Recommended: In Defense of Sarah Palin

I'm not a supporter of Sarah Palin, but I have been struck by the visceral hatred and disdain she inspires, not just in liberals, but more especially in parts of the conservative movement. In fact, she has a lot of support from a significant segment of the population - people who see her as "real people" as opposed to the out-of-touch ruling elite, conservative and liberal alike. And looked at dispassionately, she really is no more ignorant of foreign affairs or economics than most politicians (which isn't saying much).

In this regard, I found Norman Podhoretz's article In Defense of Sarah Palin in today's Wall Street Journal of interest, because he explores this hatred, and I think it is important to understand the roots of these feelings, because they play an important part in the current voter dynamics in the nation. There is a political revolution brewing, though it is as yet far from clear what form it will take and what group will end up leading, and profiting, by it.

The toxicity of cover-ups

History seems to show that the public will forgive almost anything except a cover-up. The Vatican is learning this lesson yet again. That there are pedophiles in an organization as large as the Catholic Church is hardly surprising - there are probably pedophiles in any organization that large, religious or otherwise. If the Catholic Church had just been forthright about it, removed offenders as soon as they were recognized, and dealt sensitively with the victims, it would have been at most a one-day news story.

The mistake has been to cover it all up for years, and move the offenders around from parish to parish, trying to hide the problem (and vastly multiplying the victims). Such cover-ups are judged much more harshly by the public, and feed suspicious of even darker conspiracies. Apparently the Vatican has yet to learn this lesson, as they continue an almost hysterical, but not very convincing, defense of the Church and the Pope. Pope Benedict could put an end to all of this bad publicity by a simple admission of error or bad judgment - a mea culpa - a sincere apology, and promulgation of a strict set of guidelines for future cases. That he doesn't seem to be able to quite bring himself to take these steps (though he came close with his recent pastoral letter to the Irish Church) suggests the Catholic hierarchy hasn't yet learned the lesson about cover-ups.

Oh, by the way....

An interesting tidbit unearthed today by people reading the fine print in the health care legislation just signed by the President -- by specific wording the new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well.

Apparently we the public are supposed to think this is a great bill, but the leaders in Washington who wrote the bill didn't think it was good enough to apply to them as well.

Unbelievable!!!

The Morning After

Ok, the House Democrats managed to pull it off and pass the Senate health care bill, no doubt promising all sorts of under-the-table favors to reluctant House members to buy their votes. And the Senate will no doubt pass the "fix it" bill this week to implement the changes the House and Senate agreed on. So now the interesting part begins.

First of all will be the legal challenges from the states, but most constitution experts expect these to fail. Historically the courts have generally held that Federal law supersedes state law.

Next will be the November elections, and it will be interesting to see if House Democrats pay the price for voting this through. If the election were held today, they certainly would, but American voters have very short memories, and if unemployment has dropped significantly by November, voters may well have forgotten this issue by then.

Finally (in a few years) will come the reality, when taxes go up, health care costs have not gone down, and the burgeoning federal deficit (driven by our expensive entitlement programs) begins to make it hard to sell federal bonds to roll over the debt, and interest rates begin to skyrocket along with inflation. But of course by then people will have forgotten this debate.

Well, we get the government we deserve, and are foolish enough to vote into office.

Alice in Wonderland - Again

Every so often I see something in the news that seems to be out of Alice in Wonderland - so far out that one wonders if it is real. Today I see that international experts are all upset because private guards on a cargo ship fired on and killed one of the pirates attempting to take the ship. As the news story reported

Several organisations, including the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), have expressed concern that the use of armed security contractors could encourage pirates to be more violent when taking a ship.

Excuse me??? Pirates used to be hung on the spot when they were caught. Even bank robbers get disarmed and jailed, and no one complains if they are shot dead by the police in an exchange of gunfire. But Somali pirates are regularly disarmed and turned loose again when they are caught by international forces patrolling the area, because the international community can't figure out the correct way to try them, or figure out whose jurisdiction they should be under. And shipowners regularly pay multimillion dollar ransoms to get their ships back, thus keeping piracy terribly lucrative and attractive.

This really does have an Alice in Wonderland character about it.

