The Supreme Court's acceptance of a series of challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8 presents a crucible moment for the conservative movement. I have long argued that it's in the Republican Party's interest to get on the right side of history and embrace gay marriage, which is after all inevitable. My argument is one of both political expediency and morality.
The Party of Lincoln was formed in opposition to a moral wrong in slavery. Granted, the GOP's opposition to the "peculiar institution" was at first an economic one, and later a pragmatic response to a crumbling Union. As Steven Speilberg's marvelous new movie makes clear, however, Lincoln and the so-called Radical Republicans made a moral case for slavery's abolition. In what has been a difficult year for the party I have always called home, this historic moment made me proud and underpinned my deep animosity towards those in the Party who now stand against the full human rights of another historically marginalized group of Americans.
Moreover, DOMA, which was passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed by Bill Clinton, violates conservatives' core belief in federalism. Calls for a constitutional amendment to this effect equate with the highest levels of hypocrisy. Let's assume that the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA on equal protection (14th Amendment) grounds and allows Proposition 8 to stand. This would enable states to address an issue, namely marriage, that it previously and rightly governed. While acknowledging a federal interest given the benefits due to widows and windowers of deceased spouses, this stance is more consistent with conservatives' opposition to Roe v. Wade.
If I could take the abortion parallel one step further, however, I might suggest that if the act is morally and constitutionally indefensible (it is, im my mind), the same reasoning applies to federal and state restrictions on the right to marry for same-sex couples. My hope is that Justice Kennedy and perhaps Chief Justice Roberts side with the Court's liberal wing and right a historic wrong with the strike of a pen.
Before turning to the political angle, I would like to make one more moral claim. Empirical evidence suggests that both parties should elevate and embrace two-parent families for the purpose of raising children who will be lifelong contributors to our country's economic and civic sectors. It is agnostic about the gender mix of parents. It seems that those who support strong family values should embrace marriage, the bedrock of two-parent families, regardless of the couple's sexual preference.
Now on to the expediency argument. Republicans are getting clobbered among young people because their views towards immigration, abortion (only the extreme views of Akin, Mourdock, and too many others), and yes, immigration, don't square with the diverse, open-minded Millennial culture. If the GOP and its candidates don't evolve on this issue and others, they will continue to lose national elections and see their ranks maginalized to rural America and the Deep South.
Whereas Republicans may have once profited from their opposition to gay marriage (the empirical evidence is mixed), it is now clearly an albatross. The party will be better off once the issue is settled and it can return to its core message of limited government, strong families, peace through strength, and a healthy civil society.
Like many of the groups who twice constituted a winning electoral coalition for President Obama, gay Americans, or at least a subset of them, are ripe for the picking for Republicans willing to compete for every vote. By taking a rigid stance against their very being, too many gay Americans are forced to vote against an economic agenda they would otherwise embrace in order to realize their full civil liberties.
Former Republican Solictor General Ted Olsen is lead counsel in the challenge to Proposition 8 alongside his Democratic opponent in Bush v. Gore. Olsen's brave stance gives me hope that other Republicans and conservatives will experience a similar epiphany. Are you willing to join us in embracing morality, constitutional and family values, and the most prudent political path forward for the Grand Old Party?
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The Parties Versus the People
I'd like to leverage this brief interlude between the respective party conventions to review an important new book by former Congressman Mickey Edwards (R-OK) titled The Parties Versus the People: How to Make Republicans and Democrats into Americans. Like Edwards, I remain a proud member of the GOP and its ever-shrinking moderate wing. However, our commitments to our country transcend allegiances to any private organization, political parties in particular.
Edwards' arguments bear consideration 10 weeks from a pivotal presidential election. A close shave for the incumbent or his capable opponent still seems probable, and the victor's ability to govern will be constrained by the same forces that have paralyzed Washington for the past quarter century. He is right to blame political parties for the poisoned political atmosphere, and unlike Dionne, Mann and Ornstein, and others, he rightly assigns bipartisan blame. Polarization per se, Edwards suggests, is not the problem, but instead the parties' dominance of our electoral and governing institutions.
His list of prescriptions is long, and I don't agree with each line item, but I do support open-integrated primaries like those employed in Louisiana, Washington, and California, where the top two primary finishers regardless of party advance to the general election. They need not be from the two major parties, and both candidates may be of the same party. I predict this would go a long way in sending the "wing nuts" to the exits and electing moderates representative of the "mushy middle" that characterizes the vast bulk of the voting population.
I also concur that our current campaign finance regime is broken, a product of laws with good intentions, but flawed reverberations, and contradictory court rulings. He cites my friend Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, who advocates for the removal of limits on what individual candidates may raise from people, and restricting donations to all external agents (parties, Super PACs, etc.). My concerns about about the current regime have more to do with the perpetual money chase than fears about corruption or the appearance thereof. Moreover, by pushing political money from the most accountable (the candidate) to the least accountable (interest groups, 501c3s, and SuperPACs), negativity is the norm, driving people (prospective office holders and voters alike) from the political process altogether.
I also embrace Edwards' call for nonpartisan redistricting reform. It remains ridiculous that professional politicians select their voters, bastardizing the very definition of democracy. Additionally, neutrally drawn districts would produce more competitive contests, bringing more citizens out to the polls, and opening the door for more moderate candidates willing to reach across the aisle and work with members of the other party to tackle the pressing issues of the day.
Edwards falls short in a clear path for citizens to pursue these reforms and others. In many ways, his writing is directed towards Beltway insiders, and my hope is that they carry around dog-eared copies of this important book. He does recommend that the rest of us take back our government from two private clubs (the Dems and the GOP) through citizen initiatives, and lists the states where this is achievable. Unfortunately, Illinois is not on this list, so we are left with only the ballot box and grass roots organizations pressuring those in Springfield and City Hall.
As our collective gaze turns from Tampa to Charlotte, Edwards' prescriptions to rescue our democracy loom large. The issues articulated by an impressive A-list of Republican officials this past week are real and must be addressed immediately, but short of the structural changes Edwards embraces, dysfunction and stalemate seem the more likely scenarios regardless of who wins the Obama-Romney prize fight.
Edwards' arguments bear consideration 10 weeks from a pivotal presidential election. A close shave for the incumbent or his capable opponent still seems probable, and the victor's ability to govern will be constrained by the same forces that have paralyzed Washington for the past quarter century. He is right to blame political parties for the poisoned political atmosphere, and unlike Dionne, Mann and Ornstein, and others, he rightly assigns bipartisan blame. Polarization per se, Edwards suggests, is not the problem, but instead the parties' dominance of our electoral and governing institutions.
His list of prescriptions is long, and I don't agree with each line item, but I do support open-integrated primaries like those employed in Louisiana, Washington, and California, where the top two primary finishers regardless of party advance to the general election. They need not be from the two major parties, and both candidates may be of the same party. I predict this would go a long way in sending the "wing nuts" to the exits and electing moderates representative of the "mushy middle" that characterizes the vast bulk of the voting population.
I also concur that our current campaign finance regime is broken, a product of laws with good intentions, but flawed reverberations, and contradictory court rulings. He cites my friend Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, who advocates for the removal of limits on what individual candidates may raise from people, and restricting donations to all external agents (parties, Super PACs, etc.). My concerns about about the current regime have more to do with the perpetual money chase than fears about corruption or the appearance thereof. Moreover, by pushing political money from the most accountable (the candidate) to the least accountable (interest groups, 501c3s, and SuperPACs), negativity is the norm, driving people (prospective office holders and voters alike) from the political process altogether.
I also embrace Edwards' call for nonpartisan redistricting reform. It remains ridiculous that professional politicians select their voters, bastardizing the very definition of democracy. Additionally, neutrally drawn districts would produce more competitive contests, bringing more citizens out to the polls, and opening the door for more moderate candidates willing to reach across the aisle and work with members of the other party to tackle the pressing issues of the day.
Edwards falls short in a clear path for citizens to pursue these reforms and others. In many ways, his writing is directed towards Beltway insiders, and my hope is that they carry around dog-eared copies of this important book. He does recommend that the rest of us take back our government from two private clubs (the Dems and the GOP) through citizen initiatives, and lists the states where this is achievable. Unfortunately, Illinois is not on this list, so we are left with only the ballot box and grass roots organizations pressuring those in Springfield and City Hall.
As our collective gaze turns from Tampa to Charlotte, Edwards' prescriptions to rescue our democracy loom large. The issues articulated by an impressive A-list of Republican officials this past week are real and must be addressed immediately, but short of the structural changes Edwards embraces, dysfunction and stalemate seem the more likely scenarios regardless of who wins the Obama-Romney prize fight.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Super PAC Switch-a-roo
President Obama's recent about-face in embracing the Super PAC created by former advisors in support of his reelection bid, Priorities USA, is the latest in a long line of actions by a man who supposedly transcended traditional politics. While he has always talked the talk of a progressive reformer, he has walked the walk of cut-throat Chicago politics, the world's second oldest profession, and not all that different from the first.
Obama began his career by kicking each of his opponents, the incumbent included, off the ballot. He was a back bencher in the Illinois Senate, dreaming of a run for Chicago mayor, and avoiding votes of controversial bills by conveniently voting "present." Obama was then conveniently crowned as the Democratic nominee for retiring U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald's seat, when opposition research sunk his top two opponents. His Republican opponent was forced to fall on his own sword, and the fall election became little more than a joke.
