David Brooks has looked into his crystal ball, and it has revealed to him the death of liberalism in America:
This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. Let me count the ways...
1. The idea that Obama is pushing the people away by going to the left and ignoring the moderate centrists is laughable. Obama has done no such thing. He has consistently sided with the conservative wing of his party, which can only mean one thing: He is part of that wing.
It was interesting to watch the Republican Party lose touch with America. You had a party led by conservative Southerners who neither understood nor sympathized with moderates or representatives from swing districts.
[...]
It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.
This ideological overreach won’t be any more successful than the last one. [...]
We’re only in the early stages of the liberal suicide march, but there already have been three phases. First, there was the stimulus package. You would have thought that a stimulus package would be designed to fight unemployment and stimulate the economy during a recession. But Congressional Democrats used it as a pretext to pay for $787 billion worth of pet programs with borrowed money. Only 11 percent of the money will be spent by the end of the fiscal year — a triumph of ideology over pragmatism.
Then there is the budget. Instead of allaying moderate anxieties about the deficits, the budget is expected to increase the government debt by $11 trillion between 2009 and 2019.
Finally, there is health care. Every cliché Ann Coulter throws at the Democrats is gloriously fulfilled by the Democratic health care bills. The bills do almost nothing to control health care inflation. They are modeled on the Massachusetts health reform law that is currently coming apart at the seams precisely because it doesn’t control costs. They do little to reward efficient providers and reform inefficient ones.
The House bill adds $239 billion to the federal deficit during the first 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would pummel small businesses with an 8 percent payroll penalty. It would jack America’s top tax rate above those in Italy and France. Top earners in New York and California would be giving more than 55 percent of earnings to one government entity or another.
[...]
That leaves matters in the hands of the Blue Dog Democrats. These brave moderates are trying to restrain the fiscal explosion. But moderates inherently lack seniority (they are from swing districts). They are usually bought off by leadership at the end of the day.
This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. Let me count the ways...
1. The idea that Obama is pushing the people away by going to the left and ignoring the moderate centrists is laughable. Obama has done no such thing. He has consistently sided with the conservative wing of his party, which can only mean one thing: He is part of that wing.
2. Brooks' short memory enables him to disregard the fact that the stimulus was weakened by precisely the "brave moderates" he is so impressed by. They cut aid for state governments (I bet people in California are grateful!) and replaced it with tax cuts of dubious stimulus value. They whined about the size of the stimulus package, although the numbers clearly showed that it was actually too small - something economists like Paul Krugman pointed out again and again. If the stimulus fails, it will be because Obama was too willing to listen to Republicans and Blue Dogs.
3. The stimulus has not affected employment figures yet, but nobody ever said that it would. The effects of the stimulus on unemployment will only kick in in a year or two. That was always going to be the case, and only a journalist working within a 24 hour news cycle could fail to realise it.
4. The current US healthcare system is unravelling, and unless someone does something, it will collapse under spiralling costs. Add the fact that the system shamefully neglects 45 million Americans, and you have a crisis that needs to be adressed. Obama, to his credit, is making an effort, and he is doing it now, while he still has the political capital to achieve something. Is Brooks proposing that he should postpone this effort until his approval rating tanks? Does he think that the bill will be mightily improved if you just let Joe Lieberman spend some months or years mulling it over?
5. Contrary to what the horrified screams from the right implies, the healthcare reform working its way through congress is not "socialized medicine". It is not even universal care along the lines of most Western European countries. It is a minor fix to the existing system, but with the promise of some changes that can be important in the long run:
3. The stimulus has not affected employment figures yet, but nobody ever said that it would. The effects of the stimulus on unemployment will only kick in in a year or two. That was always going to be the case, and only a journalist working within a 24 hour news cycle could fail to realise it.
4. The current US healthcare system is unravelling, and unless someone does something, it will collapse under spiralling costs. Add the fact that the system shamefully neglects 45 million Americans, and you have a crisis that needs to be adressed. Obama, to his credit, is making an effort, and he is doing it now, while he still has the political capital to achieve something. Is Brooks proposing that he should postpone this effort until his approval rating tanks? Does he think that the bill will be mightily improved if you just let Joe Lieberman spend some months or years mulling it over?
