1. Ramesh Ponnuru makes a realistic and thoughtful case for Romney. I would add that I don’t for a second trust Romney’s instincts on judicial appointments. If he becomes President, Romney will already have plenty of fights with the left-of-center related to the related issues of the budget and health care. It will be tempting to avoid another fight on judges by picking a Supreme Court Justice that is either a total blank slate or (less likely) even a “compromise” candidate that is favored by liberals. The (possibly unjust) experience of Harriet Miers indicates this would be a major political error as it would mean taking fire from the right while not actually getting any support from the center. But I suspect the prospect of avoiding a court fight might lead the Romney team to try to find a too-cute way out. The most likely way to stop such a mistake would be for a large group of conservative Senators to let Romney know that their opposition to such an appointment would be both faster and sharper than their opposition to Miers. Quiet clarity at the beginning might save some hard feeling and political capital later on. It should of course be noted that the reelection of Obama guarantees the worst case scenario for judicial appointments so it isn’t like there is a tough choice on this issue.
2. Moving on to James Ceaser’s post on what might come from the election: An important consideration in how the public views the outcome of the election will be the course of the economy during the next four years. One can easily imagine a combination of an economic downturn and whatever (if any) steps are undertaken to address the looming debt crisis severely wounding the party that wins the presidency (however narrowly) and discrediting its approach to policy for a while (and giving the other party a strong hand to implement its favored policy after 2016.) I don’t care how much Obama wins by, he is going to take a hard line toward high earner tax increases even if it means going over the “fiscal cliff.” If you look at his budgets, you can read between the lines that he knows that middle-class tax increases are needed to make his spending projections even come close to working and the “fiscal cliff” fight gives him a chance to put some of the blame on the Republicans for middle-class tax increases and defense cuts he probably wants anyway. He could then argue for restoring some of the middle-class tax cuts with offsetting high earner tax increases. I’m not sure that the Republicans would actually get the blame, but it probably looks worth the risk for Obama. He of course also get to consolidate Obamacare for four more years and maybe even get to appoint several more Supreme Court Justices giving liberals a solid (and potentially aggressive) majority.
Romney’s path as president looks rough too. Even if the Republicans get a one or two seat majority in the Senate, it is doubtful that Romney would get majority support for a Ryan-style budget adjustment. That means that the most realistic chance for dealing with the debt crisis would be a deal with red state Senate Democrats that included spending cuts, premium support Medicare, block granting some of Medicaid to the states, raising the Social Security retirement age and reducing Social Security benefits for future high earners in exchange for higher tax revenues (hopefully mostly by reducing high earner deductions.) This kind of deal would produce howls from the left and maybe even cries of betrayal from some portions of the right (this place – unlike Supreme Court Justices – would be the spot for conservatives to give Romney some space to maneuver.) I’m not sure you could get enough Senate Democrats to go along. If I were thinking cynically, I don’t know why I would go along with a program of unpopular spending cuts proposed by the other party in exchange for tax increases that would hit a vocal element of the public.
That’s how I know (suspect really) we’re out of luck fool.
October 30th, 2012 | 7:22 pm
I would have to agree with you that Ponnuru’s case is “realistic and thoughtful” and might be very convincing if the candidate were offering any thing more than watery skim milk. Two cheers for Mitt Romney is hardly anything to get excited about.
The Republican Party needed a candidate with an unwavering moral compass and nominated one with a wind vane. The worst thing about that is that there is still quite a realistic possibility of his being elected.
Conservatives, frankly, have had their wagons circled up for so long, writing off one third to one half of their fellow citizens and talking only to each other, that they have lost track of the notion that politics is about persuasion, not about preaching to the converted and vilifying everyone else.
This is the danger of believing yourself to have “the moral high ground”. You lose your sense of proportion about those you haven’t convinced.
They are, after all, not going to go away, any more than you are. And they are going to keep voting, no matter how many barriers are erected to “stop voting fraud”. In Ohio, at least, I strongly suspect that we will see the largest total turn out of African-American voters in state history, simply because of the blatant attempt to stop them. And it wouldn’t surprise me if something similar happens with Latino voters in places like Florida and Arizona.
