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Ezra Klein is concerned--or rather, he's "gripped" by an "unsettling thought":
[H]ealth-care reform isn't simply suffering because the public is overly opposed to some of its revenue raisers. It's suffering because the public is insufficiently supportive of its core. ... [snip]
[I]t's not obvious what health-care reform will do for the average American. I could give you a long answer about delivery system reforms and so forth because it's my job to know these things. But it would have to be a long answer .... [snip]
Higher taxes aren't buying them obvious benefits. Instead, they seem to be paying the health-care bills of poorer Americans. ... [snip]
If support for the overall effort were more robust, the polling on the tax exclusion would matter less. People are willing to pay for things they want to buy. But though they might abstractly favor health-care reform, it doesn't seem directly related to their lives. [E.A.]
I agree with my distinguished colleague (and welcome him to the concern troll community). He's woken to the realization that Obama is running into political difficulty because he's selling the middle class a pain sandwich--more taxes in exchange for more health care cuts. It would have been smarter to sell universal health care as offering, at a time when nearly everyone's job looks shaky, Medicare-like security for all. (It's not too late! And it fits on a bumper sticker.) ...
Whom should Klein blame for this tragic initial misstep? Among others, he should blame Ezra Klein, whose "long answer" explaining health care reform's benefits seemingly bought into the entire Orszag party line (health care reform is the way to lower costs and cut the budget deficit!)--even amplifying it by arguing that a more "rational" health care system would decide whether "a person’s life, or health, is not worth the price of a particular procedure." If only Klein and other influential Obamapparatchiks had been more critical and Kinsleyesque. ....
P.S.: A day after his concerned post, Klein writes:
People don't like to cut costs in the health-care system. It's painful. Politicians do not voluntarily do painful things. But a lot of people want to achieve universal health care. And they're willing to make a lot of concessions to do so. The coverage expansion, in other words, can serve as leverage for the cost controls. [E.A.]
Huh? July 10 Ezra Klein should read July 9 Ezra Klein. If universal coverage in itself doesn't do much that's obvious "for the average American"--but rather seems to mainly involve "paying the health care bills of poorer Americans," why would average Americans be willing to "make a lot of concessions" in the form of painful cost cuts to achieve that goal--any more than they will be willing to endure painful tax increases?
Bonus question: Why would Klein abandon the sound contrarian insight he'd had a day earlier? Collective criticism on JournoList? ...
Update: "Pelosi, House Leaders to Hold Press Conference Today to Highlight Benefits of Health Care Reform for Middle Class"--Politico's Mike Allen. A Pelosi press conference! That'll do it. ... 12:04 A.M.
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Gran Salida, Win/Win? WaPo profiles one of the "thousands of Latino immigrants forced back across the border in recent months by the sinking economy ..." Thousands? Is this the Gran Salida that the New York Times assured us wasn't happening? ...
P.S.: The subject of the profile, a resourceful and industrious Guatemalan illegal immigrant named Carlos Sanchez, seems to be at least as valuable an addition to Guatemalan society as he was to Washington, D.C.'s. [non-ironic]. After what appears to be non-traumatic adjustment period
Sanchez teaches typing at his house each Saturday on 27 manual typewriters his sister stockpiled for him over the years. And he landed a day job teaching English in a local high school.
Mightn't it help developing countries like Guatemala if their most enterprising citizens return home, or stay home in the first place? ... 12:02 A.M.
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"Fighting Sotomayor, Republicans Falsely Advance Fire Fighter Ricci As the White Man's Rosa Parks": I remind my brother Steve that not even the sainted Rosa Parks was quite what she seemed. ... P.S.: I've never understood quite why the Ricci case was considered to have "bad" facts by defenders of Title VII's "disparate impact" standard for judging employment tests. Ricci involved a new test, designed by consultants. The worst case, for the defenders, would be if New Haven had thrown out a traditional test that had been accepted for years as job related, no? ... P.P.S.: Would this freshly concocted multiple choice exam have met the less stringent Rosenberg Standard (a "reasonable relationship to the organization's activities")? I assume yes. But would it have been crazy for the New Haven authorities to decide "no"? ... 1:40 A.M.