Obama's Senate cakewalk paved the path for a presidential run less than 200 days into his Capitol career. He effectively created a counter-narrative to his murky ties to the Chicago machine and its corrupt underworld. Co-chairing Blago's gubernatorial campaign, sharing lot lines with Tony Rezko, and "paling around" with the remnants of Weather Underground didn't equate with a new kind of politics that transcended the red-blue divide. Hope, change and the color purple replaced the "where's mine?" mentality of Chicago pols. A second memoir titled after the sermon of a pastor he would also later throw under the bus completed the transformation.
Simply stated, Barack Obama now belonged to the ages. But the poetry of the historic 2008 campaign yielded to the prose of governing, a task for which he was utterly ill-prepared. A pledge that the failed stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8% proved a painful lie. The so-called Economic Recovery Act represented pent-up liberal demands dating back to the Great Society, but the "crisis is a terrible thing to waste" mentality only grew our national debt and stalled the recovery. Obama has already borrowed more than the previous 43 presidents combined. His health care legislation was even more unpopular, and the Ponzi scheme it is premised upon lurks in the shadows of his presumptive second term.
This narrative leads us to his recent about-face on campaign finance, consistent with his 2008 flip-flop during the general election where he refused federal matching funds and effectively blew up the public finance system he supposedly championed. He of course scolded the Supreme Court in person during his 2010 State of the Union Address for the Citizens United decision which relaxed limitations on corporate spending during campaigns. This conduct was unbecoming of a president, and the conservative wing of the Court, the Chief Justice aside, now boycotts an important national ritual.
The midterm shellacking delivered to the President and has party proved the power of the new campaign finance regime, and the White House talked out of both sides of its mouth as it backed the Disclosure Act while also creating a Super PAC of its own. Last week we received word that the President's Cabinet would attend fundraisers and further propel a vehicle the President supposedly abhorred. Apparently the Billion Dollar Man needs a little help across the finish line, and isn't afraid to conveniently embrace a strange bedfellow.
The President would hereafter be wise to take note that his White House is made of glass, and the current occupant should be careful not to throw rocks.
Obama began his career by kicking each of his opponents, the incumbent included, off the ballot. He was a back bencher in the Illinois Senate, dreaming of a run for Chicago mayor, and avoiding votes of controversial bills by conveniently voting "present." Obama was then conveniently crowned as the Democratic nominee for retiring U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald's seat, when opposition research sunk his top two opponents. His Republican opponent was forced to fall on his own sword, and the fall election became little more than a joke.
Obama's Senate cakewalk paved the path for a presidential run less than 200 days into his Capitol career. He effectively created a counter-narrative to his murky ties to the Chicago machine and its corrupt underworld. Co-chairing Blago's gubernatorial campaign, sharing lot lines with Tony Rezko, and "paling around" with the remnants of Weather Underground didn't equate with a new kind of politics that transcended the red-blue divide. Hope, change and the color purple replaced the "where's mine?" mentality of Chicago pols. A second memoir titled after the sermon of a pastor he would also later throw under the bus completed the transformation.
Simply stated, Barack Obama now belonged to the ages. But the poetry of the historic 2008 campaign yielded to the prose of governing, a task for which he was utterly ill-prepared. A pledge that the failed stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8% proved a painful lie. The so-called Economic Recovery Act represented pent-up liberal demands dating back to the Great Society, but the "crisis is a terrible thing to waste" mentality only grew our national debt and stalled the recovery. Obama has already borrowed more than the previous 43 presidents combined. His health care legislation was even more unpopular, and the Ponzi scheme it is premised upon lurks in the shadows of his presumptive second term.
This narrative leads us to his recent about-face on campaign finance, consistent with his 2008 flip-flop during the general election where he refused federal matching funds and effectively blew up the public finance system he supposedly championed. He of course scolded the Supreme Court in person during his 2010 State of the Union Address for the Citizens United decision which relaxed limitations on corporate spending during campaigns. This conduct was unbecoming of a president, and the conservative wing of the Court, the Chief Justice aside, now boycotts an important national ritual.
The midterm shellacking delivered to the President and has party proved the power of the new campaign finance regime, and the White House talked out of both sides of its mouth as it backed the Disclosure Act while also creating a Super PAC of its own. Last week we received word that the President's Cabinet would attend fundraisers and further propel a vehicle the President supposedly abhorred. Apparently the Billion Dollar Man needs a little help across the finish line, and isn't afraid to conveniently embrace a strange bedfellow.