Since November of 2008 conservative politics has been little more than an anti-Obama crusade. Can you really say that you would find what appears as Conservative goals and policies convincing in the form and with the attitude that they are currently presented?
As “realistic and thoughtful” as Ponnuru may be, he gives hardly any thought at all to those who are supposed to bear the brunt of “fiscal responsibility” and are almost 3/4 of the population. In his mind they are merely a label. The fact that they can vote hardly enters his mind and the impact of their opinions on the matter by their vote is completely absent from his mind.
Further, the so-called “fiscal cliff” is the perfect test case for spending cuts as the royal road to the economic New Jerusalem for America. You want spending cuts? Well, we’ve got them ready for you. And the situation for the Administration in Congress can hardly get any worse if Obama is elected, and hardly get any better if Romney is elected.
So I say, let’s bring on the cuts we’ve already agreed to and just see how much better they make American life.
October 30th, 2012 | 7:54 pm
“Further, the so-called “fiscal cliff” is the perfect test case for spending cuts as the royal road to the economic New Jerusalem for America.” Or you could phase in changes to entitlements and give future retirees a chance to adjust while avoiding across-the-board tax increases (which does not exclude revenue raising tax code changes.) Just a thought. But it you would prefer going about it stupid as a tantrum for not having things all the Bernie Sanders way, go with what you just suggested.
“And the situation for the Administration in Congress can hardly get any worse if Obama is elected, and hardly get any better if Romney is elected.” There is range of possible outcomes that vary from somewhere to the left of what Ryan proposes (in reality it would have to include more spending plus more taxes, but the outline is still there) to something to the right of what Bernie Sanders would want. Or we might have to do the fiscal adjustment during a debt crisis and a recession requiring both tax increases and discontinuous spending cuts at the worst time.
“The Republican Party needed a candidate with an unwavering moral compass and nominated one with a wind vane.” Romney would have been better off if he had adapted something like the message of Mitch Daniels’s response to the Obama State of the Union speech earlier. He also would have been better off with a different tax proposal. But we’re just talking changes around the margin here.
“he gives hardly any thought at all to those who are supposed to bear the brunt of “fiscal responsibility” and are almost 3/4 of the population. In his mind they are merely a label. The fact that they can vote hardly enters his mind and the impact of their opinions on the matter by their vote is completely absent from his mind.” No combination of tax increases and spending cuts that make the budget sustainable will avoid either middle-class tax increases or programs aimed at the middle-class, or both (though Romney’s entitlement proposals would make Medicare and Social Security benefits more progressive.) There is a reason why both Obama and Ryan limit the growth of Medicare to the same amount. Of course Obama claims that his proposed spending cuts won’t lead to service reductions. If you believe that you suffer from the …
“danger of believing yourself to have “the moral high ground”. You lose your sense of proportion about those you haven’t convinced.”
Which reminds me: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/27/video-and-now-an-important-message-from-the-children-about-reelecting-barack-obama/
And incidentally, Obama’s proposed combination of Medicare cuts and tax increases still put us on a path to a debt crisis by the next decade.
“Since November of 2008 conservative politics has been little more than an anti-Obama crusade. Can you really say that you would find what appears as Conservative goals and policies convincing in the form and with the attitude that they are currently presented?”
This is an example of the attitudinizing you claim to disdain. Say what you want about conservative politics, but the center-right party nominated a pragmatic, nonideological ex-governor and a House member that presented a (flawed) budget that made some effort toward adding up and avoiding a debt crisis. That is more than the incumbent ever did. If it can be said that one party is in the grips of ideology and short-sighted opportunism, the Democrats are the better candidate for the crown.
Though I salute you for wishing the Republicans had nominated a candidate with a greater history of principle and a better record as governor (Daniels, Jindal), we’ll just have to make do with remembering that they merely nominated someone better than the incumbent.
October 30th, 2012 | 8:39 pm
Actually, the good compromisers in Congress (of both parties) who put this together went out of their way to avoid mandatory cuts in Social Security and Medicare so the question of adjusting the beneficiaries of them is off the table for the moment.