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Like CNN, Twitter seems like a pretty joyless place--but like CNN used to be, it's good in a crisis. ("CNN's Shocking Suck-Up to Iran's Fascists"? Marcus Brauchli: Get Howie Kurtz on the story stat! Oh wait). ... Even good writers turn into bad writers on Twitter. But after following the #iranelection feed (and Sullivan and Pitney) until bleary, I find it hard to have a thought much longer than seven score characters.
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Hillary Was So Well-Behaved Until Now: Sid Blumenthal to State? He may know things [raised eybrow] about Ahmadinejad that you don't .... But if I were Obama I might think twice. ... 10:37 P.M.
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Reza Aslan praises as "absolutely brilliant" a Chris Dickey Khamenei profile that seems to conclude "Ahmadinejad would have won anyway" (notwithstanding "indications of fraud"). Yet Aslan has claimed the election "was stolen by Ahmadinejad’s supporters," specifically the Revolutionary Guard, in what amounted to a "military coup." Which is it? ...10:38 P.M.
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NYT buries story that Sonia Sotomayor pushed for more very-low-income units in Harlem and Bronx housing developments--deeply misguided when the goal is to recreate a class mix and end concentration of poverty. She's also exercised by affirmative action contracting numbers. "'Extreme partisan' on questions of class and ethnicity." Yikes. ... Are conservatives banking too much on her being such a b----- that she won't convince other justices? ... 11:09 P.M.
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"Don't believe what you've heard about a GOP in disarray." The Republicans have
history on their side. There are only a handful of times in our nation's past when the party that won the White House hasn't lost big the following midterm election. That would spell disaster for President Obama's agenda. [E.A.]
Who said that? The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in a fundraising email I just got. It will come as news to the GOPs. ... 11:10 P.M.
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If John Edwards were alive today ... : The "New GM" tries to slough off product liability claims. ... 11:14 P.M.
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Super-filtered kaus feed! Meanwhile, my own actual twitter feed is such a fire-hose-like stream of apercus that they can only be highlighted here. The highlights: ... OK, there are no highlights. ... Except maybe the Mr. Bubble item which has not been lawyered (and which was stolen from a friend). ... 11:22 P.M.
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"Clarence Thomas is a great justice. Sonia Sotomayor will be, too." Who wrote that subhed to Dahlia Lithwick's Slate piece? Make him or her get coffee for everyone else for the next month. Lithwick's piece doesn't argue that Thomas is a great justice. It argues he's not a "dim bulb," a "moron," a "dunce or a Scalia clone," and makes an ambiguous, unendorsed reference to the "more common" view that he has a "deeply reasoned and consistent judicial philosophy." ... It would be interesting if Lithwick thought Thomas was a great justice. I can't believe she does--especially after reading this piece. ... 6/1 Update: Subhed rewritten. .. 3:11 A.M.
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Here's another suspect rationalization from the Obama auto task force, as recounted by David von Drehle in TIME:
Task-force members counter that other unsecured claims have received even better deals than the union's. Warranties, for example, have been 100% guaranteed - no haircut at all. "We're trying to avoid liquidation, and so these claims have to be classified according to their importance to the future viability of the company," a task-force official explained. "Obviously you can't sell cars without warranties. You can't make cars without suppliers. So most of those claims are being paid. And you can't build cars without skilled workers." [E.A.]
How many of the UAW's members are skilled workers? I thought one of the big virtues assembly line work is that it can be done by unskilled workers. Even with all the fancy computer-assisted quality control systems, does most auto assembly work really require skills that can't be learned fairly quickly?
The unnamed "task force official" implies that Chrysler's work force (and GM's) is so precious that it must be protected from sharing in the sacrifice of bankruptcy. Is it? If UAW workers are so distinctly productive then why do virtually all auto manufacturers starting production in the U.S. try to get as far away from the union as possible? Is there any doubt that if all Chrysler's workers quit tomorrow they could fairly quickly be replaced by workers--from local communities--who were a) cheaper and b) just as good or better? .. .
