far more “responsible” than President Bush’s comparatively smaller, but overall disastrous, spending.
26
Nov
09
Standard Operating Procedure
Michael Crowley ruins an otherwise good post on the Obama administration’s engagement with Russia over the Iranian nuclear program with this aside:
But don’t pour those vodka shots just yet: There’s still plenty of reason for skepticism about Russia’s ultimate intentions. It’s never easy to divine Moscow’s true intentions, after all, and some people reasonably suspect Russia of playing both sides in this game–opportunistically positioning itself to line up with whomever seems to be winning the U.S.-Iranian struggle. Vladimir Putin is said to consider international sanctions blunt and ineffective. “I think they are fed up with the Iranians, but don’t see sanctions as a useful tool,” says James Goldgeier, a Russia expert at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
“Playing both sides” is really just an unnecessarily sinister way of saying that Russia is trying to pursue its own interests, which is what states do. Among (American) foreign policy commentators, there’s this unfortunate tendency to treat every one of Russia’s moves as having some sort of dark undertone, even those that are fairly pedestrian as far as state behavior is concerned. I have no doubt that Moscow is obscuring its “true” intentions, but in doing so, it is playing the exact same game as everyone else.
(Originally posted at Attackerman)
In the midst of going gangbusters on the Democratic leadership for sacrificing women’s reproductive health to political expediency, Katha Pollitt makes a point that I wish were made more often:
President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination’s tax exemption. The Catholic Church would be aa good place to start, and it wouldn’t even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don’t want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women’s abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don’t want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.
This is easily one of the most frustrating things about the abortion debate. In a debate about whether or not the federal government should fund abortion services, abortion opponents almost always point to the substantial, trenchant opposition to abortion as a point in their favor. “X number of Americans oppose abortion, and so it’s not fair that their tax dollars should have to go to a procedure that they oppose.”
Tough shit.
A key part of living in a democratic society is accepting the fact that a majority of your fellow-citizens might favor a policy that you’re opposed to, morally or otherwise. Hell, a key part of living in a democratic society is accepting the fact that the government will grant certain rights – like reproductive freedom inclusive of abortion – that you find deeply immoral. Now, as a full person within said society, you can work and lobby to restrict the extent to which that right can be exercised. But what you can’t do is force the government to abandon rights or responsibilities that you find distasteful. For instance, I’m not a huge fan of bloated defense budgets or open-ended imperial adventures, and ideally, I would not want my tax dollars to support said projects. As a society however, we’ve agreed that I am not allowed to not pay taxes because I don’t like a particular action. Instead, I have to convince my fellow citizens that my stance is the correct one, and watch it go from there.
The simple fact is that there exists a right to abortion (a legal medical procedure, mind you) that a large percentage of American women aren’t actually able to exercise. And since we’ve generally accepted that we can use the force of government to promote certain rights, it stands to reason that we use federal funds to give women the choice of obtaining an abortion. Unless we – as a society – agree that abortion ought to be outlawed, or unless we’re prepared to say that any moral objection is grounds for federal restriction, then I think it’s fair to say that we should put an end to this ridiculous “pro-lifers don’t have to pay for things they don’t like” double-standard.
*And as a note to the more theory inclined readers, I know there’s a deeper point that could be made, I just don’t have the time or inclination to make it.
(Originally posted at Attackerman)
In the wake of last week’s elections and the flurry of “conventional wisdom” (read: warmed-over bullshit) declaring that the Democrats are “in trouble,” the White House is worried about its political prospects and has taken to debating whether or not it will pursue deficit reduction as a political strategy:
On the political side, Obama can help moderate Democrats avoid some tough votes in an election year and, perhaps more importantly, calm the nerves of independent voters who are voicing big concerns with the big spending and deficits. Even if Obama succeeds – and that’s a big if – it will be tough for many Democrats to sell themselves as deeply concerned about spending after voting for the stimulus, the bailouts, the health care legislation and a plan to address global warming, four enormous government programs.
“Democrats have to reassure voters we are not being reckless,” said a Democratic official involved in the planning. “The White House knows this and that’s why we’ll be hearing a lot about reducing the deficit early next year. Democrats owned this issue for the past four years and cannot afford to cede it to Republicans now.”
Last week, I pointed out that it isn’t really helpful for Democrats to try to draw any broader lessons from the elections in Virginia and New Jersey (other than turnout is key). In Virginia, the voters who sent Bob McDonnell to Richmond had little in common with the voters who sent Barack Obama to Washington. 51 percent of voters in last week’s election voted for John McCain in 2008, and 37 percent of all voters self-identified as Republicans (compared to the 33 percent who identified as Democrats).
What’s more, if survey data from earlier this year is at all accurate, Virginia’s “independents” – who are apparently considered a proxy for the country at large – lean mostly to the right, with the vast majority identifying as either moderate or conservative. This makes sense. Genuinely independent voters don’t actually care much about politics. Self-identified independents are in most cases voters who aren’t particularly thrilled with party politics but do have a defined ideology. That is, they do prefer one party over the other, they just don’t like to say it out loud. As for New Jersey, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to see an unpopular, vaguely corrupt incumbent lose to a crusading reformist.
Still, even if you could take something useful away from last week’s elections, it’s still the case that that “something” has almost nothing to do with deficits and everything to do with the poor economy and a general sense that the government isn’t actually doing anything about it. A recent Pew survey found that there is simply a generalized anti-incumbent sentiment among the electorate driven by a sense that nothing is improving. Cutting spending and focusing on deficit reduction would ensure that nothing improves. In the absence of government-driven demand, the economy could take an even further dip, which would almost certainly cost Democrats at least one chamber of Congress.