Besides, since they can generate so little in the way of tax revenue, “adjusting” merely means an out and out loss–loss of income, loss of health care, loss of quality of life, and loss of length of life. This is a fact that Conservatives should really get adjusted to, or at least not hide from.
Beyond that, however, it is those who are still working that actually have to “get adjusted” to an austerity budget, since they are the people who have some economic margin to adjust. And to do so they have to see the real effects of such budgets, as they see them now in Europe.
After they see the real effects, we will all be in a better position to talk sense about the matter. Nobody does at the moment. Everybody wants to cut away somebody else’s slice of the pie and not their own. Until we get beyond that there is no possibility of progress.
The only way to get beyond that is to do what the Congress has, fortuitously, already done–cut everybody’s piece at once. That puts us in a place where we can finally ask the right question of the right people: what would you like the government to do that you are willing to pay for?
So, Pete, what would you like the government to do that you are willing to pay for?
October 30th, 2012 | 8:40 pm
1. I don’t believe the GOP will repeal Obamacare. They clearly can, assuming they get the Senate, since the Dems showed it falls under reconciliation, but I don’t think they actually will.
2. I don’t believe Mitt will actually use EOs to crush Obamacare if it can’t actually be repealed.
3. I don’t believe Mitt or the GOP is serious about balancing the budget, or even trying. [Granted, I blame the MSM and the Dems for this almost entirely.]
4. I don’t believe Mitt will nominate a sensible justice, meaning someone who didn’t go to one of the three chosen law schools and will acknowledge that Kelo & Sebelius are absolute judicial abominations.
5. Someone’s going to be this century’s Herbert Hoover. It could be Mitt. It could be O. It could be someone else. I don’t know who it will be, but the debt & demographic time bomb is going to explode soon.
October 30th, 2012 | 9:55 pm
My natural, republican, instincts is to say that the Mittster will disappoint me even more than Bush-the-lesser. However, lately I’ve been having this little fantasy, related to an iodine deficiency, I believe that Romney will rise to the moment and out do even Renaldo Magnus, hisself.
Never-the-less, Romney, who’s no commie, in a landslide, as I’ve been saying for a long time.
October 31st, 2012 | 7:58 am
[...] A Restrained Case For Romney – Pete Spiliakos, PoMoCon [...]
October 31st, 2012 | 10:55 am
Donald DeMarco makes the case that what is truly needed is Authentic Political Leadership:
http://www.truthandcharityforum.org/political-leadership/
October 31st, 2012 | 5:14 pm
It appears Obama has secured the White Supremacist vote?
http://snoutslap.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/snout-smack-endorses-president-barrack-hussein-obama-for-2012-presidential-election/
October 31st, 2012 | 7:17 pm
“Actually, the good compromisers in Congress (of both parties) who put this together went out of their way to avoid mandatory cuts in Social Security and Medicare” Actually the good people (I don’t even know if I’m being ironic) at the liberal-leaning CBPP beg to differ. http://www.cbpp.org/files/8-4-11bud.pdf
“Besides, since they can generate so little in the way of tax revenue, “adjusting” merely means an out and out loss–loss of income, loss of health care, loss of quality of life, and loss of length of life.” It is interesting to see that you have come around to Sarah Palin’s view of Obama’s proposed Medicare changes. If there is one thing that the left and right agree on it is that Medicare is not optimized for efficient health care delivery. And since neither party is willing to propose tax increases to pay for a situation is which federal government health care spending reaches 13.75% of GDP (the federal government collects about 18% of GDP), some kind of cost control is going to happen. The questions are whether it happens before or after a debt crisis and whether at the margin, the limited government funds are used more or less efficiently. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12128/04-05-ryan_letter.pdf
“Beyond that, however, it is those who are still working that actually have to “get adjusted” to an austerity budget, since they are the people who have some economic margin to adjust. And to do so they have to see the real effects of such budgets, as they see them now in Europe.”
I have no idea what you are talking about. The example of “Europe” is much abused by both the left and right, but the most obvious lesson is that waiting for the last moment to make the fiscal adjustment means that nobody has a chance to adjust. Current pensioners have their benefits cut. The government is forced to raise taxes and lay off employees in the teeth of an economic downturn. Anybody with eyes can see this.
