Is the Damn Breaking?

It appears the silly season is coming to an end in more ways than one. Herman Cain isn’t talking his way out of this one, although I don’t believe he talked his way out of the others. It is starting to ring of a Weiner moment, a guy got his claim of innocence so far out there—all the while knowing it was a lie—that once the truth comes out wintering in Alaska is going to seem like a good idea.

But back in the real world we had three interesting developments on the budget and taxes last week.

Last week Romney, speaking to the Koch brothers funded American for Prosperity meeting in DC put forward his reform plan for Social Security, Medicaid and on Medicare. He blathered on about a lot of other right wing who-hah, but I want to focus on entitlements. Let’s work backwards on his ideas starting with those he threw out for the thugs on the right in the audience and work forwards to the parts that might actually work.

The most heinous platform proposal is to let the States administer the health care program for the poor, Medicaid. Sending 100% of Medicaid back to the states will help control costs, by making dramatically less healthcare available for the poor. State run is well within republican orthodoxy, but owing to the shared federal and state expenditures already built into the program there is currently an uneven distribution of care for the poor by state. This is based on the Scrooge factor of certain state governments like Texas. Elimination of any Federal standards for this program will decimate health care for the poor in the worst of these states, like, oh, I don’t know, Texas.

Rick Perry made a similar proposal in his book Fed Up! The Battle to Save bla, bla, bla. Texas employers covers 52% of their workers vs the national average of 62%. This closely tracks the growth and number of low wage jobs in the state. Texas employers are pretty in avoiding minimum wage laws. Accrodding to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics more than half a million workers in the state did not even make the minimum wage. Low wages and no health insurance, it appears that attracts employers. As a result, Texas has the highest proportion of uninsured in the country, 26.9%. However the cost to employers and insured in states where there are large numbers of uninsured is rarely addressed.

The lack of insurance forces the poor into emergency rooms and other costly methods of treatment. It is so much less costly to diagnose and treat high blood pressure than to deal with the consequences of a stroke. At a national level this is a crisis and should make preventative health care a national priority. Obama’s plan made a major effort in that area. But for the wolves howling on Obama-Care it’s so much easier to blame the unemployed, and crtically in states like Texas the working poor, for their lack of insurance. In the end taxpayers, the insured, and employers pick up the costs of healthcare for the poor through higher bills and higher insurance costs. But don’t pay any attention to that you middle class “centrists” Obama might by bisexual (Long story, funny you tube video called Republican Wisdom). Texas employers save money on the front end but pay it back later at much higher cost. Call it an Uninsured Tax.

Through the guise of better local management Perry and Romney both propose “controlling costs” by allowing states to control Medicaid. If passed Texas would surely race to the bot---Whoops, sorry, they’re already there.

On to Medicare, where Romney also abandons his own plan and his own history. Massachusetts due to Romney care has 5% uninsured, the best in the nation, but continues with spiraling costs and heavy usage of Emergency rooms for medical care.  He does not look at what worked in the plan he pushed through as governor of Massachusetts. He moves, actually careens, to the right and proposes something similar to the privatization plans that Bush pushed to no avail on Social Security. He would let younger people opt out for private health insurance, which I would think it would be highly likely they would do because kids never think they will get sick. Of course later he leaves them in the road to suffer at the hands of the monstrous jackals that shouted “Let him die!” when the question of what to do for a sick man with no insurance came up at the republican debates.  

Health care costs are out of control running at about 17% of GDP in the US, but less than 10% in the Eurozone. Costs rose 50% in Massachusetts, after Romney-Care was enacted, closely matching an increase at the federal level from $2.0 trillion to $2.9 trillion from 2006 to 2009. Romney insured his people for his growth in costs. The percentage of uninsured Americans was essentially unchanged.

For all the good things in Obama’s plan it did not have strong enough provisions control costs. Any plan that does not deal with the business end of healthcare, that is the insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and the medical establishment, and oh, yeah the lawyers, is doomed to failure on the cost side.  Americans are right to feel that they have excellent healthcare, but as with so many other issues that view is myopic. It is true that in some areas care is outstanding. Saudi Kings that want good healthcare come to the US. At the top end the care is outstanding, but at the bottom and increasingly at the middle healthcare is already rationed by the profit motive. I Googled the phrase “denied health treatment by insurance”. Came up with 55 million results. These very, very large business interests pay handsomely to be protected from reform in Washington (even post Obama-Care, especially post Obama-Care), then they pay even more in the public relations battle to convince America that change is scary and bad.

