Be careful SCOTUS. The Affordable Care Act is like Obi-wan Kenobi:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Why? Because if you can't devise a regulated, free market solution for a public good that comprises one-sixth of the American economy, the only available alternative becomes a Single-Payer "Medicare for All" plan.
Gail Collins of The New York Times agrees:
"It was basically a Republican idea to begin with, and look what happened. If this is thrown out in court, compromise will never get any traction again. Single payer! Single payer! Maybe you could have wooed me into the middle a few years ago, but no more. No more. Next time around we stop talking about complicated reforms and just go with Medicare for everybody."
Showing posts with label David Brooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Brooks. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Hey, Mets! I Just Can’t Quit You. | NYT's David Brooks
David Brooks, who usually writes about politics, wrote about his love for the New York Mets today. He shared this great recent experience:
"I was in the media center of the Mets spring training facility in Florida this week when Ron Darling, the excellent pitcher from the great teams of the 1980s, sat down at the table next to me and started reading The Times. That was a vivid moment, evoking all sorts of memories, though I didn’t try to talk with him."
Knowing Darling's Yale pedigree (with degrees in both French and Southeast Asian History), Brooks probably could have engaged him in an interesting foreign affairs discussion. At the very least Ron Darling would likely know who David Brooks is.
However there is something endearing about this experience of a well-known and respected journalist (whom I totally respect even though I don't often agree with him) just being a fan around a former All-Star from his favorite team.
"I was in the media center of the Mets spring training facility in Florida this week when Ron Darling, the excellent pitcher from the great teams of the 1980s, sat down at the table next to me and started reading The Times. That was a vivid moment, evoking all sorts of memories, though I didn’t try to talk with him."
Knowing Darling's Yale pedigree (with degrees in both French and Southeast Asian History), Brooks probably could have engaged him in an interesting foreign affairs discussion. At the very least Ron Darling would likely know who David Brooks is.
However there is something endearing about this experience of a well-known and respected journalist (whom I totally respect even though I don't often agree with him) just being a fan around a former All-Star from his favorite team.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Point-counterpoint that is actually fun to read
If you follow politics but have never read David Brooks' and Gail Collins' 'The Conversation' series in The New York Times, you have no idea what you're missing. Here's a couple of great nuggets from today's conversation:
Brooks: "...as one of the callers on Bill Bennett’s radio show pointed out, it’s an odd thing when a leading Republican candidate has the children of his first wife attacking his second wife for things she said about his third wife and this candidate is the one getting social conservative support."
Collins: "The South Carolina voters really just seemed to be looking for somebody who would expose Barack Obama as the socialist evildoer they believe him to be. Do you think they factored in the personality issue? Really, the president generally manages to come across as pretty likable, even when he’s announcing a new series of air strikes. And Newt can be pretty off-putting even when he’s explaining that he loves his grandchildren."
Trust me, you will not be disappointed reading it every week.
Brooks: "...as one of the callers on Bill Bennett’s radio show pointed out, it’s an odd thing when a leading Republican candidate has the children of his first wife attacking his second wife for things she said about his third wife and this candidate is the one getting social conservative support."
Collins: "The South Carolina voters really just seemed to be looking for somebody who would expose Barack Obama as the socialist evildoer they believe him to be. Do you think they factored in the personality issue? Really, the president generally manages to come across as pretty likable, even when he’s announcing a new series of air strikes. And Newt can be pretty off-putting even when he’s explaining that he loves his grandchildren."
Trust me, you will not be disappointed reading it every week.
Friday, September 2, 2011
The missing pragmatism on the right
David Brooks pens another great piece calling out Republicans again from the Right on their positions of late:
"Stable societies are breeding grounds for interest groups. Over time, these interest groups use government to establish sinecures for themselves, which gradually strangle the economy they are built on — like parasitic vines around a tree.
Yet as great as the need is to streamline, reform and prune the state, that will not be enough to restore America’s vigorous virtues. This is where current Republican orthodoxy is necessary but insufficient. There are certain tasks ahead that cannot be addressed simply by getting government out of the way.
In the first place, there is the need to rebuild America’s human capital. The United States became the wealthiest nation on earth primarily because Americans were the best educated.