“After they see the real effects, we will all be in a better position to talk sense about the matter. Nobody does at the moment. Everybody wants to cut away somebody else’s slice of the pie and not their own. Until we get beyond that there is no possibility of progress.” We’ve already seen all we need to see on this. We know what happens when we wait too long (it would be a little easier since the US has its own currency and would be able to achieve some benefit cuts through inflation rather than nominal spending and benefit cuts – though it would be capping spending in nominal terms.)
And you are wrong about “everybody.” The Ryan budget(s) are deeply flawed but they do try to come to grips with the extent of the debt crisis and were passed by the House of Representatives. I would compare that with the incumbent president who has presided over trillion dollar deficits every year and whose last budget was so fantasy-based that not one member of his own party voted for it.
“So, Pete, what would you like the government to do that you are willing to pay for?”
My preference would be for the federal government to collect somewhere between 20%-21% of GDP with Social Security reforms that increase the retirement age and reduce benefits for future life time high earners. In other words something like the last Ryan budget + somewhat higher tax revenues + lower out year Social Security costs + somewhat more discretionary spending.
October 31st, 2012 | 7:23 pm
Brian, all reasonable beliefs and I wouldn’t bet against any of them. I think they can defund Obamacare through reconciliation but I’m not sure they can undo all of the rules through the same process. I would be glad to trade doing away with the filibuster in exchange for getting rid of Obamacare and getting a Republican/Red State Democrat budget compromise through. There are all kinds of reasons I doubt that happens (starting with the likelihood that the swing Democrats and Republicans would be more attached to the filibuster than any particular policy change – until we are in a debt crisis in which case all bets are off.)
November 1st, 2012 | 3:58 am
Appart from the congressional debt limit that can be raised at will by Congress… why will there be a debt crisis or a fiscal cliff?
Japan has proved that there is no such thing as a fiscal cliff and that true wealth comes from patent and efficient engineering. (disaster comes from regulatory shortcuts, and not applying yourself to the science of ending or redirecting the energy of earthquakes) So long as the people are relatively virtuous and proffesional, the amount of debt generated by Washington doesn’t really matter. Instead the only thing that matters is that we find better ways of doing things.
The ageing demographic is not going to improvrish us even if we spend 40% of our GDP on it. What this would actually do is enrich us in the means to fight illness. Technically we would also be enriching the whole world, especially given that one reason for our high cost medicine is the tremendous amounts we spend on R+D and patent. It will certainly bend the nature of progress…but there is a demographic rational basis for it.
@Brian: Debt+demographic time bomb! One man’s time bomb is another man’s opportunity to advance the constitutional progressive mandate of advancing the cause of science and the usefull arts. It is all about article I section 8, clause 8. But I tend to think you guys are all copyright heavy here!
For what it is worth copyright is the most iffy usefull art. Trademark or authenticity over time is more important. While I probably agree with Cindy…it should go without saying that Authentic political leadership is needed. In fact a good chunk of the “tea party” and a lot of other folks are confused about how bad government is vis a vis the free market, in part because there is no real debate that Coke shouldn’t have piss in it. It should be authentic… The market in other words certainly provides us with authentic goods. The market in politics seems to do okay with the copyright, coining terms like fiscal cliff/debt bomb and other modicums of creativity fixed in a tangible medium of expression. But it is fairly bad on the authenticity front. A key reason for this is market structure. Politicians are subject to a different market structure than say Lawyers…but they run like unethical Lawyers taking on clients without regard to conflicts of interest. It is this authenticity problem that gives rise to gaffe’s by say Romney(who is trying to reasure a bunch of rich folks that his true duties of loyalty lie with them).
On one level the debate over a constitutional republic and a democracy is just a question of the authenticity structure of the representation. Obama’s Audacity of Hope was copyright on this front. The equivalent of Patent on this front would be regime change. No one is proposing this, except in copyright, which is the domain of the Utopia.
