Sunday Meditations

It's a little bit sad that a major political event is simply the U.S. Senate voting to have a debate on the healthcare bill. Sadder still is that there were no Republicans who voted to have such a debate, speaking volumes about their commitment to the free exchange of ideas. Presumably the status quo is fine. But whatever your politics the status quo is unsustainable. With no change, Americans will soon spend 1 out of every 5 dollars they earn on medical care. In addition to the some 40+ million uninsured, we would gain another 22 million uninsured and add them to about 25 underinsured.

The U.S. Senate is looking more like the House of Lords with the median age about 63 and most members multi-millionaires looking down on the masses with disdain. The Senate hasn't looked so bad since the days when Southern Senators would filibuster civil rights legislation. But at least those guys could quote John Calhoun.

The Republicans sounded as lame as I've heard them in years. For reasons I have not determined, the new Republican tactic is to utter a series of lies, not the Goebbels' One Big Lie, get caught out on them and then set off on another set of lies, hoping something will strike. This has been apparent since the 2008 Convention, which saw the Republicans revert to their old 1920s economic selves. The madness we hear on Glenn Beck is really just a continuation of the underside of the Republican presidential campaign, particularly on the side of part-time Governor Sarah Palin.

The arguments against the Health Reform Bill apparently run the gamut from giving license to Republican mistresses to have abortions to busting the federal budget to ending life on Planet Earth as we know it. So from abortions to death panels to getting the government between you and your doctor, presuming you can still afford a doctor, there are all sorts of reasons for doing nothing. Even the Catholic Bishops have weighed in saying the Health Reform Bill is the "worst we have ever seen". Which raises the question," what others have they seen." The Catholic Bishops are feeling their oats now after defeating the gay marriage law in Maine.

The problem here is that the United States really does need a sober-minded, mature second party and the mantras coming from the Republican Party as it tries to chase its dwindling base do not lend themselves to solutions to real world problems. Let's say the Republican Party manages to surf white resentment back into control of the Congress. Then, what? Other than voting for increases in defense spending and supporting war and torture, what solutions can they give for an economy that needs a radical transformation from consumerism to a more self-sustaining, energy efficient one? They already voted against the largest middle-class tax cut in history so what's next more deregulation and tax benefits for corporations. That's worked out just fine and dandy.

Well, we'll cut the deficit by cutting down to size the social welfare state in the middle of a Depression. The claim they will starve the beast just doesn't hold anymore. US Government existing obligations are on the order of $70trillion, including Social Security and Medicare. There are not enough cuts to make to the Government budget to be able to even dent the debt in the outyears. Cut social security and Medicare for their core base? The fact of the matter is that the GOP is in a deep conceptual hole. It must be ready to re-think everything it believes about the public good, a concept that seems to have disappeared in its mind, and it must start thinking about new forms of government revenues to be taken seriously again.

It is inconceivable to me that the GOP can adopt any form of economic populism. They balked at a windfall tax on the Wall Street bonuses when there was public outrage. To become populist, they would have to go full-tilt at their corporate backers--something they won't do.

I would suggest they start reading Bruce Bartlett's The New American Economy: the Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward. Bartlett was on the ground floor of supply-side economics and walks the reader through the time it met its limits and its collapse at the end of the Bush Administration. His basic audience is Republican and he hopes Republicans become constructive once again and offer solutions that would not inhibit economic growth. If they don't, he says the Democrats will and that might thwart future economic growth.

President Obama always says that he inherited a debt of about $1.5 trillion from George W. I wish he would come clean on reality. Here's Bartlett:By the end of 2008, the federal government has assets of $2 trillion and liabilities of $12.2 trillion, for a net debt of $10.2 trillion. In another table of the Treasury Department's "Financial Report of the United States Government" it lists the unfunded future cost of retirement programs. At the end of 2008, Social Security was in the hole $17.2 trillion and Medicare would need $31.8 trillion to cover the expected costs over and above revenues. So, Uncle Sam had an addition debt of $49 trillion on top of the national debt-let's just call it $59 trillion. As Bartlett says, Social Security is fixable with slight rises in the Social Security tax but Medicare has to be reformed within the context of the entire health care system.

Are these problems unsolvable? No. But they can't solved when the Republican Party acts like we should be Brezhnev's Soviet Union with enormous military power while the economy is collapsing and it embraces a view toward science that mimics Lysenkoism.

In the meantime, get ready for a giant food fight after Thanksgiving. And kudos to Hapless Harry Reid, who finally became a leader for a day.