The President would hereafter be wise to take note that his White House is made of glass, and the current occupant should be careful not to throw rocks.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Affordable care and freedom of conscience
The Obama Administration made a major miscalculation in mandating that faith-based institutions provide employees with health care plans that cover contraceptives. Their walk back yesterday is only half-hearted, for the insurance companies that offer coverage to their employees still need to offer contraceptives "free of charge." The reality, of course, is there is no such thing as a free lunch, and these costs will be absorbed via premiums paid by the same faith-based institutions and the rest of employers and individuals who rely upon these companies for health insurance.
It should come as no surprise that the Orwellian Affordable Care Act infringes on freedom of conscience. At it's very core, it represents a government takeover of the remaining free market elements of our nation's health care industry. The scary thing is, we haven't seen anything yet, because while the taxes that finance this beast have already taken effect, it is a ponzi scheme that formally becomes law in 2014, when President Obama will presumably be mid-way through his second term and quacking like a lame duck (or back here in Chicago if Mitt Romney can get his act together).
Now, I am admittedly a cafeteria Catholic. I attend mass only sporadically, and while I practice much of the church's teachings, I happen to disagree with its opposition to gay marriage, its unwillingness to make exceptions on abortion for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, and yes, even on contraception.
I am, however, a constitutional scholar, and freedom of conscience is firmly embedded in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof..."). The Supreme Court has allowed infringement on the free exercise of religion when the government has a compelling interest. It has forbidden trespassing on religious beliefs.
The question here is whether the Obama Administration has a compelling interest in mandating that faith-based institutions violate their core convictions to offer birth control to employees. Given that birth control is widely available for free at government-supported organizations like Planned Parenthood, and also accessible by prescription over the counter for a fee, this does not constitute a compelling interest in my mind.
Instead, it represents liberal dogma, and is emblematic of an insular administration staffed by secular progressives that thinks it knows better than the God-fearing people who cling to guns and religion. Obamacare must be repealed and replaced, and the administration that created this monstrosity must be limited to a single term.
It should come as no surprise that the Orwellian Affordable Care Act infringes on freedom of conscience. At it's very core, it represents a government takeover of the remaining free market elements of our nation's health care industry. The scary thing is, we haven't seen anything yet, because while the taxes that finance this beast have already taken effect, it is a ponzi scheme that formally becomes law in 2014, when President Obama will presumably be mid-way through his second term and quacking like a lame duck (or back here in Chicago if Mitt Romney can get his act together).
Now, I am admittedly a cafeteria Catholic. I attend mass only sporadically, and while I practice much of the church's teachings, I happen to disagree with its opposition to gay marriage, its unwillingness to make exceptions on abortion for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, and yes, even on contraception.
I am, however, a constitutional scholar, and freedom of conscience is firmly embedded in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof..."). The Supreme Court has allowed infringement on the free exercise of religion when the government has a compelling interest. It has forbidden trespassing on religious beliefs.
The question here is whether the Obama Administration has a compelling interest in mandating that faith-based institutions violate their core convictions to offer birth control to employees. Given that birth control is widely available for free at government-supported organizations like Planned Parenthood, and also accessible by prescription over the counter for a fee, this does not constitute a compelling interest in my mind.
Instead, it represents liberal dogma, and is emblematic of an insular administration staffed by secular progressives that thinks it knows better than the God-fearing people who cling to guns and religion. Obamacare must be repealed and replaced, and the administration that created this monstrosity must be limited to a single term.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Coming Apart
Charles Murray's latest book, Coming Apart, is a must read for concerned citizens of this great country. His tome charts a widening chasm between the upper and lower classes, who have always been separated economically, but now occupy different zip codes and cultural patterns.
He uses Belmont and Fishtown as socioeconomic foils. The former is inhabited by the new middle-to-upper class, who complete college, find work as professionals, get and stay married, raise children, attend church on Sundays, and perpetuate a positive cycle for their posterity.
Fishtown, on the other hand, is populated by what was formerly known as the working class. Here, high school graduation isn't a given, marriage often ends in divorce, or increasingly, never occurs. Out-of-wedlock childbearing is the norm, steady work is as elusive as the ambition to find it, and the prevailing secularism leaves starving souls.
It wasn't always this way. Murrary uses JFK's assassination in 1963 as an artificial turning point, arguing that four things have always accounted for American exceptionalism: marriage, religiosity, industriousness, and honesty. Since 1963, Belmont has walked the traditional walk, but Fishtown has left these values at the proverbial pier, leaving devasting economic consequences ashore.
Unlike Murray's earlier books, Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, he focuses exclusively on white Americans in Coming Apart. While he argues and later demonstrates that the aforementioned trends bridge skin color and ethnicity, he manages to remove the racial baggage that too often dominates the culture wars.
You may recall defamed former Democratic presidential contender John Edwards' admonition about "two Americas." Murray would agree with this surface statement. However, Edwards didn't point to cultural renewal as a means of bonding these strangers in the night. Murray comes up empty, too, other than his argument that the residents of Belmont should openly encourage the fellow citizens of Fishtown to model their good behavior.