Insofar that the Democrats have electoral woes – and I’m not convinced that they do – the solution is to double-down and work harder to pass legislation on health care, job creation and the environment. Of course, with the Senate the way it is, that will be difficult. But legislative and political success are tied together, and if Democrats can manage the former they will almost certainly find the latter.
(Originally posted at Attackerman)
Apparently, the Catholic Church cares more about spiting gay people than it does about fulfilling the biblical command to serve the needy:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
I’m not surprised when conservative evangelicals ignore the needy in favor of fighting hopeless culture war battles. Conservative evangelicals have been thoroughly politicized for nearly three decades and the focus of their rage hasalways been the nation’s “moral decline,” in the form of reproductive freedom and gay rights. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has always been a bit more measured in its approach. This might be my naivety talking, but I expected a bit more of the Catholic leadership. Sure, the Catholic Church isn’t particularly enamored of gays, but as an institution (and at least in the United States) it’s always seemed much more concerned with fighting the war on poverty than the war on gays. What’s more, unlike evangelicals – who are overwhelmingly Southern and conservative – Catholics represent a wider geographic and ideological cross-section of America, which had a moderating influence on the church’s leadership.
But things changed, and in the past decade or so, Catholic leadership has become more and more committed to a socially conservative political agenda. If given the choice between saving the needy and sticking it to the gays, these Church “elders” would rather let 68,000 of the most vulnerable Washingtonians suffer in the dead of winter than have to extend basic legal protections to gay people.
What’s the saying? Hate the sin not the sinner? Right.
16
Nov
09
Rick Perry Hates Texans
(Originally posted at PostBourgie)
(Austin is very nice though!)
Rick Perry doesn’t seem to like his fellow Texans (via Politico):
Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of “punishing” Texas and being “hell-bent” on turning the United States into a socialist country.
Speaking at a luncheon for a Midland County Republican Women’s group, Perry said that “this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don’t need to be afraid to say that because that’s what it is.”
Perry praised the tea party movement to the Republican activists in attendance, crediting the grassroots groups with discouraging some Democrats in Washington from pushing for a public option in the health care bill.
Under Gov. Perry’s wise leadership, Texas has consistently won the coveted title of “nation’s least-insured state.” Texas leads the nation in uninsured adults and children; a staggering 25 percent of Texans – or 6 million people – live and work without health insurance, and that includes nearly 1.4 million children. What’s more, Texas is ranked near the bottom when it comes to health care utilization, especially among children: overall, Texas is ranked 43 in terms of prevention and treatment, and among children Texas is ranked 40, with only 67.3 percent of Texas children receiving a preventative medical and dental visit in the past year.
Those of us without a sociopathic disregard for our fellow citizens recognizes that absent some serious intervention in the health care system, this trend is sure to continue, with more and more Texans losing their health insurance, and more and more Texans dying because of it. I’d like to think that Gov. Perry knows this and is working diligently to find a solution to his state’s health care catastrophe. But judging from his comments and his steadfast opposition to health care reform, I think it’s safe to say that Rick Perry is mostly unconcerned with the growing humanitarian crisis in his state. Which makes sense. The large majority of the uninsured are located in the South and the West, which also happen to be the last remaining Republican strongholds. And as such, Rick Perry’s casual disregard for the uninsured puts him in close company with most of his ideological fellow-travelers.
To jump on Matt Yglesias’ point from this past weekend, if we operated with a slightly less absurd set of political institutions, a minority of legislators from sparsely populated states – or even larger states – wouldn’t be able to obstruct efforts to provide millions of people with potentially life-saving insurance. Moreover, if we had a more responsible media, obstructionist legislators and leaders would be treated with disdain and opprobrium, not regularly trotted out as respectable members of the political elite.
(Originally posted at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)
This Gallup poll has gotten a bunch of attention, and I figure it’s worth posting here:
Yesterday, Ruth Marcus (or rather, whoever writes her subheadline) called the House debate over the health care bill a “GOP blizzard of untrue statements.” And for good reason. The Republican argument against the bill amounted to a series of incoherent tirades denouncing the health care bill as an apocalyptic threat to everything good and decent about America. Hell, I half-expected someone in the Republican caucus to describe Speaker Pelosi as the “beast from the sea” and an “abomination of desolation.”
Which is a nice way of segueing into this point: although the formal term for what happened on Saturday is “debate,” you’d be hard-pressed to describe anything that happened on Saturday as an actual debate. A debate – as far as I understand it – is supposed to involve reasoned arguments and shared facts. If I were in a debate about Darkwing Duck’s crimefighting ability, for instance, then my opponent and I would have to agree on certain basic facts; that there is indeed a superhero called Darkwing Duck and that he is St. Canard’s resident caped crusader. If my opponent dismisses those easily verifiable facts, and instead insists that Darkwing Duck is a masked beaver, then well, we can’t really get anywhere.
This is basically where the country has been since the health care “debate” began. Democrats and liberals have offered proposals and ideas, and Republicans have responded with either outlandish misrepresentations or outright lies. Contramost of the mainstream pundit world, there hasn’t actually been much of a debate, and consequently the American people really don’t know much about what’s going on. Which is why I’m skeptical about surveys like the one above; in a rational political culture, where debates were open and constructive, that poll might actually mean something. As it stands however, that Gallup poll only shows two things: Americans are still anxious about health care reform and Republican demagoguery is depressingly effective.
13
Nov
09
links for 2009-11-13
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But for the vast majority of members of Congress, once you've been elected and reelected once or twice, it takes either a pretty big scandal or a rare historical tidal wave (as in 1994) to produce defeat. Members know this—in fact, they typically know exactly how many percentage points a certain vote might cost them at the polls. One begins to suspect that some Blue Dogs don't really fear losing as much as they fear facing a semicredible opponent and actually having to campaign hard for a change.
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