Yesterday I tried to drive from the Aberdeen Forestry office, in the old High School building, to the Federal Credit Union. I discovered that it couldn't be done. City road workers have managed to block off nearly every connection between the west and east parts of town. Since I am a man on planet earth, I kept trying. But all I managed to do was go in circles. I passed lots of other drivers with astonished looks on their faces, like lost souls trying to find an exit from Dante's Inferno.
Democrats trying to achieve universal healthcare are finding themselves in a similar position. They think they know where they are and where they want to go, but somehow they can't find a route from the one to the other.
An indication of this is this line from the President's Wednesday speech (New York Times):
Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize. Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for – from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.
The President understands that a deep concern about the costs of the proposed legislation, both among the public and for that reason among members of his own party in Congress, is the biggest obstacle he faces. So he gives us this reassurance.
Unfortunately, it isn't very reassuring. Such provisions are very easy to insert in bills, and just as easy to amend or ignore when the time comes. Moreover, if this were serious, it would mean that the program might squeeze out vital spending across the budget. Either way, the results could be very dire. It is also an example of one of the President's most serious character defects, his tendency to shirk responsibility by blaming his predecessors.
David Brooks has the best thing I have yet read on the President's speech. On the above passage:
This sound bite kills the House health care bill. That bill would add $220 billion (that's 2.2 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the first 10 years and another $1 trillion (10 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the next 10 years.
There is no way to get from the House bill to deficit neutrality. The president's speech guarantees that the more moderate Senate Finance Committee bill will be the basis for the negotiations to come.
But of course the House Committee is still busy working on the bill that Brooks says has just been killed by the President. We are hearing a lot of good news about re-energized Democrats, but it doesn't look like the arrangement of anxieties in Congress has changed at all. From the Miami Herald:
Predictably, Democratic leaders of Congress praised Obama's speech effusively, and Republicans in both chambers remained unmoved. However, several rank-and-file Democrats said that the president made only incremental progress, at best, toward moving health care legislation forward, and that lawmakers could backslide at any time.
"Of course you'll get a bounce now, but two weeks from now, we are likely to be just where we are, negotiating among ourselves," said Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., who's a liberal.
The whole point of the President's speech, we were told, was to clear things up and provide details. This from Bloomberg:
So far, White House officials have offered few details on how they intend to pay for the plan. Instead, they've deferred to Congress on the issue, saying they'll consider all options.
With Obama this week declaring ownership of the plan to enact the most extensive changes in health care in more than four decades, the White House's reluctance to break down how it would finance the measure is rankling some lawmakers.
So in fact we still don't have any details, or any clear picture of how the reform is supposed to work. The White House is clearly incapable of providing leadership. The various factions in Congress are driving around in circles on a hot day, but they can't get there from here. I recognize the looks on their faces.
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