That advantage has entirely eroded over the past 30 years. It will take an active government to reverse this stagnation — from prenatal and early childhood education straight up through adult technical training and investments in scientific and other research. If government is “inconsequential” in this sphere, then continued American decline is inevitable."
"Stable societies are breeding grounds for interest groups. Over time, these interest groups use government to establish sinecures for themselves, which gradually strangle the economy they are built on — like parasitic vines around a tree.
Yet as great as the need is to streamline, reform and prune the state, that will not be enough to restore America’s vigorous virtues. This is where current Republican orthodoxy is necessary but insufficient. There are certain tasks ahead that cannot be addressed simply by getting government out of the way.
In the first place, there is the need to rebuild America’s human capital. The United States became the wealthiest nation on earth primarily because Americans were the best educated.
That advantage has entirely eroded over the past 30 years. It will take an active government to reverse this stagnation — from prenatal and early childhood education straight up through adult technical training and investments in scientific and other research. If government is “inconsequential” in this sphere, then continued American decline is inevitable."
Friday, July 8, 2011
A Brilliant Piece on Behavioral Psychology
David Brooks has a brilliant column today about research into behavioral psychology. I highly recommend reading this because it is really fascinating:
"Let’s say you want to reduce poverty. We have two traditional understandings of poverty. The first presumes people are rational. They are pursuing their goals effectively and don’t need much help in changing their behavior. The second presumes that the poor are afflicted by cultural or psychological dysfunctions that sometimes lead them to behave in shortsighted ways. Neither of these theories has produced much in the way of effective policies.
Eldar Shafir of Princeton and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard have recently, with federal help, been exploring a third theory, that scarcity produces its own cognitive traits.
A quick question: What is the starting taxi fare in your city? If you are like most upper-middle-class people, you don’t know. If you are like many struggling people, you do know. Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t. They have to make complicated trade-offs when buying a carton of milk: If I buy milk, I can’t afford orange juice. They have to decide which utility not to pay.
These questions impose enormous cognitive demands. The brain has limited capacities. If you increase demands on one sort of question, it performs less well on other sorts of questions.
Shafir and Mullainathan gave batteries of tests to Indian sugar farmers. After they sell their harvest, they live in relative prosperity. During this season, the farmers do well on the I.Q. and other tests. But before the harvest, they live amid scarcity and have to think hard about a thousand daily decisions. During these seasons, these same farmers do much worse on the tests. They appear to have lower I.Q.’s. They have more trouble controlling their attention. They are more shortsighted. Scarcity creates its own psychology."
Read the whole column. It is well worth the time and effort.
"Let’s say you want to reduce poverty. We have two traditional understandings of poverty. The first presumes people are rational. They are pursuing their goals effectively and don’t need much help in changing their behavior. The second presumes that the poor are afflicted by cultural or psychological dysfunctions that sometimes lead them to behave in shortsighted ways. Neither of these theories has produced much in the way of effective policies.
Eldar Shafir of Princeton and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard have recently, with federal help, been exploring a third theory, that scarcity produces its own cognitive traits.
A quick question: What is the starting taxi fare in your city? If you are like most upper-middle-class people, you don’t know. If you are like many struggling people, you do know. Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t. They have to make complicated trade-offs when buying a carton of milk: If I buy milk, I can’t afford orange juice. They have to decide which utility not to pay.
These questions impose enormous cognitive demands. The brain has limited capacities. If you increase demands on one sort of question, it performs less well on other sorts of questions.
Shafir and Mullainathan gave batteries of tests to Indian sugar farmers. After they sell their harvest, they live in relative prosperity. During this season, the farmers do well on the I.Q. and other tests. But before the harvest, they live amid scarcity and have to think hard about a thousand daily decisions. During these seasons, these same farmers do much worse on the tests. They appear to have lower I.Q.’s. They have more trouble controlling their attention. They are more shortsighted. Scarcity creates its own psychology."
