From page 12 of the Senate HCR bill: [Read more →]

I hadn’t heard these guys before now but I like this NPR Tiny Desk concert: [Read more →]

One of the most common arguments against my call for better, more effective state-provided safety nets is that these safety nets somehow replace those provided by families and close-knit communities.  Apparently if people are provided with health insurance by the state they will no longer have any need for families or their neighbors, and their communities will no longer feel the need to provide for them. Conversely, if people do not have insurance they will be provided for by their families and communities perfectly well.

Say you are diagnosed with some catastrophic illness which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat.  The thinking here goes that somehow your local church or neighborhood organization and your family will scrounge together the money for these bills and help you through the crisis. I’m quite certain that many people in said community and family would step up to the plate, and many do across the country, raising funds to help the poor and disadvantaged or the sick every day.  As far as I can tell, and contrary to many of these arguments, private charity has not dissipated for the poor or elderly simply because programs like Medicaid or Medicare have been established.  My local parish still does all it can to raise money or provide food, shelter, and support for the poor, the homeless, and so forth.  Other charities do as well.  People have not stopped giving simply because one aspect of the poor’s care has been taken over, to some degree, by the state. [Read more →]

Ryan Sager says it may all be just for show.  If you haven’t been reading Sager lately, you should be.

Okay – so for our neoliberal and liberaltarian readers and contributors – I’d be curious to know what you think the distinction between these two political positions might be?  Is there a substantive difference between the two?

I’m sorry if this one’s already been posted… [Read more →]

Yglesias has a post today arguing basically that financial regulation is where liberals and Democrats should be uncompromising.  And while that’s not exactly what the post amounts to – since it essentially admits to the need for compromise even there – I think he makes some good points.

I admit to having a less-than-admirable understanding of financial regulations myself.  I think that applies to most Americans.  So when the debate over free markets vs. regulations steers into the murky waters of finance and Wall Street in general, most of us novices are left rather confused.  For one thing, finance is extremely complicated, and at times the nature of what is being sold and traded on Wall Street seems purposefully obfuscating.  The basic premise of supply and demand is wildly distorted.  That’s also why it’s been so difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in the whole economic crisis debate and in the proposed stimulus and bailouts as well.  Discerning the fault, the remedy, and so forth is not so easy – especially when so many smart people disagree.

So my question is how best to regulate banks and Wall Street without stifling global competitiveness?  How do we put up walls and levies to protect ourselves against systemic risk without unduly burdening our banking system?  Informed opinions and savvy arguments are most welcome. Contributors to the site (Dave!) should chime in as well.

Thanks.

I have come more and more to believe that America is need of a stronger set of safety-nets and public investment in general.  Beyond the need for a more robust safety-net apparatus including some form of universal health coverage, we’re badly in need of infrastructure investment.  Water lines across much of the country need to be brought up to code.  Roads and bridges are deteriorating.  Rising fuel costs will necessitate broader investment in rail as both a means of transportation and distribution of goods. Private industry will need to invest more capital in rail as well I think, since most of our nation’s logistical needs are met via trucking.  At some point that will become prohibitively expensive.

As sensible as free market economics are when it comes to driving innovation and promoting the generation of wealth, I think proponents of a more rigid free-market ideology fall short when they attempt to answer the problems of America’s sagging infrastructure and less than satisfactory safety nets.  That’s why it’s so refreshing to read someone like Reason’s Matt Welch on the benefits of France’s universal healthcare system, or Bruce Bartlett on the sort of trade-offs Americans will likely have to make in order to make our welfare state and revenue systems more in-line with Europe’s. [Read more →]

Scott: So, ’tis the season where we annually get into the inimitable argument over whether people should be saying, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”, whether there ought to be school plays involving the birth of the baby Jesus or not, and where everyone gets a little twitchy from hearing the same old songs mind numbingly lilting out of every speaker in ear shot. It’s time for the War on Christmas/Pluralism — depending on your point of view.

As a long defunct Christian, I’ve never really understood why the arguably most dominant religious pocket on the entire continent gets so bent out of shape over the idea that some folks would like to not feel pressured or forced into participating in a holiday that their religion just doesn’t recognize. I mean, as one friend once said to me, “We swim in a sea of Christianity here in North America.” So why the big brouhaha over some folks pushing back and saying, “You know, that’s not my bag. Decorate your home however you like, but don’t make me sit through your religious rituals. I don’t make you sit through mine!”

Am I missing something here?

Erik: If you haven’t read Julian Sanchez on the “politics of ressentiment” then you should. I think the idea of a “war on Christmas” is largely grown out of this sense of ressentiment (which also animates much of what drives the conservative base in the larger cultural/political wars. [Read more →]

Via the Dish – Jack Bauer interrogates Santa: [Read more →]

John Cole hits the proverbial nail on its proverbial head: [Read more →]

Allahpundit jumps on the Obama-approval-ratings-are-dropping bandwagon and, like most conservatives who try to interpret the data, totally misses the point:

More than 60 percent of indies disapprove of his handling of health care and the economy. Meanwhile, the overall 44/51 split is the widest gap yet on ObamaCare and the first time it’s been statistically significant in the WaPo poll [....]

Sixty-three percent support the recently deceased Medicare buy-in. Then again, majorities also consistently say they support the public option even though most of them don’t understand it, so it’s anyone’s guess what that “support” means in practice. Remember: It’s amazing what a follow-up question about trade-offs can do to the numbers when polling on ObamaCare. Which probably explains why one wasn’t asked here.

Somehow this leads Allahpundit to imply that disapproval of Obama’s job performance among independents has led more people to lean Republican, closing the partisan gap.  That doesn’t seem very likely to me.  I think a huge portion of independents who disapprove of Obama’s performance are actually hoping for more progressive reforms and are disappointed with how conservative the healthcare bill has become.  These folks might stay home in November, but they won’t come out to vote Republican.

What we’re seeing here is more wishful thinking on the right, interpreting every sign of disappointment with Obama as an indication of the right’s success.  That is simply wrong-headed.  If 63% of independents support the Medicare buy-in and majorities support a public option, then I’d say it’s fairly unlikely that most indies will come out and vote for the GOP in 2010 or 2012.

Remember, people are naturally inclined to vote for the lesser of two evils, and the Republicans are moving more to the right, not more to the center where a good chunk of independents reside.  Even those indies who “lean right” might be scared away by the prospect of a Sarah Palin nomination.