Murray is labeled a conservative by the MSM, but he is at heart a libertarian, thus the crux of his failure to offer plausible paths forward in conquering the problems he so ably illustrates. As a lover of liberty, libertarianism admittedly has great appeal, but it stands incapable of confronting society's ills, because like liberalism, it discounts culture. Just as $1.5 trillion of annual federal and state spending on social programs have failed to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth, laissez faire leaves the masses begging for bread.
Both David Brooks and Clarence Page, in their review of the book, spoke of potential bonding experiences between residents of Belmont and Fishtown through mandatory national service, whether in the armed forces or Americorps. While this would admittedly help us understand one another better, it wouldn't address what continues to tear at the seams of our society.
The answer must come from within, but government isn't helpless in this cultural rebuilding effort. Both sides of the aisle need to embrace the two-parent family as the best predictor of the next generation's success. Policies should encourage wedlock and discourage illegitimacy.
Faith-based institutions have long provided charitable services in this country, and are the great mobilizers of civic participation in this country. They need more than the half-hearted embrace given to them by Bush 43 and must be defended from the war that the current administration has declared upon them.
We must also reward work. Government perpetuation of cradle-to-grave dependence is indefensible five decades into the Great Society's failure.
Crime must be punished, white collar and street violence alike. Bankruptcy should be more difficult to declare, and foreclosure shouldn't be as easy as leaving the keys under the door mat and driving away.
My prescription is admittedly tough love, but what works in Belmont merits replication in Fishtown. By embracing the key tenets of American exceptionalism we can reweave the great national quilt.
He uses Belmont and Fishtown as socioeconomic foils. The former is inhabited by the new middle-to-upper class, who complete college, find work as professionals, get and stay married, raise children, attend church on Sundays, and perpetuate a positive cycle for their posterity.
Fishtown, on the other hand, is populated by what was formerly known as the working class. Here, high school graduation isn't a given, marriage often ends in divorce, or increasingly, never occurs. Out-of-wedlock childbearing is the norm, steady work is as elusive as the ambition to find it, and the prevailing secularism leaves starving souls.
It wasn't always this way. Murrary uses JFK's assassination in 1963 as an artificial turning point, arguing that four things have always accounted for American exceptionalism: marriage, religiosity, industriousness, and honesty. Since 1963, Belmont has walked the traditional walk, but Fishtown has left these values at the proverbial pier, leaving devasting economic consequences ashore.
Unlike Murray's earlier books, Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, he focuses exclusively on white Americans in Coming Apart. While he argues and later demonstrates that the aforementioned trends bridge skin color and ethnicity, he manages to remove the racial baggage that too often dominates the culture wars.
You may recall defamed former Democratic presidential contender John Edwards' admonition about "two Americas." Murray would agree with this surface statement. However, Edwards didn't point to cultural renewal as a means of bonding these strangers in the night. Murray comes up empty, too, other than his argument that the residents of Belmont should openly encourage the fellow citizens of Fishtown to model their good behavior.
Murray is labeled a conservative by the MSM, but he is at heart a libertarian, thus the crux of his failure to offer plausible paths forward in conquering the problems he so ably illustrates. As a lover of liberty, libertarianism admittedly has great appeal, but it stands incapable of confronting society's ills, because like liberalism, it discounts culture. Just as $1.5 trillion of annual federal and state spending on social programs have failed to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth, laissez faire leaves the masses begging for bread.
Both David Brooks and Clarence Page, in their review of the book, spoke of potential bonding experiences between residents of Belmont and Fishtown through mandatory national service, whether in the armed forces or Americorps. While this would admittedly help us understand one another better, it wouldn't address what continues to tear at the seams of our society.
The answer must come from within, but government isn't helpless in this cultural rebuilding effort. Both sides of the aisle need to embrace the two-parent family as the best predictor of the next generation's success. Policies should encourage wedlock and discourage illegitimacy.
Faith-based institutions have long provided charitable services in this country, and are the great mobilizers of civic participation in this country. They need more than the half-hearted embrace given to them by Bush 43 and must be defended from the war that the current administration has declared upon them.
We must also reward work. Government perpetuation of cradle-to-grave dependence is indefensible five decades into the Great Society's failure.
Crime must be punished, white collar and street violence alike. Bankruptcy should be more difficult to declare, and foreclosure shouldn't be as easy as leaving the keys under the door mat and driving away.
My prescription is admittedly tough love, but what works in Belmont merits replication in Fishtown. By embracing the key tenets of American exceptionalism we can reweave the great national quilt.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Repeal and replace Obamacare, but keep the mandate
I have long joined the conservative chorus that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced prior to its full-scale implementation in 2014. However, its triggering mechanism, the individual mandate, is sound policy and should be embedded in the six-point Republican alternative I detail below.