5. Contrary to what the horrified screams from the right implies, the healthcare reform working its way through congress is not "socialized medicine". It is not even universal care along the lines of most Western European countries. It is a minor fix to the existing system, but with the promise of some changes that can be important in the long run:
The HELP plan achieves near-universal coverage through a combination of regulation and subsidies. Insurance companies would be required to offer the same coverage to everyone, regardless of medical history; on the other side, everyone except the poor and near-poor would be obliged to buy insurance, with the aid of subsidies that would limit premiums as a share of income.
Employers would also have to chip in, with all firms employing more than 25 people required to offer their workers insurance or pay a penalty. By the way, the absence of such an “employer mandate” was the big problem with the earlier, incomplete version of the plan.
And those who prefer not to buy insurance from the private sector would be able to choose a public plan instead. This would, among other things, bring some real competition to the health insurance market, which is currently a collection of local monopolies and cartels.
If this sounds like a socialist revolution to you, I should like to see what you consider moderate change.
6. There are potential problems with the current healthcare proposals, but they do not lie where Brooks claim to find them. For one thing, it does little to change the dependence on employer based insurance, a system that was created back in the days when most people worked for the same employer most of their life.
6. There are potential problems with the current healthcare proposals, but they do not lie where Brooks claim to find them. For one thing, it does little to change the dependence on employer based insurance, a system that was created back in the days when most people worked for the same employer most of their life.
And yes, cost control is a huge problem. But the easiest way to control costs is to give government - the dreaded bureaucrats - more power to negotiate good deals with the healthcare industry and limit payment for unnecessary or untested treatment. Of course, people like Brooks won't go there, as that would be to give in to the dangerous liberals on the far left. Right-wingers prefer to leave healthcare rationing to the market, so that people with expensive insurance like the one Mr. Brooks no doubt enjoys can get a lot of treatment - and poor people be damned. Once again, the problem with the proposed bill is not that it is dictated by the liberals, but that Blue Dogs are fighting tooth and nail to make sure its effects will be as limited as possible.
By the way: Did my talk of healthcare rationing scare you? Listen to Matt Yglesias:
By the way: Did my talk of healthcare rationing scare you? Listen to Matt Yglesias:
Now consider something else. If you’re a parent in Montgomery County Maryland, you pay taxes to the county and you get to send your kids to very good public schools. But even though the schools are good, they won’t just do anything you want. Your kid can learn Spanish at government expense, but the taxpayers won’t foot the bill for your kid to learn Burmese. But you don’t normally hear anyone say that the presence of a “public option” for elementary and secondary education involves “rationing” of foreign language instruction. If people have the means and want to arrange private lessons for their children of various kinds nobody is stopping them. And certain forms of this sort of supplemental instruction—Hebrew school in synagogues, Sunday school in churches, piano lessons or Kaplan test prep—are quite common.
Feel better now?
7. Brooks' argument about those poor top earners paying more than 55% in taxes is at best a stupid mistake, but more likely a blatant lie. He should know damn well that the top tax rate for the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 was 31,2%, lower than it had been for ages, and that the wealthy get off easier than the middle class. Something tells me the hedge fund managers can afford to pay a little bit more.
8. If he is so worried about the deficit, he should have said so while Bush was running up a huge tab while the economy was still functioning. To balance the budget during a recession as severe as the present would be madness. Millions would lose their jobs as the economy came to a grinding halt. Only one thing can keep the wheels turning in a situation like this, and that is government spending. Obama does not have the luxury of cutting deficits.
As I've said before: Every other damn country in the developed world provides universal healthcare without going bankrupt. If it is Mr. Brooks' position that it is impossible for the US to do so, he should explain why his nation is so uniquely retarded that it can't get this right.
9. Polling consistently show that the American public wants healthcare reform with a public option - and this despite the constant stream of columns foretelling economic disaster and the horrors of "socialized medicine" from people like Brooks. What makes him think they have suddenly changed their mind?
As I've said before: Every other damn country in the developed world provides universal healthcare without going bankrupt. If it is Mr. Brooks' position that it is impossible for the US to do so, he should explain why his nation is so uniquely retarded that it can't get this right.