On the other hand I am most definately saying that there was a Patent level change in 1972, that took the issue of the national debt and decoupled it from a Natural materialistic barrier (the price of Gold). in a very loose sense “Natural Law”.
Europe has a synthetic natural barrier in the form of bureaucrats, and competing nationalistic interests and treaties. All sorts of “positive law”.
The US is completly wide open, except for the congressional debt ceilling. The U.S. then is no longer subject to “Natural Law” vis a vis the debt ceilling… it is a pure policy choice.
The “fiscal cliff” and the “debt bomb” are simply aspects of copyright deployed for the sake of persuasion.
“If I were thinking cynically, I don’t know why I would go along with a program of unpopular spending cuts proposed by the other party in exchange for tax increases that would hit a vocal element of the public.”
Really…does “If I were thinking cynically” add anything to this sentence?
I think it makes a lot more sense as “I don’t know why I would go along with a program of unpopular spending cuts proposed by the other party in exchange for tax increases that would hit a vocal element of the public.”
I don’t know, you haven’t persuaded me. But I am a much bigger believer in global warming, than I am in the “fiscal cliff”. I certainly believe in Hurricanes! I also believe in the demographic bomb, but really such is my fate, to live in times when the macroeconomy will be tilted towards serving the interests of the old. But I am also a Capitalist and a Progressive rightly understood. A “Lockeian” I suspect, but also a Puritan. I tend to believe that we will be better off developing innovative solutions, regardless of accountant cost.
So I believe politics should focus upon negotiating legal barriers to the deployment of patent in large and small scale projects, and funding these in the classical progressive sense of the Tennesee Valley Authority.
A healthy economy is about how we use the wealth that is out there to drive innovative solutions.
The first thing a progressive president would do, would be to end Hurricanes. (by creating a TVA clone for the purpose of deploying Salter’s Sink’s).
November 1st, 2012 | 5:23 am
John Lewis, what if ran the national budget with accountant’s rules? All of the national assets, from land and buildings to military equipment owned by the federal government, is on one side of a ledger as assets. How does that weigh against the national debt?
November 1st, 2012 | 8:37 am
Don’t lionize Mitch “take social issues off the table” Daniels too readily, Mr. Spiliakos (7:54 pm).
November 1st, 2012 | 10:41 am
Pete, I hope we were reading the same CBPP report. It would be very disorienting to think that there are two of them:
“Cuts in Medicare payments to providers and insurance plans (those cuts are limited to 2 percent of such payments in any year, or about $10.8 billion in 2013).
o About $5.2 billion in cuts in the other mandatory programs that are subject to sequestration, the biggest of which is farm price supports. A number of key mandatory programs are exempt from sequestration, including Social Security, Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), child nutrition, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), refundable tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, veterans’ benefits, and federal retirement.”
Now from direct experience I can tell you that the programs on this exempt list include all of the most important things that support seniors and the disabled in this country: Social Security, Medicaid (the secondary insurance coverage for any senior below the poverty line), SSI, SNAP, veteran’s benefits, and federal retirement.
Further, there is no change whatever in the Medicare benefits received. They will still be 80% of the allowable expenses with a 20% deductible that the patient must pay on their own. For the seniors in poverty, that 20% is usually covered in full by Medicaid, as I pointed out above.
By law, the service provider CANNOT bill the patient above the allowable expenses. What will be cut are the allowable amounts the provider may charge. Thus all the burden of these cuts will be borne by the hospitals, the doctors, and the labs. And the generous prescription drug coverage now available will keep the large pharmaceutical companies well insulated.
Moreover, Medicaid, SNAP, child nutrition, and refundable tax credits are the primary forms of aid given to the working poor. And they are exempt as well. These cuts will have no special impact on seniors and the poor beyond that of the other groups that do not qualify for this aid.
What I’m quite certain will happen if the cuts are made is that there will be a large Reduction In Force of federal employees, ballooning the unemployment statistics; a similar release of state and local government workers who administer federally funded programs such as highway funds; and a sharp curtailment of big ticket weapons procurement resulting in massive layoffs in the over specialized defense industry.