This post is inspired by my reading and subsequent review of the most comprehensive, objective biography biography of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his most substantive policy achievement as Massachusetts governor. It also previews the Supreme Court's consideration of the constitutionality of the individual mandate during three days of oral arguments scheduled for next month.
While I have some expertise as a student of the Constitution and our courts, I'll defer to their eventual ruling on whether the individual mandate exceeds the boundaries of the Interstate Commerce Clause. It does seem to me that there is plenty of water under the bridge given the Court's eventual embrace of the New Deal during the late 1930's, but a fragile conservative majority may seek to rein in the commerce clause and thus undermine Obamacare in the middle of an election year.
My heretical embrace of the individual mandate warrants further explanation. Its presence in the Heritage Foundation's alternative to Hillarycare in the 1990's is a well-worn talking point, and Newt Gingrich is one of many prominent conservatives who endorsed the idea. I would suggest this is consistent with right wing ideology, for it places responsibility on the individual.
Americans receive health care in the country through a variety of channels. Government provides it for the elderly and poor via Medicare and Medicaid, respectively. Most of the gainfully employed receive private insurance through their employers, and the self-employed and other individuals either purchase their own plan or do without. The latter pursue catastrophic care when emergencies inevitably arise, and our hospitals pass on these costs to consumers, which are subsequently reflected in higher premiums across the board. The personally responsible majority is thus punished for the negligence of the minority.
Is it unreasonable to require individuals to purchase health insurance when we hold car owners to the same standard? True, health care premiums are far more expensive than auto insurance, but I would suggest the latter is a model for health care reform, and my six-part plan follows.
One, through cross-subsidization, car insurance is relatively cheap unless one has a reckless driving record. It eliminates the free rider problem, at least in theory. The same principle would hold true with health care. Premiums may even fall.
Two, car insurance is cheaper because it covers only exceptional circumstances like accidents and theft. Routine maintenance and fuel are not included. Real health care reform would ask consumers to foot the costs of preventative care out of pocket, drawing from tax exempt medical savings accounts. We would only tap health insurance in the case of emergencies like cardiac arrest or cancer.
Three, most employers do not offer car insurance to employees nor does our tax code subsidize its extension. We desperately need to make health insurance portable in an economy where we are increasingly free agents. Remove the tax deduction for employers who offer health care as part of their standard package of employee benefits, and provide a reciprocal, revenue-neutral deduction on individual tax returns.
Four, allow individuals to shop for insurance across state lines. The industry enjoys regulated monopolies at the state level (with favorable kickbacks for elected officials) that mandates excessive coverage, with exponential cost implications. Deregulation will lower costs
Five, rescue the health care industry from the grip of trial lawyers. Medical malpractice suits and the excessive punitive damages they encompass is passed along once more to consumers in the form of higher premiums, and our care itself suffers as health care providers logically practice preventive medicine.
Six, remove the shackles of Medicaid and allow states to experiment with more cost-effective means of providing for the health care needs of the indigent. Mitt Romney enjoyed this flexibility in Massachusetts and delivered favorable results, and the same is true of Mitch Daniels' work in Indiana.
In sum, Republicans are right to call for the abolition of Obamacare, but their hatred of the individual mandate is misdirected. A conservative alternative, representing some or all of the key tenets articulated above, would embrace the mandate as a personally-responsible means of insuring that we all pay our fair share of our health care needs. Given his health care reform record in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney is superbly qualified to make this case in November and beyond.
This post is inspired by my reading and subsequent review of the most comprehensive, objective biography biography of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his most substantive policy achievement as Massachusetts governor. It also previews the Supreme Court's consideration of the constitutionality of the individual mandate during three days of oral arguments scheduled for next month.
While I have some expertise as a student of the Constitution and our courts, I'll defer to their eventual ruling on whether the individual mandate exceeds the boundaries of the Interstate Commerce Clause. It does seem to me that there is plenty of water under the bridge given the Court's eventual embrace of the New Deal during the late 1930's, but a fragile conservative majority may seek to rein in the commerce clause and thus undermine Obamacare in the middle of an election year.
My heretical embrace of the individual mandate warrants further explanation. Its presence in the Heritage Foundation's alternative to Hillarycare in the 1990's is a well-worn talking point, and Newt Gingrich is one of many prominent conservatives who endorsed the idea. I would suggest this is consistent with right wing ideology, for it places responsibility on the individual.
Americans receive health care in the country through a variety of channels. Government provides it for the elderly and poor via Medicare and Medicaid, respectively. Most of the gainfully employed receive private insurance through their employers, and the self-employed and other individuals either purchase their own plan or do without. The latter pursue catastrophic care when emergencies inevitably arise, and our hospitals pass on these costs to consumers, which are subsequently reflected in higher premiums across the board. The personally responsible majority is thus punished for the negligence of the minority.