Recommended: The Democrats Rejoice

Once again, David Brooks seems to have hit the nail on the head with his piece The Democrats Rejoice in today's New York Times. I agree with him: one has to admire the tenacity and the social conscience of the Democrats, but at the same time one has to worry about the unsustainable fiscal burden they are placing on the nation.

As he says:

This country is in the position of a free-spending family careening toward bankruptcy that at the last moment announced that it was giving a gigantic new gift to charity. You admire the act of generosity, but you wish they had sold a few of the Mercedes to pay for it.

The Democratic "Slaughter"

As if it weren't devious enough to use the reconciliation route to pass the health care legislation in the face of determined public opposition, the Democrats have cooked up an even more devious tactic to allow the House to pass the health care legislation without actually voting on it. The chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter, (D-N.Y) has proposed adding a rule to deem the Senate bill actually passed by the House, without the House members actually having to go on record with a vote. Speaker Pelosi seems to favor this idea, I suppose because she can't actually get enough House Democrats to vote for the bill to pass it.

This legislative process has been bad enough, what with the special deals to buy votes and the fiscal gimmicks to make the bill look like it saves money. If the Democrats actually go through with this "no vote" proposal, Congressional politics will have hit a new low.

I was appealed by the last Bush administration, but this current administration has managed to exceed even the Bush excesses.

Health Care Survey

A survey will be released today by the Polling Company on behalf of Independent Women's Voice. The survey consisted of 1,200 registered voters in 35 districts represented by members who could determine the outcome of the health-care debate. Here are key excerpts of the results from the Wall Street Journal article about the survey:

The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect. For 82% of those surveyed, the heath-care bill is either the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November. (That number goes to 88% among independent women.) Sixty percent want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year. Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones (53%), the economy (54%) and the U.S. health-care system (55%) worse off—quite the trifecta.

Seven in 10 would vote against a House member who votes for the Senate health-care bill with its special interest provisions. That includes 45% of self-identified Democrats, 72% of independents and 88% of Republicans. Three in four disagree that the federal government should mandate that everyone buy a government-approved insurance plan (64% strongly so), and 81% say any reform should focus first on reducing costs. Three quarters agree that Americans have the right to choose not to participate in any health-care system or plan without a penalty or fine.

The March of Folly

Years ago the historian and writer Barbara Tuchman wrote a wonderful book entitled The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. In it she examined a number of cases (ranging from Troy to Vietnam, as the title suggests) in which nations pursued self-defeating strategies. For her purposes, she defined “folly” as pursuing a strategy which was AT THE TIME self-evidently destructive.

I am reminded of this as I watch Democrats commit political suicide by spending 14 months pushing through an unpopular health care bill while doing almost nothing about massive unemployment in the midst of a depression. As I argued many months ago, the Democrat’s fortunes in November, and President Obama’s fortune in 2012, hinge primarily on the unemployment figures. If unemployment is substantially reduced, they will get credit for it. If unemployment is still high, they will pay the price for it. It seems to me a classic case of folly, in Barbara Tuchmen’s terms, not to have spent most of the last 14 months addressing the recession, instead of wasting it on a peripheral issue like health care, important as that is.

Recommended: Democrats, Forever Changed

Peter Beinart, an associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, has written an interesting piece in The Daily Beast today entitled Democrats, Forever Changed. Beinart discusses the historical split in the Democratic party between those who recognize that America is essentially center-right politically and are cautious in pushing left-wing ideas, and those who think Democrats need to be aggressively liberal to be successful politically. He argues that President Obama has chosen the latter course in the past year, and that this will profoundly change the Democratic party, for better or worse. An interesting thesis worth thinking about.

Recommended: Obama's Proposal is the Illusion of 'Reform'

Robert Samuelson's article in this week's Newsweek, Obama's Proposal is the Illusion of 'Reform', pretty much sums up my own view of the health care legislation now being so painfully pushed through Congress. It sounds good in partisan sound bites, but in fact it doesn't provide the reform that is promised, and it fails to do so at an exorbitant cost. Stripped of all the fiscal trickery used to try to make it score "deficit neutral" by the CBO, the best estimates from professional economists is that the real cost is at least $2.8 trillion over the next decade, and probably more, all added to an already out-of-control federal debt.

