At Values and Capitalism, Josh Good offers Paul Ryan a great line; I hope he takes it. Josh notes that Ryan’s Medicare plan exempts today’s seniors from the impact of reforms. So when the 69-year-old Biden attacks the 42-year-old Ryan over Medicare in the VP debate, Ryan can tell him: “I’m not talking about you, Joe. I’m talking about me.” If it were me, I’d put it this way: “We’re going to take care of you, Joe, but we’re also going to save the system so it’s there for me, too.”
The whole post is worth reading. Josh highlights the theme of generosity in Ann Romney’s speech:
[Mitt's decision to] work harder and press on … [has] given us the deep satisfaction of being able to help others in ways that we could never have imagined. Mitt doesn’t like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point.
And we’re no different than the millions of Americans who quietly help their neighbors, their churches and their communities… They don’t do it so that others will think more of them. They do it because there is no greater joy. “Give and it shall be given unto you.”…
This is the genius of America: dreams fulfilled help others launch new dreams.
Josh comments: “This is a big, important point—one that stands at the center of this year’s election.” He’s right. Josh writes at length about the Romneys’ philanthropy, but there’s an even bigger issue in play here.
What does America believe about its free enterprise system? Do we believe the function of free enterprise is to make us rich so we can gratify our selfish desires? Or do we believe the function of free enterprise is moral–that it allows us to become the kind of people who have the deep satisfaction of earning our own success by serving others and making the world a better place for everyone? “Dreams fulfilled help othres launch new dreams” happens not just through philanthropy but throughout the economy. Any successful auto garage or convenience store or beauty shop helps dozens or hundreds of people live their dreams. A medium-sized factory or software developer creates dreams for many thousands.
Both versions–the materialistic and the moral–are ideologically available on both the left and the right. And in fact the candidates on both tickets have oscillated back and forth between the two versions. After his notorious “you didn’t build that” rant, the president tried to claw back by saying: “America says we will give you opportunity, but you’ve got to earn your success.” And while Ann Romney struck the generosity note at the GOP convention, you can also fire up YouTube and watch videos of Paul Ryan extoling Ayn Rand. (Personally, my expectation is that Romney/Ryan would stick to the moral version a lot more faithfully than Obama/Biden have.)
There’s good news and bad news in this. The good news is that this means the aspiration to free enterprise as a moral system is not necessarily confined to the ghetto of one party. If it were, there’d be no hope for saving it in the long run. The bad news is that this means we must abandon any expectations that the election result, however it goes, can secure for us the kind of moral renewal we need. Both parties partake of the rhetoric of enterprise as making dreams for people, but neither party can be expected to remain fully loyal to it.
In the end, the politicians will do what the voters reward. As always, our future is in our hands, not theirs.
August 30th, 2012 | 11:03 am
Can you imagine a plan where citizens are required to participate in the marketplace to procure insurance? Yes, it’s called Obamacare.
Ryancare is Obamacare for the elderly + the dreaded public option.
If the citizen is 65 and older, this same person under Ryancare, will still have the requirement to procure insurance in the marketplace, but they at least have the ability to enroll in a government-sponsored plan.
I don’t see why President Obama doesn’t embrace Ryancare. With the public option, it is Medicare as is. No one has to take the $6000 voucher to try and buy insurance, right?
Ryancare (if it were writ large to all citizens) is what Obamacare probably wish it could have been.
August 30th, 2012 | 11:25 am
Recently the daily mass gospel was the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the late comers were paid the same wage, and before, those who had toiled all day.
One of the overlooked points in this story is the “extra” recompense those who had worked the whole day had received. They had been spared the experience of a whole day of pointless idleness, with its accompanying sense of insecurity and loss of the ennobling experience of productive labor.
Consistent with this lesson, Ann Romney can say with all assurance that charity is its own reward, and the chance to contribute, either materially or through simple friendship or faith-sharing, to others’ well-being is truly a privilege. As with the vineyard workers, these things are only made possible though the generosity of a benificent Master.
August 30th, 2012 | 11:32 am
It seems to be the consensus of pundits (liberal and conservative) that there is something politically damaging enough in Romney’s tax returns that he has made a political calculation that it’s better to take all the criticism and suspicion than to release the returns. If you fall for the excuse that they don’t want to release the tax returns because they don’t want the electorate to know how generous they are, you’ll fall for just about anything, especially because they are now telling us they are so generous, they prefer to keep the magnitude of their generosity a secret.
Just about the last thing I would want to pick a president on is how much he or she gives to charity. It tells you virtually nothing about whether a person would make a good president or not.
I don’t think there is good cause to get starry eyed about capitalism and the free market. Jim Ryan’s budget wasn’t designed on Catholic principles. It was designed on the same old conservative principles that have been around for decades, and then a defense of it was mounted based on “subsidiarity” and a few other code words from CST.
This is not say that there can’t possibly be a conservative approach to governing that includes caring for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. But I have seen nothing convincing yet that this is what Romney and Ryan are up to.
And if Medicare is in such dire shape, why has Romney promised to restore the cuts both Obama and Ryan proposed, and why are such a large number of baby boomers being grandfathered in to the failing Medicare system?
August 30th, 2012 | 12:53 pm
“It seems to be the consensus of pundits (liberal and conservative) that there is something politically damaging enough in Romney’s tax returns that he has made a political calculation that it’s better to take all the criticism and suspicion than to release the returns.”
Really? Some conservative pundits say he should just release the returns (beyond the same 2 years that McCain did), but very few (if any) make the assumption that there is something politically damaging that leads to his political calculation.
The polls have been pretty even for the past few months, so obviously that tax return issue is dragging Romney down.