The point isn't that the unsecured creditors who did worse than the union deserve a better deal. They don't, at least as long as they're doing as well as they would in a conventional bankruptcy (without the government's expensive intervention). But the lack of sacrifice required of the UAW, after it helped drive its industry into the ditch, is a problem in and of itself, given the billions in taxpayer funds that are being spent to prevent that sacrifice (and the billions more that will be required over the next few years as GM and Chrysler fall short of the inflated expectations set by the Obama task force). Why should the government tax unskilled workers making $18 an hour, who haven't bankrupted their employers, in order to protect unskilled workers making $28 an hour, who have bankrupted their employers, from having to take a pay cut? The press' focus on creditors (because they are the ones whining loudest at the moment) is what is allowing the Obama administration to duck that question. When the question does get asked, I don't think Marc Ambinder's initial suggested answer--"The Obama administration supports the union movement"--will cut it. ... 2:57 A.M.
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Jeffrey Rosen pitches what he says is the latest fashion in "progressive" constitutional theory, "democratic constitutionalism." How is it different?:
While a Warren Court liberal might counsel the Supreme Court to leap ahead of public opinion and provide constitutional protections for gay marriage today, and while a minimalist might urge state and federal courts to wait until public opinion has shifted decisively, a democratic constitutionalist would embrace bold state court decisions but hold back at the federal level.
a) Wow. Inspiring, no? b) Rosen's whole framework seems to be: "How much change can we cram down the throat of the American people?" Maybe that's the problem. Are there any changes Rosen's progressives want that they admit just can't be found in the Constitution? (And, once "public opinion has shifted decisively" in the direction of those changes, why do they have to find them in the Constitution anymore anyway?) c) What's all the talk about "consensus" and not "getting too far ahead of the will of the people"--and about how "Constitutional change ultimately flows from the bottom up, not the top down"? Isn't the more important judicial role to violate consensus and stand athwart the will of the people in defense of individual rights--and to enforce them from the top down? ... 2:48 A.M.
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Today's Freeze-Dried CW Tomorrow: When Obama picked Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, I figured nobody else would run with the "comprehensive immigration reform" angle--i.e., that Sotomayor offers something to placate Hispanic lobbyists and politicians who aren't getting what they want on immigration (which is legalization of current illegals). The forward lean! I was wrong. The Consolation Prize Theory became Instant CW--so much so that pro-legalization lobbyist Frank Sharry was forced to blog an unconvincing denial. ... 1:33 A.M.
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Die Blingerdammerung--Crouch & Battiata 1, Coates & McArdle 0: The argument against the suggestion that Obama Presidency would kill off certain aspects of hip-hop culture was always a little desperate. (How dare you clueless bourgeois people say that hip-hop will die? Everyone knows hip-hop's already on its last legs!) More evidence from the WSJ that Crouch & Battiata were on to something that Coates & McArdle were just too hip to acknowledge. ("Culture of Bling Clangs to Earth As the Recession Melts Rappers' Ice") ...
Update: Coates, Conor Clarke and reader J. note that the Journal piece on hip-hop jewelry mainly blames the recession for the decline in demand. Hey, that's what GM blames too! But GM has bigger problems. ... All we know for sure from the WSJ story is that hip hop artists have less money with which to buy bling. That could be because of the recession, or it could be because of the decline in the music industry in general ("Internet piracy cutting into musicians' record sales") or it could be a change in hip hop fashion--or it could be because hip hop specifically has been falling out of favor and the ascension of Obama is delivering the coup d' grace. If the latter were true we would be seeing stories like this one about now--but we won't read about hip-hop reviving with the economy. We'll see. I suspect Coates will have many more opportunities to be defensive and argue that it's all too complicated (so don't go speculating that, say, when Obama says "brothers should pull up their pants" it might actually result in some people--not only brothers--pulling up their pants). ... P.S.: I don't quite understand why Coates is so bothered by the possibility that Obama might usher in a cultural era in which hip hop loses its place, since Coates makes a big point of "the disgust that black youth themselves have expressed with the music." ... 1:32 A.M.
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The Good Andrew Sullivan--religious, non-excitable--has nice things to say about Robert Wright's Evolution of God. ... 1:31 A.M.
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