It’s not just the demographics

Does anyone really think there is any hope of the country being intelligently, successfully, and lawfully (constitutionally) run again?

addressing middle-class anxieties about wages, health care, education and more

Is this idiot supposed to be a “centrist” or “conservative” lightweight – haven’t read columnists in many many years other these sorts of tidbits, so I can’t tell.

Let’s see. Hmmmm. How do we address middle class wage anxieties? Oh, right, we, uh ….. somehow magically alter economic realities and change, which completely drive such anxieties. Get back to me on your 5-point plan, Ross. Remember, middle class wages have only risen when a government program made it possible. Er – well, that’s actually never been part of the story, ever, but we’re smarter than previous generations, so we’ll just engineer it, somehow.

Health care. Oh, right, same solution. We’ll just, sort of, you know, “fix” it to make it cheaper. After all, it’s not a very heavily regulated market. So more manipulation and fixing by super-smart people with PhDs from Ivy League schools oughta do the trick. I mean, it’s not like competition, choice, innovation, and flexibility have ever produced lower costs – just look at air travel, or telecommunications, for example.

Education. Yep, we gotta fix that one too, to reassure those middle class folks fretting out there. Lessee – more money? I mean, spending two to three to four times the amount of money (in adjusted dollars) per pupil – compared to when performance was much better – is obviously not enough. It’s not like widely distributed and systemic factors like a decline in standards, expectations, discipline, along with destruction of public service through unionization, added to the erosion and politicization of curricula, all on top of social dynamics starting at the family level are the roots of the problem. Nope. We’ll just change “messaging” to soothe those poor widdle middle class anxieties.

Of course there are simple, obvious things that would address all the “anxieties” listed. But they rarely involve more govt. spending or regulation – almost always the opposite. But in our cretinized, race-based, economically illiterate, dependency-addled electorate, these obvious options would hardly even be understood any more.

But hey, Europe approves of our presidential choice!

IceCold on November 11, 2012 at 11:57 AM

DarkCurrent, you are obviously an intelligent commenter, based on your contributions, but step back for a second on the illegal immigration thing.

Do you think any “solution”, however cleverly crafted, would “solve” anything? As in, decrease the inflow of illegals, who in turn would produce a problem to be “solved” yet again down the road?

Incentives are the only thing that matters, on the practical side. I worked in the Senate on Simpson-Mazzoli when it passed in ’86. Even then, many skeptics were correctly grousing that the most likely outcome was exactly what happened. Massive, massive continuing influx, along with a farcical inability to actually administer the “amnesty” provisions in a serious manner.

Any “solution” that appeals to people’s sense of wizardry in public policy would automatically and unavoidably become a failure, for the familiar reasons, unless it is a serious solution. That involves physically closing the southern border and making eVerify ubiquitous and real as a barrier to illegal employment.

Of course the subsitution of racist lawlessness for rule of law is implicit, already, in state law and federal practice. Ya think I could apply to get a refund of all the processing money to get my wife into the country, and then get my state to give her “illegal” in-state tuition if she ends up going to the state college? We can’t get back the 8 months in time it will likely take for the process, but hey we’re hardy souls and can take one for the team.

Ya know, sometimes, it’s almost like we don’t live in a serious country any more.

IceCold on November 11, 2012 at 12:10 PM

Oh, and I forgot one gem that this idiot (apparently) Douthat belched up: focus on upper-bracket tax cuts.

Just how ignorant, and stupid, is this jackass (rhetorical question)?

Ross, who pays the taxes? Right – overwhelming, and wildly disproportionate, share paid by the top 15%.

Hey! Let’s cut federal income taxes for the poor, and lower-middle class! What – huh? They don’t pay any? Um, OK. Then let’s cut taxes for the middle class! What? They pay a very small share of the total, and any real cuts would add them to the 50% who don’t pay taxes already? Hmmm, darn.

I guess Ross doesn’t wonder why the verminous dominant party in the US doesn’t push federal income tax cuts for the poor and lower-middle class – uh, Ross, because all those evil tax cuts for “the rich” going back to Reagan increasingly exempted lower income brackets from any tax at all.

Oh, happy Veterans’ Day! (could there be any more sickening, or unintentionally ironic, salutation at this point?)

IceCold on November 11, 2012 at 12:54 PM