9. Polling consistently show that the American public wants healthcare reform with a public option - and this despite the constant stream of columns foretelling economic disaster and the horrors of "socialized medicine" from people like Brooks. What makes him think they have suddenly changed their mind?
As for Obama's approval ratings, whether or not they should be a factor when addressing his push for healthcare reform, they can hardly be said to be terrible:
If the president's approval rating drops, it would seem more likely that it will be because people are losing faith in his ability or willingness to give them the kind of comprehensive reform they actually want. They may be right in this. But if so, it is because Obama is, once again, not liberal enough.
10. Obama has been in the White House for six months. It will take far more time to pull the economy out of the hole that Bush and the Republicans ran into - with David Brooks cheering from the sidelines. Give him time.
In fairness, David Brooks does get one thing right:
10. Obama has been in the White House for six months. It will take far more time to pull the economy out of the hole that Bush and the Republicans ran into - with David Brooks cheering from the sidelines. Give him time.
In fairness, David Brooks does get one thing right:
Machiavelli said a leader should be feared as well as loved. Obama is loved by the Democratic chairmen, but he is not feared.
That's right. Obama really should grab Harry Reid by the ear and pull him to the left, where his voters are. He should slap the six healthcare traitors around until they begged for mercy. But that doesn't seem likely. And the reason is that Obama appears to be just the kind of heroic moderate centrist which David Brooks is so enamoured of.
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Although I see him as a moderate centrist, his dedication to health care reform is anything but. HCR is a Herculean task, but you cannot fault him for the the shortcomings in the initial legislative efforts. The supposedly liberal Congress backs away from meaningful reform at every opportunity. It makes perfect sense that Obama's popularity will continue to decline as long as health care is on the table. I think it will prove to be the fight of his political life.
As to economic stimulus, don't forget the billions that have gone to bolster state and local economies. It creates no jobs, saves some, but without it the states would be confronting far grimmer realities than they face today. Putting the money there may prove in the long run to have been a mistake, because it only postpones further pain for a year, but if it had not been allocated in that fashion, people would be screaming for help from Washington as we speak.
Please, may I be there to drag Reid by the ear?
Are we going to get real health care reform? No. Not if PhRMA and Harry and Louise are happy with it.
Obama has already proven that he likes the security that is provided by hugging the middle as closely as possible. He will always be seeking that middle, a middle which depends on the players involved in the discussion of reforms, changes, or policy proposals.
I'm not sure that liberals on a suicide march. I think liberal voters may be---so long as they continue to let Democrats co-opt the agendas, organizations, and reforms they promote and favor.
I'm much more worried about progressive, liberal voters who will vote Democrat in 2010 and 2012. They need to pay attention, keep a record, and be ready to refuse to vote for Democrats who serve corporate and special interests.
But make no mistake about it...just as the idiots on the far right managed to make the Republican party into a pile of shit...the idiots on the far left are trying their damnedest to turn the Democratic Party into an even bigger pile of shit.
You can almost hear them chanting: We can be dumber than conservatives.
Seriously...these NY Times columnists are just phoning it in. Makes the Op-Ed page barely worth the effort to log in and open up.
I think of Obama as more of a centrist but that he is making a left leaning effort on healthcare.
one thing of which i become ever more confident: the ascension of king obama is not the return of the messiah, nor even a return to sensible management, save in the narrow political sense.
the notion that the structure of society which has created the vast and multiplex catastrophes facing america will also generate salvation is not a triumph of hope over intelligence, it is craven cowardice. they are terrified by their problems, and leave them in the hands of the malefactors who created them in the first place.
america needs a revolution, not necessarily violent. but there is no leadership, and no followership either. a money based society doesn't develop character, just a people who can be bought with a 2fer deal on candybars.
so they sit on their collective ass and gossip about the current king, and 'his' problems.
(b) I think Obama is 'centrist' in that he's trying to be inclusive and perhaps thinks that the centrist position is the one most likely to semi-satisfy the most people. But I'm with Al - REVOLUTION! The centrist position of Washington is not the centrist position of the country. And centrist positions don't do anything. At some point I hope Obama says, okay you guys, I gave you a chance to get on board, I was open to compromise - but you-all are just being obstructionist, so here comes the bulldozer.