BTW, it’s Paul Ryan, not Jim Ryan.
August 30th, 2012 | 2:00 pm
Really? Some conservative pundits say he should just release the returns (beyond the same 2 years that McCain did), but very few (if any) make the assumption that there is something politically damaging that leads to his political calculation.
There are three Republicans. I am sure I don’t need to look for Democrats.
Thanks for the correction on “Jim Ryan.” He was the Attorney General in Illinois when Obama declined to vote for the Born Live Infant Protection Act, and I have been writing about that (too much) lately.
My main point is not that there must be something very damaging in the returns (although I think there almost certainly is), but rather that anyone who believes Romney is just trying to hide his generosity will believe anything. It may be that Romney thinks huge donations to the Mormon Church will not make the best impression, but one has to be incredibly credulous to believe the Romneys are taking political heat for not releasing their tax returns because they want to keep it a secret how generous they are.
August 30th, 2012 | 2:03 pm
The reasoning that failure to release a given tax return indicates there is something damaging in it is circular reasoning. There might be. There might not be. Then there is the question of what makes a fact damaging? Certainly not that the opponents supporters harp on it.
Does the electorate deserve that kind of transparency? Does privacy mean nothing for politicians, at least at the National level? What will tax returns tell us about a politician that his publicly lived life does not? It’s not like Romney suddenly appeared on the scene and everybody needs to know of his past. His history is well documented.
Too much of this carping comes across as an attempt to divert any substantive discussion on issues that affect us all. Releasing them may just add fuel to the fire of misdirection. Perhaps Romney’s campaign is attempting to let the meaningless fires die from their own repetition. I do not know. But I see nothing at all nefarious here beyond the innuendo itself.
And if his campaign released them tomorrow, would the carping end? I don’t believe that for a second, no matter what is or isn’t in them.
August 30th, 2012 | 2:46 pm
How can it be, that while thousands of babies are slaughtered each day, we are discussing Mitt Romney’s tax returns or the vageries of Obamacare v. “Ryancare.” Mr. Obama cannot even bring himself to support protection for human beings born alive after an attempted and “unsuccessful” abortion. Certainly there will be one (if not several) SCOTUS appointments in the next four years. Do Catholic and non-Catholic Christians and others of Faith want Mr. Obama to make these appointments? I pray not.
August 30th, 2012 | 2:48 pm
This is not to, in any way, be critical of Mr. Good’s column. He makes excellent points. But the truest, and deepest form of charity is to welcome the most defenseless and helpless and innocent into the human family. To deny that charity renders all other charity moot.
August 30th, 2012 | 3:05 pm
The reasoning that failure to release a given tax return indicates there is something damaging in it is circular reasoning.
Mike Melendez,
How so? And if so, a lot of important conservatives/Republicans are guilty circular reasoning.
The fact is that Romney has given insufficient reason, in the face of calls from both Democrats and Republicans, for not making his returns public. What are plausible reasons other than concerns that something in the returns will hurt him politically? Granted, it may be something irrelevant or trivial, but that doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent. We do know that George Romney released 12 years’ of returns, so clearly we can’t say, “Like father, like son.”
August 30th, 2012 | 3:32 pm
There is certainly a political calculation on Romney’s part to the tax return issue. But it could be different than you think.
Obama was happy to let the birth-certificate thing hang out their for years because it made his opponents look stupid. Anytime anyone made any sort of comment about it, he could simply shake his head and say, “why aren’t we talking about the serious issues we face?” and be the reasonable party.
Romney, I think, is happy to let this hang out there for a different reason. It pits the pundit class against him which garners him sympathy from the Republican base. A base, I might add, which has been quite slow to warm to Romney. Romney was elected Governor in a blue state 10 years ago. If there was something damning about his tax returns in that time frame, don’t you think his opponents would have made hay with it? Don’t you think McCain would have used it to his advantage when his campaign was sputtering in 2007 (and nearly broke) to get himself back into the game? It is a nothing issue and Romney loses nothing.
George Will, Bill Kristol and Matthew Dowd just got that one wrong. Are they talking about it now? That’s the thing about being a pundit (of whatever stripe). You can just forget your mistakes and pretend they never happened and opine about the next big thing.
August 30th, 2012 | 3:34 pm
“The fact is that Romney has given insufficient reason, in the face of calls from both Democrats and Republicans, for not making his returns public. What are plausible reasons other than concerns that something in the returns will hurt him politically?”
I just gave one above, but that’s the same kind of reasoning that critics gave about the Obama birth certificate and college grades? Why won’t he release them? Surely he has something to hide…innuendo, innuendo, wink, wink, nod, nod.
August 30th, 2012 | 3:59 pm
Kate Sciacca,
Much as those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice might like this election to be decided on the question of abortion, it’s not going to be. So it makes no practical sense to dismiss everything else. Few people decide on which candidate to vote for based on abortion. So for the vast majority who aren’t single-issue voters, things like charitable giving, tax returns, offshore tax havens, and Medicare actually are relevant.
August 30th, 2012 | 6:39 pm
Kate, I have to agree with David on this one. This election won’t be a referendum on abortion. And if it were, you might not like the results. Abortion is too damned convenient, and we Americans are too damned selfish. In this election, Obama’s message is essentially “Vote for me and I’ll give you free stuff.” Romney’s is “Vote for me and I’ll cut back on your free stuff.” Given that the American public, collectively, is lazy, greedy, short-sighted, and stupid, who do you think will win?
August 31st, 2012 | 11:50 am
This demand that nothing but abortion may ever be discussed presupposes some very dubious moral premises. As long as abortions are happening in America, economics (of any kind) is evil?
Check out C.S. Lewis’s “Learning in Wartime.”
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact