Killin' Time

So I was planning to surf the intertubes while I had some time between jobs today, but I find that the internet is down here and I have time to kill.  So I’ll write a totally unresearched and de-linked blog post about what’s been on my mind and post it when I get access to the web.  Aren’t you lucky?

The ObamaCare Crap Show

 It’s really disappointing and infuriating to see the ACA website start off as such a disaster.  Now I’m not a techie and I have no experience with government procurement, so I don’t really understand why this was rolled out so poorly.  Was it due to crazy government procurement rules that make it really hard to do such a project?  Was it terrible decisions by managers or by Kathleen Sibelius?  Graft and corruption?  Just a really complex program that would inevitably have lots of bugs?

I don’t know, but the meta-message is bad.  Democrats have been trying to say that government can be a force for good in our lives, and specifically that it can do health insurance better than the private sector can.  Republicans have been saying that everything the government touches turns immediately into a crap sandwich.  Now I think conservatives have set up a Straw Man with respect to ObamaCare, accusing liberals of promising that it would improve prices for everyone and lead to a golden age of medicine.  Obviously that’s setting the bar pretty high, and liberals haven’t made that claim.  We’re just saying this will be a significant improvement over the status quo.  That should be an easy target to hit, since the ACA basically leaves the health insurance and health care delivery systems intact, while funding insurance for more people and solving the problem of pre-existing conditions in the private market.  My health insurance isn’t going to change; ditto for nearly everyone I know.

So the only way this could go wrong is if the new law doesn’t work… and that seems to be happening! A technical problem with a website doesn’t mean that the whole law was folly, but it sure fits the Republican narrative- that government can’t do anything right.  And hey, it’s true that the private sector is way better at things like launching websites, and I didn’t expect the feds to do as well as Google.  But we have a functioning Medicare system and a functioning Social Security system and a functioning Department of Defense, so I know we can do this.  The administration needs to prove it; I hope people are panicking and getting on the move.

That said, I’m still confident that they’ll do so and the ACA will be fine.  By the next election, Democrats will be able to point to a functioning system and say “why all the hysteria from our opponents last year?  What’s the big deal?”

 

OK Now Can We Put to Rest the “Both Sides are Extreme” Headlines?

I think I’m tapped out on the government shutdown and debt ceiling fight story, which has been beaten to death by every commentator out there.  As you might expect, I side with the Democrats, and am happy to see Republicans getting blamed, as they should.

So I wonder how long it will take for the mainstream media to start writing stories again about how both sides are to blame for the gridlock.  I’ve been arguing for years that this false equivalency is just wrong.  Republicans have moved wwwaaaaayyyyyy over to the right, and really plunged off the cliff this month with their extreme positions and tactics.  But Democrats have NOT done the same, and really shouldn’t be accused of doing so.  Elizabeth Warren, in Ted Kennedy’s old seat, is defining the left end of the Democratic caucus, and she doesn’t have much company over there.  Michael Moore is irrelevant.  Liberals wanted a Single Payer health care bill, and it was never even considered.  Taxes remain historically low, and Democrats are not talking seriously about changing that.  “Card Check” pro-union legislation is a non-starter even in the Democratic party.  Barack Obama is to the right of Lyndon Johnson on every economic issue.  Barack Obama is to the right of Richard Nixon on many issues!  Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan would be considered a liberal by today’s party (remember he supported tax hikes in his second term).

So please don’t try to tell me that “both sides” are getting too extreme.  One side is getting extreme. I want to see them make an honest argument about that, something like this:

Yes, it’s true, we have moved the position of the Republican party to a more pure position than it used to be. We know taxes are historically low now, but we want to roll them back to an even lower level, lower than they’ve been in 100 years.  We want government to stop funding Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, or to scale them way back, because we believe economic freedom is more important than economic security.

Et cetera.  Instead we hear them talk about how the country is falling apart because of a massively expanding government and welfare state, when in fact the government has contracted in recent years.