Is it unreasonable to require individuals to purchase health insurance when we hold car owners to the same standard? True, health care premiums are far more expensive than auto insurance, but I would suggest the latter is a model for health care reform, and my six-part plan follows.
One, through cross-subsidization, car insurance is relatively cheap unless one has a reckless driving record. It eliminates the free rider problem, at least in theory. The same principle would hold true with health care. Premiums may even fall.
Two, car insurance is cheaper because it covers only exceptional circumstances like accidents and theft. Routine maintenance and fuel are not included. Real health care reform would ask consumers to foot the costs of preventative care out of pocket, drawing from tax exempt medical savings accounts. We would only tap health insurance in the case of emergencies like cardiac arrest or cancer.
Three, most employers do not offer car insurance to employees nor does our tax code subsidize its extension. We desperately need to make health insurance portable in an economy where we are increasingly free agents. Remove the tax deduction for employers who offer health care as part of their standard package of employee benefits, and provide a reciprocal, revenue-neutral deduction on individual tax returns.
Four, allow individuals to shop for insurance across state lines. The industry enjoys regulated monopolies at the state level (with favorable kickbacks for elected officials) that mandates excessive coverage, with exponential cost implications. Deregulation will lower costs
Five, rescue the health care industry from the grip of trial lawyers. Medical malpractice suits and the excessive punitive damages they encompass is passed along once more to consumers in the form of higher premiums, and our care itself suffers as health care providers logically practice preventive medicine.
Six, remove the shackles of Medicaid and allow states to experiment with more cost-effective means of providing for the health care needs of the indigent. Mitt Romney enjoyed this flexibility in Massachusetts and delivered favorable results, and the same is true of Mitch Daniels' work in Indiana.
In sum, Republicans are right to call for the abolition of Obamacare, but their hatred of the individual mandate is misdirected. A conservative alternative, representing some or all of the key tenets articulated above, would embrace the mandate as a personally-responsible means of insuring that we all pay our fair share of our health care needs. Given his health care reform record in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney is superbly qualified to make this case in November and beyond.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The Real Romney
During my two week hiatus recovering from a nasty winter cold, I read The Real Romney, by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman. While I've read and written about Romney profusely in the past couple of months, I must admit that the South Carolina stomping delivered by former Speaker Newt Gingrich forced me to reconsider the inevitability, and yes even the wisdom, of his pending nomination. As I've said previously, I was a staunch supporter of John McCain in 2008, a man I saw then as Romney's foil. I flirted with Tim Pawlenty early in this cycle, then embraced Jon Huntsman, only to migrate towards the former Massachusetts governor when their campaigns fizzled.
Mitt Romney remains a flawed frontrunner leading a weak field. This qualification aside, The Real Romney raises no further red flags. In fact, it paints a more complete picture of a man whose public persona is excessively robotic. He is the embodiment of a family man, deeply devoted to his wife Ann and their five sons. He is a man of true faith, who walked the walk by helping friends and neighbors in need, and still tithes ten percent of his income to the church.
Romney's intelligence and work ethic are second to none. His performance at Bain Capital speaks to his business acumen. His stewardship of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City saved the whole enterprise from catastrophe and provided an uplifting experience and spectacle for Americans truly in need of a pick-me-up in the months after 9-11.
The citicism of his career in venture capitalism that Romney has endured by his rivals, namely Gingrich and the since departed Rick Perry, is deplorable and was debunked in an earlier post. It remains the gift that keeps on giving to the incumbent president who should be planning a move back to Chicago come January. On the other hand, Romney's political career is also ripe for the picking, and I would suggest, fair game for Republicans and Democrats alike.
Romney will never live down the statements and policy positions from his longshot bid to steal the Kennedy crown in 1994. His pro-choice position, embrace of gay rights, and repudiation of the Reagan-Bush era are enough to make any conservative blush and swallow hard. His successful 2002 gubernatorial bid was similarly pragmatic in a deep blue state with a tendency to check a Democratic legislature with a Rockefeller Republican on Beacon Hill. He remained pro-choice, embraced climate change and measures to address it, and sought and delivered near universal health care coverage to Massachusetts residents via an individual mandate.
True, Romney did undergo a transformation on abortion, and I take this change of heart at face value. Holding Reagan and Bush 41 to the same standard, it's where you end up that matters in my mind.