Romney did have a serious plan on social security. He proposes no action for those near retirement, a higher retirement age down the road, and lesser benefits for those that can afford it. I would emphasize one arm of that over another, and there will be much haggling over the fine points in all three, but a finely tuned three pronged approach with these elements—each painful in its way to libs and conservatives-- is the only one that will pass congress.

So give him credit, Romney’s entitlement plans are not ALL hot air. As noted he pandered to the right wing thuggery assembled before him on a dozen issues, including Medicaid, and to a lesser extent Medicare, where no one on the right has any plan to improve care or control costs. But on Social Security  a plan with these elements will eventually pass. Everyone knows it. America knows it. Whenever Washington decides to be honest and take the heat, this is what they’ll approve. It’s a good sign that at least one republican is talking honestly about Social Security. Obama was willing to touch this also in the “Grand” deal that fell apart. Got a lot of heat. Doubtful he’ll come back to that until after the election.

The other two holes in the damn came from John Boehner and Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho.

Of the two Boehner’s is that one that really caught my ear. Taxes are the third rail of right wing orthodoxy. As such nearly every single Republican member of congress has signed a pledge put forward by Grover Norquist who heads Americans for Tax Reform in which they pledge to never raise taxes ever, for any reason, Ever. Ever. Read my lips, Never. George Bush No New Taxes- In. George Bush raise taxes- Out.  Never, ever, ever. Not even on millionaires? Never! Not even on billionaires? That’s class warfare and never!

The Republicans are sort of in a spot now because 64% of Americans in a recent CBS poll said taxes should be raised on millionaires as part of a balanced budget package. In the Senate that’s filibuster proof.  In the Republican Party that’s a public relations problem. So Boehner last week when asked about the impact of Norquist in the party and whether it was hurting the party said, “Our focus here is on jobs… It’s not often I’m asked about some random person in America.” One thing Norquist is not is a “random person”. Many things unite the republican mob, but the one thing that joins them at the hip is taxes.

Reporters chuckled at the absurdity of the remark. I would love to think that some Republicans seeing that 64% number are starting to think the end is near for this strategy of stone-walling on tax increases for the wealthy. Could be, though, that Boehner was just avoiding saying anything about his conferences absolute fealty to the tax pledge, and so Norquist. Hard telling…

Then yesterday on fair and unbalanced Mike Simpson made some remarks. Simpson is urging  the super-committee charged with formulating plan to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion to “go big” and shoot for a $4.0 trillion reduction.  He went on to say “Well, first the pledge, I signed that in 1998 when I first ran and I didn't know I was signing a marriage agreement that would last forever”.  

He went on , "The reality is you can't get to $4 trillion [in debt reduction and spending control] without including additional revenue. We might have different ideas what that revenue would look like. [It's possible] you could get additional revenue by lowering the tax rates and eliminating all of the exemptions underneath, but more revenue is key to this."

Cold feet? Could it be?

Maybe cold water. Today on MSNBC Senate democratic message guru Chick Schumer said, "I don't think ... the super-committee is going to succeed because our Republican colleagues have said no net revenues."

Confusing, No? Even Norquist said the pledge is about rates, not taxes, a fine but important point as that would allow the lowering of rates—something the republicans could sell, and elimination of a vast trove of special interest deductions which would result in an increase in revenues, what the country needs.

I am often struck when I read about the cordial relationship both Kennedy and Tip O’Neil had with Reagan. Though I think this point is often overstated to the edge of genuflected reverence, bless him Reagan had his hand in tearing down the wall, but on domestic issues, Nicaragua, South Africa, AIDS & HIV and ten other things he was a right wing ideologue, a heartless bastard. Yet and still history suggests he was a likeable guy that got along well with the opposition, which always made me wonder how much of this was theatrics to fire up the base on both sides.

Today the republicans are way to the right of Reagan and the Democratic President is in many ways to the right of Nixon for God sakes. Is it all just theatrics? Notwithstanding the game of chicken that played out over the debt is it possible that both sides know the time for action is near?  Is the damn breaking?