But, dammit, as long as the war continues (and escalates!) in Afghanistan, there is no change in America, imperialist abroad and medieval at home.
Steve Klingaman:
You ask: "On your view of Obama, which is it, "He has consistently sided with the conservative wing of his party," or "moderate centrist?""
Both of the above. Being a conservative Democrat would place him at the center in Congressional politics. The centrists Brooks love so much are the Blue Dogs. Obama seems to me to be closer to these people than he is to the left wing of his party.
I don't think Obama's healthcare proposal can be characterised as leftist, even by US standards. Remember that he placed himself to the right of both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton on this point during the campaign. And Hillary Clinton is no lefty! The American left wing simply has no representation in Congress, with the exception of Bernie Sanders. That's why a single-payer system, which has considerable public support, is not even part of the debate.
That said, it will obviously be impossible to deny Congress some influence on the policy passed, but the Bush administration showed that it is possible for the president to have far greater control over the end result than Obama seems to be satisfied with. So far, I see far more caution than audacity in his governing style.
As for the stimulus, I think it's doing a lot of good. But it seems clear that it was too small, and he will have a hard time getting another one through Congress. That's why I'm one of those who suspect it would have been better to push for more right from the start.
Stellaa:
They should sell tickets.
Don Rich:
I tend to agree.
Kevin Gosztola:
American voters seem to be very easily satisfied. In Europe, people would be marching in the streets, demanding comprehensive reform and throwing out politicians who forget who they're supposed to represent.
Frank Apisa:
There's no far left in American politics. By the standards of the rest of the world, the Democrats are a very conservative party while the Republicans are right-wing loonies. But make no false equivalencies here: The real liberals in the US are nothing like the guys on the right wing. Their policies are considered normal and centrist in most other countries. There's nothing extreme about liberalism.
Hipployta:
David Brooks is clearly jumping on a Republican bandwagon here. You can see it all over the US media. Just take a look at the Washington Post op-ed pages.
Stim:
I think Brooks is something of a mystery. Every now and then he writes some pretty insightful stuff, but a few days later he is back to spouting Fox News talking points. Which leads me to think that he is not so much stupid as intellectually dishonest.
al loomis:
It is certainly a mystery to us Europeans why so many Americans seem to reject the idea of universal healthcare. It seems that many of you simply do not want to pay for care for poor people. I suspect Paul Krugman may be right when he says that race has a lot to do with it. Could it be that "welfare" simply means "money for black people" to many white Americans?
Anyway: A bit of political activism from the majority that has a different view would seem to be called for. Take a hint from the Iranians and get out in the streets!
Happy sailing!
Wally Gene:
I agree. And he is not alone. Notice how the entire MSM is suddenly full of "Obama's agenda is dying" reports and opinions?
That's pretty much my post in a nutshell.
Sure. The world is rarely that simple. And what you consider to be the left and the right depends on the context. I would argue that polling indicates that the majority of Americans are actually to the left of Obama and Congress on the issue of healthcare. Polls show they are perfectly willing to consider a single-payer system, while the politicians won't even mention it.
From a European perspective, the American proposals are only radical in one respect: They do not recognise access to healthcare as an entitlement. That is radical. I don't recall any current mainstream politician in Europe ever challenging the idea that healthcare is something every citizen is entitled to. We may disagree on how universal coverage is best achieved, and how much treatment it should entail, but there is no debate about the goal.
Nina B.:
They do seem to get away with an awful lot in the US media.
YOU WROTE: There's no far left in American politics. By the standards of the rest of the world, the Democrats are a very conservative party while the Republicans are right-wing loonies. But make no false equivalencies here: The real liberals in the US are nothing like the guys on the right wing. Their policies are considered normal and centrist in most other countries. There's nothing extreme about liberalism.
RESPONSE: Not sure if you are kidding…or deluded…but whichever, the fact remains that Obama’s mortal enemies are to be found left of center…not to the right.
And as far as “liberalism in the United States” is concerned…it is as intend on self-destruction as American conservatism ever was. The nut-cases who consider themselves “very liberal” here in America are every bit as nutty as the nut cases who consider themselves “very conservative”…especially when viewed in the perspective being discussed here…namely, a willingness to self-destruct.