Although he never advocated for gay marriage, he walked back his support of gay rights when the state supreme court legalized the former by fiat. Given that President Obama doesn't yet support gay marriage either, my hope is for a draw with Romney, as he has committed to upholding gay rights. The push for equality across sexual preferences is in my mind inevitable and justified, and I don't expect either Obama or Romney to stand in the way. This will without doubt add to conservative reservations about the Republican frontrunner, but my breed of elephants consider it an asset.
Romneycare continues to hang as an albatross on his prickly path to Tampa, but it's a trump card in the general election, and I'll dig into this further in a future post (Sneak preview: the individual mandate is conservative, and it is conveniently opposed as a means of undermining Obamacare, legislation that should be repealed for a myriad of reasons beyond the mandate). His clumsy statements on the Second Amendment have also inspired target practice on his pro-gun control record, but the individual right to keep and bear arms will be safe under Romney as it has been under Obama (indeed, 2008 and 2010 were banner years).
This brings us back to Bain Capital, where Romney proved his knowledge of the real economy, and the fall campaign will turn on this issue. I invite a debate over who is better prepared to restore prosperity on Wall Street and Main Street alike.
Let's go mano a mano over the tax code. I'm in favor of policies that encourage investment. What say you? Who will have the courage to embrace entitlement reform and save the social safety net for our posterity? Last week's State of the Union speech was noticeably barren on this count.
How about balancing the budget via spending cuts and a flatter, fairer tax code? Simpson-Bowles was sent promptly to the circular file, but a President Romney just might retrieve it.
So who is the real Romney? He's America's best bet to tackle today's tough issues, and yes, restore our country's greatness.
Mitt Romney remains a flawed frontrunner leading a weak field. This qualification aside, The Real Romney raises no further red flags. In fact, it paints a more complete picture of a man whose public persona is excessively robotic. He is the embodiment of a family man, deeply devoted to his wife Ann and their five sons. He is a man of true faith, who walked the walk by helping friends and neighbors in need, and still tithes ten percent of his income to the church.
Romney's intelligence and work ethic are second to none. His performance at Bain Capital speaks to his business acumen. His stewardship of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City saved the whole enterprise from catastrophe and provided an uplifting experience and spectacle for Americans truly in need of a pick-me-up in the months after 9-11.
The citicism of his career in venture capitalism that Romney has endured by his rivals, namely Gingrich and the since departed Rick Perry, is deplorable and was debunked in an earlier post. It remains the gift that keeps on giving to the incumbent president who should be planning a move back to Chicago come January. On the other hand, Romney's political career is also ripe for the picking, and I would suggest, fair game for Republicans and Democrats alike.
Romney will never live down the statements and policy positions from his longshot bid to steal the Kennedy crown in 1994. His pro-choice position, embrace of gay rights, and repudiation of the Reagan-Bush era are enough to make any conservative blush and swallow hard. His successful 2002 gubernatorial bid was similarly pragmatic in a deep blue state with a tendency to check a Democratic legislature with a Rockefeller Republican on Beacon Hill. He remained pro-choice, embraced climate change and measures to address it, and sought and delivered near universal health care coverage to Massachusetts residents via an individual mandate.
True, Romney did undergo a transformation on abortion, and I take this change of heart at face value. Holding Reagan and Bush 41 to the same standard, it's where you end up that matters in my mind.
Although he never advocated for gay marriage, he walked back his support of gay rights when the state supreme court legalized the former by fiat. Given that President Obama doesn't yet support gay marriage either, my hope is for a draw with Romney, as he has committed to upholding gay rights. The push for equality across sexual preferences is in my mind inevitable and justified, and I don't expect either Obama or Romney to stand in the way. This will without doubt add to conservative reservations about the Republican frontrunner, but my breed of elephants consider it an asset.
Romneycare continues to hang as an albatross on his prickly path to Tampa, but it's a trump card in the general election, and I'll dig into this further in a future post (Sneak preview: the individual mandate is conservative, and it is conveniently opposed as a means of undermining Obamacare, legislation that should be repealed for a myriad of reasons beyond the mandate). His clumsy statements on the Second Amendment have also inspired target practice on his pro-gun control record, but the individual right to keep and bear arms will be safe under Romney as it has been under Obama (indeed, 2008 and 2010 were banner years).
This brings us back to Bain Capital, where Romney proved his knowledge of the real economy, and the fall campaign will turn on this issue. I invite a debate over who is better prepared to restore prosperity on Wall Street and Main Street alike.
Let's go mano a mano over the tax code. I'm in favor of policies that encourage investment. What say you? Who will have the courage to embrace entitlement reform and save the social safety net for our posterity? Last week's State of the Union speech was noticeably barren on this count.
How about balancing the budget via spending cuts and a flatter, fairer tax code? Simpson-Bowles was sent promptly to the circular file, but a President Romney just might retrieve it.
So who is the real Romney? He's America's best bet to tackle today's tough issues, and yes, restore our country's greatness.
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