Beyond the cuts in farm subsidies, I suspect there will be similar cuts in the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, and the National Park Service–maybe even the funding of forest and wildfire fighting–as well as the considerable perks farmers, ranchers, and loggers receive from these agencies.
As an aside, I have to chuckle at the negotiating skills of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. A massive part of the burden of these cuts is going to fall on the states of the Deep South, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountain West, as well as the rural areas of most other states. In other words all the major areas of Bush–McCain–Romney country.
But there is no indication that the Republican leadership in the Senate and House are that long on brains. Besides, they’ve had a far more important job to do: defeating Barack Obama at whatever cost their legislative inattentiveness has to the country as a whole.
Then there are NOAA and the NWS who have been doing such a bang-up job of tracking hurricanes and forestalling loss of life by doing so. Probably cuts in FEMA as well, so there will be no reason to bother “cutting through red tape” to distribute federal disaster aid for events like Hurricane Sandy.
These, of course, are just the first few of the falling dominoes. Everything else will crash shortly after.
Now I am no more indifferent to the massive amounts of human suffering, particularly among middle-class taxpayers driven onto services like Medicaid, SNAP, and child nutrition, that these cuts will create. And I wouldn’t advocate it under any other circumstances
But there is something more important at stake. For thirty years the kind of outright foolishness that has brought us to this pass has been driven largely by the Republican Party and its supporters, armed with mere slogans and unconquerable ignorance of cause, effect, and relevant factual information in the real world which we all share.
It is high time that the people of America and, particularly, the Republicans of America, learn a little bit about what the federal government is doing for them as well doing to them.
It boils down to three principles:
Sooner or later Services=Taxes. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Don’t spit in the soup, we’ve all got to eat.
If it takes going over the “fiscal cliff” to finally learn such lessons, then I say let’s do it.
November 1st, 2012 | 12:25 pm
“What will be cut are the allowable amounts the provider may charge. Thus all the burden of these cuts will be borne by the hospitals, the doctors, and the labs.”
I…Um…Well…I…
Seriously, I’m speechless. What can possibly be said in the face of economic ignorance on this scale?
[Yes, I know that our supergenius president says this sort of thing all the time, but by his own account he can't do math. Why would our resident statistical guru feel the need to parrot such laughable innumeracy? He's not running for office too, is he?]
November 1st, 2012 | 2:12 pm
Brian, that is the way Medicare (or any insurance) works. In the one case the coverage % is set by law, in the other by legal contract. Private insurers have four options to lower their costs: raise the price for the same coverage in the next contract, remove parts of the coverage altogether or lower the coverage % on selected services in the next contract, or change the way they figure “reasonable and customary charges” (their equivalent of “allowable expenses”). The balance is still billable to the patient by the provider and is a permanent debt.
The Feds have only one serious option: lowering the allowable expenses. The rest of it is mandated by law, including the fact the the provider is prohibited by law from charging more than the federal allowable.
How do I know this? I’ve been on Medicare since 2007. I also worked as a medical claims adjuster for 4 years.
How could you know this? By putting your “economic knowledge” in the Pending box and doing some reading about how these things actually work. If you do, you are likely to find that Medicare has been far more successful at holding down per patient costs. Why? Because the Feds don’t have to sell insurance policies to anybody, so they cannot price themselves out of the market by too vigorous cost cutting.
From the provider’s viewpoint, Medicare patients have to be treated in high volumes in order to break even or make a very slight profit. Any losses on Medicare treatments either have to be written off or shifted onto what they charge non-Medicare patients.
The other option, which many medical specialists choose, is to simply not accept Medicare at all and either bill the patient directly or, more usually, demand payment up front at the time of service. They simply cannot do a large enough volume of Medicare business to stand the losses.
Further, there are some specialties, such as independent psychiatric services, where providers I know of accept no insurance at all because the cash flow from any carrier, private or public, is too slow for them to stay in business, and the extra staff they need for billing is too costly for them. You pay cash and carry with these providers as well.
How do I know all this? Because I see around six doctors on a regular basis and my life largely confines me to my home. So I make friends with my doctors or other providers that I see from time to time: nurses, home health aides, pharmacists, counselers, physical therapy specialists, and so on. I also ask lots of questions and listen carefully.