Read the whole column. It is well worth the time and effort.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
More on the schism between 'Conservative' and 'Republican'
I blogged yesterday about David Brooks' column in The New York Times criticizing the Republicans' handling of the debt ceiling negotiations. The Economist also weighs in on the Brooks column:
"In all probability, America won't default; it's still difficult to imagine that it cold come to that. The bigger danger, I think, is that the Republican strategy will either lead Democrats to accept short-term cuts large enough to endanger recovery or will result in a short period of "prioritisation", in which spending is suddenly and dramatically cut back to prevent a default once the money runs out (on or about August 2nd). America may make it through this episode with its credit rating intact and still sustain significant economic damage."
"In all probability, America won't default; it's still difficult to imagine that it cold come to that. The bigger danger, I think, is that the Republican strategy will either lead Democrats to accept short-term cuts large enough to endanger recovery or will result in a short period of "prioritisation", in which spending is suddenly and dramatically cut back to prevent a default once the money runs out (on or about August 2nd). America may make it through this episode with its credit rating intact and still sustain significant economic damage."
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The schism between 'Conservative' and 'Republican'
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks lays out why the Republican Party is no longer a "normal political party":
"If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.
A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.
The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no."
Brooks always referred to himself as a 'Conservative' first and then a 'Republican', which is an interesting distinction because it gives some legitimacy to his ability to distance himself from the party unlike other conservative columnists. As a columnist for what is considered a left-leaning New York Times, he has jokingly called himself "The Rabbi of Mecca".
His column is believed to be a must-read for President Obama so one wonders if his audience for today's column consists of New York Times readers or just one American President?
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post echos similar sentiments, referring to the GOP as "a grand old cult".
"If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.
A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.
The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no."
Brooks always referred to himself as a 'Conservative' first and then a 'Republican', which is an interesting distinction because it gives some legitimacy to his ability to distance himself from the party unlike other conservative columnists. As a columnist for what is considered a left-leaning New York Times, he has jokingly called himself "The Rabbi of Mecca".
His column is believed to be a must-read for President Obama so one wonders if his audience for today's column consists of New York Times readers or just one American President?
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post echos similar sentiments, referring to the GOP as "a grand old cult".
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Politics that works?
President Obama's favorite conservative talks about British politics today:
"If the quintessential American pol is standing in his sandbox screaming affirmations to http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmembers of his own tribe, the quintessential British pol is standing across a table arguing face to face with his opponents.
British leaders and pundits know their counterparts better. They are less likely to get away with distortions and factual howlers. They are less likely to believe the other party is homogenously evil. They are more likely to learn from a wide range of people. When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war."
Hmm, maybe they're on to something over there. They certainly are entertaining. That's why Robin Williams once described them as "Congress with a two-drink minimum."
"If the quintessential American pol is standing in his sandbox screaming affirmations to http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmembers of his own tribe, the quintessential British pol is standing across a table arguing face to face with his opponents.
British leaders and pundits know their counterparts better. They are less likely to get away with distortions and factual howlers. They are less likely to believe the other party is homogenously evil. They are more likely to learn from a wide range of people. When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war."
Hmm, maybe they're on to something over there. They certainly are entertaining. That's why Robin Williams once described them as "Congress with a two-drink minimum."
Friday, April 29, 2011
‘Today on our class trip we visited the Department of Housing and Urban Development.’
David Brooks’ column in today’s New York Times reads more like a child’s essay after a class trip, but it does get the point across about how a government office actually does its job and how good leadership can make a difference:
"Unlike some political appointees, [HUD Secretary Shaun] Donovan and [VA Deputy Secretary Scott] Gould are deeply involved in the intricacies and are powerfully driving policy. Many government efforts are designed to minimize failure and avert scandal. In this program, each region has a clear numeric definition of success. There are clear standards for how quickly veteran homelessness should be reduced year by year. So far, the program is surpassing its targets by 46 percent."
"Unlike some political appointees, [HUD Secretary Shaun] Donovan and [VA Deputy Secretary Scott] Gould are deeply involved in the intricacies and are powerfully driving policy. Many government efforts are designed to minimize failure and avert scandal. In this program, each region has a clear numeric definition of success. There are clear standards for how quickly veteran homelessness should be reduced year by year. So far, the program is surpassing its targets by 46 percent."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)