Democrats may indeed finally succeed in pushing this legislation through, despite the fact that public opinion is running about 2:1 against it. Such hubris cost Republicans control of Congress a few years ago, and I assume the same hubris will cost Democrats dearly this November, as it should.

Recommended: Defusing the Debt Bomb

Way back in February of 2009 Fareed Zakaria wrote a piece in Newsweek entitled Defusing the Debt Bomb. It is still relevant - indeed it may now be more relevant than ever as Congress pushes the Federal debt ever upward.

Recommended: Getting Obama Right

David Brooks, as usual, has come out with a remarkably balanced view of President Obama in his March 12 New York Times piece Getting Obama Right. Brooks argues that he is neither the wild-eyed liberal that the conservatives paint him, nor the indecisive and ineffectual leader that the liberals see in him these days, but rather a somewhat left-of-center pragmatist in a town with no ideological middle ground left. An interesting perspective from a writer who, while nominally conservative, does seem to have a more realistic and balanced view of the world than most pundits.

The problem of entitlements

Lost in all the detailed debates and partisan bickering about issues like health care is a much more fundamental issue which isn’t being debated at all: in a relatively wealthy nation such as ours, just what should citizens be “entitled” to from the government?

For example, in the field of health care, in our nation we can perhaps all agree that everyone ought to be entitled to basic first aid in an accident irrespective of their ability to pay. And most of us might agree that no one is “entitled” to cosmetic botox treatment or face lifts at the taxpayer’s expense. But where is the line between? Should everyone be “entitled” to knee replacements and hip replacements at taxpayer expense? Should a committed smoker be “entitled” to expensive lung surgery or treatment for lung cancer at taxpayer expense? Should an alcoholic be “entitled” to liver transplants at taxpayer expense?

In terms of finances, a wealthy nation ought not to have people so poor they are starving to death. But does that mean the poor should be “entitled” to prime steak at taxpayer expense? (not a meaningless question – people have been seen buying prime steak with food stamps) We ought not to have homeless people wandering the streets, but does that mean citizens should be “entitled” to have the taxpayers bail out mortgages they can’t pay? Even if they foolishly bought houses larger than they could afford? Unemployment benefits were originally supposed to bridge people over for a few weeks or at most a few months while they were between jobs, but now unemployment has been extended to 99 weeks. Just how long should our citizens be “entitled” to collect unemployment – years?

This question of entitlements is not separate from the issue of taxes and national debt. Entitlements cost money – enormous amounts of money in some cases (think Medicare, for example) - and ultimately involve taxing people and companies to pay for them (even if that taxation is temporarily delayed by deficit spending and government borrowing). That necessary taxation can represent a significant drag on the economy. The difficult issue is finding the balance between providing citizens reasonable “entitlements” and keeping the nation financially healthy.

I don’t have pat answers to these questions. Indeed, these are very hard questions, and deserve a long national debate. But this issue of just what our citizens should be “entitled” to is at the root of many of the current raucous political discussions.

The importance of incentives

Incentives are what really drive human behavior, not rational argument or moral persuasion. Much of what is wrong in our nation today is because we have the incentives wrong.

In politics, politicians have far more incentive to get re-elected than to do what is good for the nation. They have strong incentives to pass legislation favorable to the people and companies that sponsor and support their campaigns, whether it is good for the rest of us or not. They have strong incentives to be liberal now with government funds to their constituents and their party base, irrespective of the final cost at some later time. They have maximum incentive to put off hard and unpopular decisions, leaving them for some future holder of their office. They have the maximum incentive to think short-term rather than long-term

In health care, because of the way Medicare and the insurance industry work, doctors and hospitals have the maximum incentive to provide as many services and procedures as possible, whether they are really needed or not. And we as patients have the maximum incentive to ask doctors to do as much for us as possible, because we don’t see the costs or seem to pay the bill (We do pay the bill in the long term, but that is mostly invisible to us). Because trial lawyers have strong incentives to push malpractice claims, doctors have the maximum incentive to practice expensive preventative medicine, ordering all sorts of tests which they know are usually not necessary.

