Obamacare: The Screeching of the Nutroots

posted at 11:22 am on July 17, 2009 by Karl
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The Congressional Budget Office’s “devastating assessment” of the Democrats’ healthcare proposals (intensified by the CBO’s equally dire picture of the federal budget in general) is feeding the reluctance of moderate Democrats to support a government takeover of the US healthcare system. The situation is making the nutroots… nuttier than usual.

Boy Genius of the Sorosphere Matt Yglesias and Hullaballoo’s dday rip the Blue Dogs for “inconsistently” opposing a budget-busting “reform” effort while supporting better reimbursement rates for rural hospitals than Medicare rates. The WaPo’s Ezra Klein and dday both attack Sen. Ben Nelson for saying that his constiuents don’t want a surtax that would give the US higher tax rates than most every country in the OECD. Klein would also like to establish “Rules For Commenting On The CBO’s Judgments,” the point of which are to argue that anyone relying on the CBO to complain about the cost of the Democrats’ proposals should be required to declare their support for various politically-poisonous agenda items that would bring down the cost of healthcare reform.

Many of their arguments are dubious on their own terms. For example, it is not necessarily inconsistent to argue about overall costs, while insisting on a better deal for one group or another. “Formula fights” are commonplace in Congress. Klein can point Sen. Nelson to polls showing that taxing the rich is not vastly unpopular, but he fails to account for polls showing that people expect the middle-class will get stuck with the bill for healthcare reform. Klein might even want to review his own blog, where he admitted that “health-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.” Even more fundamental, Klein glosses over the fact that national polls may not accurately reflect the opinion of likely voters in Nebraska, where Nelson likely wants to be re-elected.

That last point goes to the heart of the latest round of screeching from the whine cellars of the Left. The nutroots — and the Juicebox Mafia in particular — would like everyone to pretend that we are an Ivy League debate class, instead of a democratic republic. The latter is a bit more messy, and statists have very little patience for that.

The nutroots chide the Blue Dogs for their supposed inconsistencies, but when poll after poll shows that people want healthcare reform only if they don’t have to pay a meager $500 a year for it, we see that our government fairly reflects the public mood. They insult Sen. Nelson, but I doubt that is very persuasive with Nelson, who likely has more insight into how to retain his job in Nebraska than some 20-something blogger in the Beltway. They would like to impose rules for discussing the CBO’s judgment on the Democrats’ healthcare reform plans. But it is the Democrats who want to remake one-sxith of the US economy, and have majorities in both houses of Congress. They have the power and the agenda. Thus, the burden falls on them to come up with legislation that can make it through the legislative process. The critics can say, to quote Juicebox Mafia guru Jon Stewart, “I am not your monkey.” Despite their best efforts, it is still a relatively free country. We can say whatever the hell we want.

Blowback

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