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The Corner
RE: Arlen Specter [Mark Hemingway]
I read that he was switching parties, but I was disappointed to learn he’s still a Democrat.
Mark Steyn poses an important question; who regulates the regulators?
… This isn’t an abstract philosophical point, but a very practical one. Fans of big government take it for granted that Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, Barney Frank, and a couple of other guys can “run” the financial sector better than 8,000 U.S. banks all jostling for elbow room like bacteria in a petri dish. Same with the auto industry, and the insurance industry, and the property market, and health care, and “the global environment.” The skill-set required to run a billion-dollar company is the province of very few individuals. The skill-set required to run a multi-trillion-dollar government is unknown to human history.
John Fund comments on the dem health care strategy.
House and Senate negotiators agreed on a five-year budget plan last night that gives Democrats authority to push through a controversial transformation of the nation’s health care system on a simple majority vote in both houses after a total of only 35 hours of debate. Normally, Senate rules require 60 votes and potentially unlimited debate to push ahead on controversial issues.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota said he personally opposed the move, but insisted Democrats need an “insurance policy” to cut off debate and ensure passage of their health care plan. Republican Paul Ryan, a House member from Wisconsin, accused Democrats of conducting “negotiations with a gun in one hand” as they rammed through the rule. …
Charles Krauthammer has figured out the kid’s agenda.
… Obama’s own budget projections show staggering budget deficits going out to 2019. If he knows his social agenda is going to drown us in debt, what’s he up to?
He has an idea. But he dare not speak of it yet. He has only hinted. When asked in his March 24 news conference about the huge debt he’s incurring, Obama spoke vaguely of “additional adjustments” that will be unfolding in future budgets.
Rarely have two more anodyne words carried such import. “Additional adjustments” equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
Social Security is relatively easy. A bipartisan commission (like the 1983 Alan Greenspan commission) recommends some combination of means testing for richer people, increasing the retirement age and a technical change in the inflation measure (indexing benefits to prices instead of wages). The proposal is brought to Congress for a no-amendment up-or-down vote. Done.
The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.
Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical “comparative effectiveness research”? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is “best practice” for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you’ve laid the premise for funding some and denying others.
It is estimated that a third to a half of one’s lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain’s National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective — and if you’re old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements. …
Jennifer Rubin pivots off another in a long line of adoring Obama columns from EJ Dionne.
In his column today, E. J. Dionne pens a fawning love letter to the president — praising every aspect of his being. It is however light on evidence to support his amorous assessment. And indeed it is a guide in some respect to the fallacies which hobble the president’s outlook for success.
Dionne contends that the president “loves to engage conservatives.” But he has not done so in any meaningful way. None of their ideas for the stimulus plan were embraced; the president is bent on ramming home healthcare through the reconciliation process; and he regularly slams conservative policy ideas, no matter how innovative, as “stale” or non-existent. It is an odd form of engagement that governs strictly on party lines. …
Robert Samuelson has complaints about the selling of green policies.
… The selling of the green economy involves much economic make-believe. Environmentalists not only maximize the dangers of global warming — from rising sea levels to advancing tropical diseases — they also minimize the costs of dealing with it. Actually, no one involved in this debate really knows what the consequences or costs might be. All are inferred from models of uncertain reliability. Great schemes of economic and social engineering are proposed on shaky foundations of knowledge. Candor and common sense are in scarce supply.
Even a lib like Albert Hunt thinks BO’s plans will fail because of foolish spending.
George Will adopts a longer perspective to examine the 100 days.
A 19th-century historian called the Middle Ages “a thousand years without a bath.” That oversimplified somewhat, but was interestingly suggestive. So is the summation of Obama’s opening sprint as 100 days without silence.
Ordinary politicians cannot comprehend that it is possible for the public to see and hear too much of them. In this sense, Obama is very ordinary. A few leaders of democracies have understood the importance of being economical with their demands for the public’s attention. Charles de Gaulle believed that remoteness nurtures a mystique that is an essential ingredient of leadership. Ronald Reagan, an actor, knew that the theatrical dimension of politics requires periodic absences of the star from center stage. He spent almost an eighth—a year—of his presidency at his ranch. But when he spoke, people listened. If Obama, constantly flitting here and there, continues to bombard the nation with his presence, he will learn how skillfully Americans wield the basic tool of modern happiness, the TV remote control with its mute button.
Calvin Coolidge, the last president with a proper sense of his office’s constitutional proportions, was known, not coincidentally, as Silent Cal. His reticence expressed an institutional modesty: “It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man.” …
The president is a sophist according to the Real Clear Politics Blog.
… I have heard “there are those who say…” from this President quite a bit in the last three months. I think it’s time he start naming names. Who are these people who hold such backward-looking, unacceptable positions? If they are elected members of the government, shouldn’t the President tell us who they are so we can vote them out? If they are unelected, how is it they have such power?
Or maybe there are no such people, at least not of such relevance they deserve specific mention by the President. Maybe this is just a rhetorical trick designed to make Mr. Obama’s position seem like the only one allowed by common sense. …
Ryan Sager wonders what it takes to fire a teacher.
WHAT does it take to lose your job as a public- school teacher in America?
That’s a question worth asking as state education leaders bat around the idea of appointing a commission to study how school systems award tenure to New York teachers.
One way is to threaten to blow up your school, as a teacher in the Bronx did Friday, reportedly because he was upset about having been disciplined by his principal for assaulting a student.
Another is to be nominated for your state’s Teacher of the Year award — but have less seniority than some other teacher.
Yes, that’s what happened in Hampton, NH, earlier this month. …
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