In fact, that’s how I know most of what I know. I have read omnivorously since about 1956 and trained myself to observe and listen with my full attention no matter where I am or what I’m doing.
Read or heard anything good lately?
November 1st, 2012 | 6:19 pm
Joseph, your most recent comment actually contains the refutation to the statement that “all the burden of these cuts will be borne by the hospitals, the doctors, and the labs.”
I salute your efficiency.
November 1st, 2012 | 6:27 pm
John, “Really…does “If I were thinking cynically” add anything to this sentence?”
It does if you don’t assume that that the key players will always be thinking cynically rather that in a public spirited way. That’s not the way I’m betting mind you…
Micha, you don’t have to lionize anybody to note that Daniels got the tone right when he said:
“The president’s grand experiment in trickle-down government [romney used that] has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: A government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class and those who hope to join it.
Those punished most by the wrong turns of the last three years are those unemployed or underemployed tonight and those so discouraged they’ve abandoned the search for work altogether. And no one’s been more tragically harmed than the young people of this country, the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did.
As Republicans, our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.”
November 1st, 2012 | 10:53 pm
I’m not quite sure what you mean, Pete, unless it was my remark about shifting the cost over to the non-Medicare carriers and patients. If that’s the case, the providers, like any other business have means of coping with the fact that Medicare patients usually allow them to break even at best.
But there are economic limits here as well. And the very fact that allowable Medicare expenses will be under constant downward pressure for a very long time is still very much a future economic headache for providers.
Even the option of not accepting Medicare has its limits. I see a cardiac specialist, a pulmonologist, and an arthritis specialist. For all of these doctors, their patients are largely above the age of 50. If they don’t accept Medicare patients, pretty soon they won’t have a practice.
If what you are talking about is something else, you’ll have to be more explicit.
As to Mr. Daniel’s remarks, all I can say is, nice work if you can get it. If members of the Republican Party have put forth a real plan with substance to reverse this inglorious decline, I have yet to hear it.
Paul Krugman recently remarked that he could put forward an even better plan than Romney’s five point “recovery plan”: Every American will have a good job with a good salary, a blissful marriage, and a pony.
If Mr. Daniels has something up his sleeve more practical than this, I’m all ears.
November 2nd, 2012 | 5:35 pm
Joseph, the problem, at the margin with across-the-board reimbursement cuts is evident right there in your previous comment. The experience with Medicaid is instructive here. I hope (and believe) that the President understands that across-the-board cuts would either reduce or delay (in practice the same thing) medical services availability and he is just hoping that the public believes that the consequences of across-the-board reimbursement cuts will only hurt the miracle excess profits of existing providers or else just raise everybody else’s insurance premiums. It is instead obvious from your own comment that there would be a combination of restricted services plus further manipulating billing procedures to increase “volume” to partly make up for the lower reimbursement schedule.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/20/how-obamacares-716-billion-in-cuts-will-drive-doctors-out-of-medicare/
As for Mitch Daniels, he didn’t run for President but you might want to check out his education and Medicaid reforms in Indiana to get a sense of what kind of policies he might have in mind.
“Paul Krugman recently remarked that he could put forward an even better plan than Romney’s five point “recovery plan”: Every American will have a good job with a good salary, a blissful marriage, and a pony.”
The problem is that you’re not going far enough down the rabbit hole. You should consider the possibility that, on Keynesian grounds, Krugman would prefer a pony for every American not only to Romney’s proposed program, but also to Obama’s stimulus. Maybe he hasn’t thought through the environmental implications.
I don’t see what is especially wrong with a program that includes greater energy utilization and lower, flatter tax rates (though there are competing political and policy considerations.) Both those polices would tend to increase trend economic growth. And Krugman probably knows this but feels the need to stay in the partisan lunatic/middle school child persona he sometimes takes on in his polemical work. Don’t get me wrong, the effects wouldn’t be huge, but then again Romney’s 12 million jobs target is impressive-sounding, but actually pretty realistic.
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/331484/zachary-goldfarb-interpretation-economic-statistics-reihan-salam
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