In the job market, the incentives are such that a disproportionate number of our best and brightest graduates are lured in the essentially non-productive financial gambling market, rather than into productive fields like science, engineering, teaching, or innovating.

In the financial markets, now that “too big to fail” banks know that the government will bail them out if they get into trouble, they have the maximum incentive to take risky but potentially lucrative positions, since they are in essence allowed to bet with the taxpayer’s money rather than their own.

In the military-industrial complex, corporations have the maximum incentive to propose new, expensive and profitable military equipment, and politicians have the maximum incentive to approve them if they provide jobs in their district.

One can look around and see many, many more examples in the society where the incentives are such that apparently irrational policies are being followed. And not much is going to change in any of these cases until the incentives are changed.

Recommended: Rep Paul Ryans remarks at health care summit

Representative Paul Ryan (R, Wisconsin) has fielded a plan for reducing the ballooning federal deficit, which even the Congressional Budget Office agrees will do the job. You can read his whole detailed plan here. At President Obama's health care summit he addressed the president directly, explaining why the current health care bill is more expensive than the Democrats claim. President Obama listened politely, but didn't rebut any of his points, nor have any Democrats since then. You might find it interesting to read the full transcript of Rep Ryan's comments here.

Recommended: Let's Bring Back the Robber Barons

Daniel Henninger has an interesting piece in today's Wall Street Journal entitled Let's Bring Back the Robber Barons. He argues that the administration's attempts to create new "green jobs" in the energy industry are nowhere near effective enough to bring the country out of it's slump, especially since all those green jobs are in industries the government has to subsidize to even make them attractive. Henninger thinks we need new visionaries like Rockefeller and Carnegie who were, yes, robber barons, but who's activities spawned whole new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

Interesting view.

Recommended: Alice in Health Care

Thomas Sowell, as usual, has got right to the nub of the problem with his article Alice in Health Care on today's RealClearPolitics.com. Politicians are either ignorant of basic economics, or care more about their political posturing and re-election chances than reality, or perhaps both.

Anyway, as Sowell points out, back when we spent our own money for medical care, we shopped carefully. Now that someone else pays our medical bills (insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) we act just like we would act if the government paid our credit card bills - we go to the doctor for the most trivial sniffle or scratch. Health care costs are not going to decrease until either (a) the government bureaucracy imposes rationing on us, or (b) we go back to paying our own doctor bills, and shopping more carefully.

Congress thinks they can solve the problem by dumping more taxpayer money into the system (doesn't change the incentives at all) and cutting the amount they pay doctors and hospitals (result - less doctors take Medicare patients, because they lose money on them). It really is "Alice in Wonderland" time in Washington.

Recommended: My Stroke of Insight

Many years ago I had the opportunity to drive my grandmother, then in her late 80’s, to her doctor. She had suffered a minor stroke or two and didn’t talk much by then, but as we drove along I asked her a question. No response. The silence dragged on, and then, perhaps 3-4 minutes after I had asked her the question, to my astonishment, she gave me a perfectly coherent answer. That began a long conversation between us, punctuated by long silences while she processed what I had just said or asked – but a perfectly coherent conversation. I have wondered about that for years now, wondering just what was going on in her brain.

Now I have just read the book My Stroke of Insight, by Dr. Jill Taylor, a neuroanatomist who suffered a stroke in her mid-thirties and has been able to write a book about the experience as she witnessed it from the inside. In the hours after the stroke in her left hemisphere she lost many of her faculties, but her right hemisphere was able to watch and observe the whole process, and now a decade later she has recovered and written a fascinating book about the experience, from onset through years of recovery, both from the point of view of a neuroanatomist and from the point of view of a victim.

This is a book everyone should read, since almost all of us will either suffer a stroke sometimes in our life, or know someone who suffers a stroke. I wish I had read this book before the experience with my grandmother – I would have understood what was going on and how she was experiencing the conversation. Particularly important are the things Dr. Taylor learned about how to help stroke victims recover – things we ought to know if we ever suffer a stroke or need to help someone close to us recover from a stroke.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough!