Matt Miller's latest Washington Post column talks about the White House's recent tactics that truly exemplify 'The Sport of Politics':
"What a coincidence that President Obama’s first news conference in nearly six months just happened to fall on Super Tuesday! And what a twist of fate that the president found himself addressing the United Auto Workers conference last week on the very day of the Michigan primary, where he had the chance to blast an unnamed GOP candidate for saying we should have “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
Barack Obama is the new master of the “split screen.” The White House is managing the president’s schedule and activities so that major events on the GOP campaign calendar become chances to contrast the president in the news cycle with the frivolous, shrill and increasingly surreal Republican race. The targets of this campaign are the independent voters who will decide the November election.
The “split-screen” strategy is looking very effective so far."
Showing posts with label Matt Miller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Miller. Show all posts
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The Contraception Red Herring
Matt Miller writes about where the real issue around the whole contraception coverage in health insurance plans actually is:
"It’s important not to let this contraception clash pass without understanding the true source of the problem. It’s not President Obama’s debauched liberal drive to shower teens with condoms and morning-after pills. It’s not the bishops’ urge to enforce a moral code from which most of their flock dissents. A sane America would never deny women who work for Catholic employers access to the contraception that every other health plan offers — but it also wouldn’t force Catholic employers to offer coverage that violates their beliefs.
Instead, a sane America would solve this whole problem by moving into the 21st century and making sure people can buy group health coverage on their own and not tied to their employers."
Getting rid of employer-based coverage was one of the principles of the Wyden-Bennett Bill as well. A lot has been said about improving the Affordable Care Act. Nothing would make me happier than opening up the health insurance exchanges to all Americans and concurrently eliminating the requirement for employers to provide health insurance to employees. This whole contraception issue would never have come up if that had been done from the beginning.
"It’s important not to let this contraception clash pass without understanding the true source of the problem. It’s not President Obama’s debauched liberal drive to shower teens with condoms and morning-after pills. It’s not the bishops’ urge to enforce a moral code from which most of their flock dissents. A sane America would never deny women who work for Catholic employers access to the contraception that every other health plan offers — but it also wouldn’t force Catholic employers to offer coverage that violates their beliefs.
Instead, a sane America would solve this whole problem by moving into the 21st century and making sure people can buy group health coverage on their own and not tied to their employers."
Getting rid of employer-based coverage was one of the principles of the Wyden-Bennett Bill as well. A lot has been said about improving the Affordable Care Act. Nothing would make me happier than opening up the health insurance exchanges to all Americans and concurrently eliminating the requirement for employers to provide health insurance to employees. This whole contraception issue would never have come up if that had been done from the beginning.
Monday, September 26, 2011
$10 million prize in a national election lottery? I'd get out the vote in that election!
Matt Miller writes a very interesting and thoroughly detailed column in The Washington Post about the type of stump speech a pragmatic centrist third party candidate would make. Although I don't agree with his ideal notion of a third party, this column really puts some cold hard truths out there:
On Education:
"We’ve been tinkering at the edges when it comes to school improvement, because we’ve ignored the most important question: Who should teach? While the world’s highest-performing school systems — those in places like Singapore, Finland and South Korea — recruit their teachers from the top third of their graduating class, we recruit ours from the middle and bottom thirds, especially for schools in poor neighborhoods. This “strategy” isn’t working. Up through the 1970s, the quality of our teacher corps was in effect subsidized by discrimination, because women and minorities didn’t have many other job opportunities. All that’s changed, but as career options have multiplied for those who used to become teachers, salaries haven’t kept pace to attract top talent."
On Health Care:
"We need to make sure every person in America has basic health coverage that doesn’t break the bank. To achieve that, Democrats must accept a private insurance industry and Republicans must accept that some people can’t afford decent policies on their own. This “grand bargain” is about liberals agreeing that innovation shouldn’t be regulated out of U.S. health care and conservatives agreeing that justice has to be regulated into it. The 50 million uninsured may seem invisible, but today their ranks are equal to the combined populations of Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming. Would America turn its back on these 25 states if they all lacked basic health coverage? That is what we’ve been doing for decades."
On the Financial Markets:
"The banking system is now more concentrated than it was before the financial crisis. There are two ways to avoid the “too big to fail” threat that still exists. We can limit the risks these big banks take — though regulators don’t have a great track record of getting this right. The most important thing we can do, therefore, is make sure big banks have enough capital to absorb any conceivable losses. Yet bank lobbyists are now swarming Washington to keep capital requirements low – in part because higher levels of capital reduce what top bankers can pay themselves. Their bonuses are often based on such metrics as a firm’s “return on equity,” which can be goosed by continually piling debt atop a tiny equity base. That’s Wall Street’s plan. Heads, I win; tails, taxpayers lose. Again."
His idea for turning the national election into a lottery with a $10 million grand prize is definitely out-of-the-box, as is the recommendation to lower the voting age to 15. All-in-all, it's definitely worth the time to read this article all the way through and see how far you actually are from these ideas, regardless of your political ideology.
On Education:
"We’ve been tinkering at the edges when it comes to school improvement, because we’ve ignored the most important question: Who should teach? While the world’s highest-performing school systems — those in places like Singapore, Finland and South Korea — recruit their teachers from the top third of their graduating class, we recruit ours from the middle and bottom thirds, especially for schools in poor neighborhoods. This “strategy” isn’t working. Up through the 1970s, the quality of our teacher corps was in effect subsidized by discrimination, because women and minorities didn’t have many other job opportunities. All that’s changed, but as career options have multiplied for those who used to become teachers, salaries haven’t kept pace to attract top talent."
On Health Care:
"We need to make sure every person in America has basic health coverage that doesn’t break the bank. To achieve that, Democrats must accept a private insurance industry and Republicans must accept that some people can’t afford decent policies on their own. This “grand bargain” is about liberals agreeing that innovation shouldn’t be regulated out of U.S. health care and conservatives agreeing that justice has to be regulated into it. The 50 million uninsured may seem invisible, but today their ranks are equal to the combined populations of Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming. Would America turn its back on these 25 states if they all lacked basic health coverage? That is what we’ve been doing for decades."
On the Financial Markets:
"The banking system is now more concentrated than it was before the financial crisis. There are two ways to avoid the “too big to fail” threat that still exists. We can limit the risks these big banks take — though regulators don’t have a great track record of getting this right. The most important thing we can do, therefore, is make sure big banks have enough capital to absorb any conceivable losses. Yet bank lobbyists are now swarming Washington to keep capital requirements low – in part because higher levels of capital reduce what top bankers can pay themselves. Their bonuses are often based on such metrics as a firm’s “return on equity,” which can be goosed by continually piling debt atop a tiny equity base. That’s Wall Street’s plan. Heads, I win; tails, taxpayers lose. Again."
His idea for turning the national election into a lottery with a $10 million grand prize is definitely out-of-the-box, as is the recommendation to lower the voting age to 15. All-in-all, it's definitely worth the time to read this article all the way through and see how far you actually are from these ideas, regardless of your political ideology.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The magic 18% number and its (un)reality...
A blog post at The Incidental Economist as well as Matt Miller's column in The Washington Post both talk about how capping taxes at 18% of GDP is a pipe dream:
"...if we maintain our 40 year historical average of 18 percent of GDP raised in taxes, the we will have a deficit simply due to paying for interest, health care, social security and defense in 2021. That means that even with no FBI, FAA, NIH, NEA, Homeland Security, and nothing else but these line items–18% of GDP collected in taxes still won’t be enough to produce a balanced budget. With NO federal spending other than these categories, we will have a deficit in 10 years if our tax code brings in 18% of GDP."
Miller goes on to write about how capping federal spending at 18% is not possible in this day-and-age either:
"The “cap, cut and balance” plan passed by the House Tuesday night captures Republican denial perfectly. The plan would cap federal spending at 19.9 percent of GDP by 2018, with the goal of lowering it to18 percent over time. Similar caps have been endorsed by most of the GOP’s presidential candidates.
You’d never know from listening to Republicans that these goals are mathematically and politically unattainable.
But they are. Why? If there’s one fact you need to emblazon in your mind to make sense of the current debate, it is that Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of GDP back when our population was much younger. (Under President Obama, the extraordinary measures enacted to fight the recession – plus a collapse in the denominator, GDP -- have boosted spending to around 24 percent, while revenue has dropped to 15 percent from its 18-19 percent longtime average).
It is simply not plausible to argue that as we double the number of seniors on Social Security and Medicare, Uncle Sam will be able to operate at spending levels 10 to 20 percent below those over which America’s modern conservative icon presided. (Though, as [The Washington Post's] Dana Milbank notes, Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times.) Today there’s no question: Taxes must rise."
Read both articles. You'll be much smarter having done so.
"...if we maintain our 40 year historical average of 18 percent of GDP raised in taxes, the we will have a deficit simply due to paying for interest, health care, social security and defense in 2021. That means that even with no FBI, FAA, NIH, NEA, Homeland Security, and nothing else but these line items–18% of GDP collected in taxes still won’t be enough to produce a balanced budget. With NO federal spending other than these categories, we will have a deficit in 10 years if our tax code brings in 18% of GDP."
Miller goes on to write about how capping federal spending at 18% is not possible in this day-and-age either:
"The “cap, cut and balance” plan passed by the House Tuesday night captures Republican denial perfectly. The plan would cap federal spending at 19.9 percent of GDP by 2018, with the goal of lowering it to18 percent over time. Similar caps have been endorsed by most of the GOP’s presidential candidates.
You’d never know from listening to Republicans that these goals are mathematically and politically unattainable.
But they are. Why? If there’s one fact you need to emblazon in your mind to make sense of the current debate, it is that Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of GDP back when our population was much younger. (Under President Obama, the extraordinary measures enacted to fight the recession – plus a collapse in the denominator, GDP -- have boosted spending to around 24 percent, while revenue has dropped to 15 percent from its 18-19 percent longtime average).
It is simply not plausible to argue that as we double the number of seniors on Social Security and Medicare, Uncle Sam will be able to operate at spending levels 10 to 20 percent below those over which America’s modern conservative icon presided. (Though, as [The Washington Post's] Dana Milbank notes, Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times.) Today there’s no question: Taxes must rise."
Read both articles. You'll be much smarter having done so.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Time to synergize
I blogged yesterday about Steven Pearlstein's column on the inability of the two parties to come together to offer constructive, synergistic solutions on a range of issues facing the country.
The Economist opines about how Kathy Hochul's victory in upstate New York will only just exacerbate the problem, comparing solutions to Medicare's finances to a used car dealer selling a lemon. Dana Milbank of The Washington Post goes further by explaining how Paul Ryan was a victim of his own scare tactics, which illustrates the problem but doesn't help solve it.
Lastly, Matt Miller writes a column about acknowledging that the entire RyanCare plan is not a disaster and it does have some good ideas to build around.
Getting back to the Economist piece, a very good point is made that represents a very sad reality:
"Both parties have, somewhere inside them, a serious proposal to reform Medicare. If they thought they could be elected by offering such a plan, they would do so."
What both parties miss in all of this is they've inadvertently synergized already. The "Premium Support" (aka Vouchers) in RyanCare were a Democratic idea. The individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act were a Republican idea. And the fact that each is being ripped apart after being embraced by the other side is the saddest part of all.
The Economist opines about how Kathy Hochul's victory in upstate New York will only just exacerbate the problem, comparing solutions to Medicare's finances to a used car dealer selling a lemon. Dana Milbank of The Washington Post goes further by explaining how Paul Ryan was a victim of his own scare tactics, which illustrates the problem but doesn't help solve it.
Lastly, Matt Miller writes a column about acknowledging that the entire RyanCare plan is not a disaster and it does have some good ideas to build around.
Getting back to the Economist piece, a very good point is made that represents a very sad reality:
"Both parties have, somewhere inside them, a serious proposal to reform Medicare. If they thought they could be elected by offering such a plan, they would do so."
What both parties miss in all of this is they've inadvertently synergized already. The "Premium Support" (aka Vouchers) in RyanCare were a Democratic idea. The individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act were a Republican idea. And the fact that each is being ripped apart after being embraced by the other side is the saddest part of all.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"
Matt Miller wants you to repeat after him, "The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit."
I prefer this comparison though:
"The classic definition of chutzpah was a kid who kills his parents and then asks for the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. The new definition of chutzpah is Republicans who vote for the Ryan plan that adds trillions in debt and who then say the debt limit goes up only over their dead bodies!"
I prefer this comparison though:
"The classic definition of chutzpah was a kid who kills his parents and then asks for the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. The new definition of chutzpah is Republicans who vote for the Ryan plan that adds trillions in debt and who then say the debt limit goes up only over their dead bodies!"
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The duplicitous choice between "Bad" and "Ugly"
This Matt Miller column in today's Washington Post is a must-read regardless of your political ideologies. Regular readers of my blog (all two of you!) know how big a fan I am of Matt Miller's pragmatic thinking or, as he puts it in his weekly radio show, 'Radical Centrism'. In today's column, he spells out the reasons why neither the Obama budget nor the Ryan budget is intellectually honest about the deficit and is really pandering to its own political agenda. A great point from the column:
"Paul Ryan proposes that the federal government spend $40 trillion over the next 10 years, as opposed to Barack Obama’s $46 trillion. The first thing to note is that there is thus about a 15 percent difference in the size of government envisioned by our two major parties. This difference matters greatly, of course, but shouting aside, this is a fight taking place between the 40-yard lines on either side."
My personal thought on this is although the president's budget is much closer to Ryan's budget, his preference would likely be what was proposed in the Simpson-Bowles Commission Report. That's just my hunch; I'm not basing it on any information confirming or denying it. Unfortunately, the President won't get it today from a Republican Party set on the emotional victory of making him a one-term president. The problem this would raise isn't that Republicans don't have the nation's best interests in mind. The real issue with the sport of politics being what it is, a Republican President in 2012 would only work between the 40-yard lines for four more years in hopes of securing a re-election, pushing off further necessary pain until 2016 at the earliest, which may be too late.
"Paul Ryan proposes that the federal government spend $40 trillion over the next 10 years, as opposed to Barack Obama’s $46 trillion. The first thing to note is that there is thus about a 15 percent difference in the size of government envisioned by our two major parties. This difference matters greatly, of course, but shouting aside, this is a fight taking place between the 40-yard lines on either side."
My personal thought on this is although the president's budget is much closer to Ryan's budget, his preference would likely be what was proposed in the Simpson-Bowles Commission Report. That's just my hunch; I'm not basing it on any information confirming or denying it. Unfortunately, the President won't get it today from a Republican Party set on the emotional victory of making him a one-term president. The problem this would raise isn't that Republicans don't have the nation's best interests in mind. The real issue with the sport of politics being what it is, a Republican President in 2012 would only work between the 40-yard lines for four more years in hopes of securing a re-election, pushing off further necessary pain until 2016 at the earliest, which may be too late.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Great columns about education recently...
Lots of columnists writing about education of late:
1. Matt Miller picks apart the president's speech on education with a pointed critique of the difference between his words and his actions.
2. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pens an excellent op-ed piece about the lack of commitment to education among the school's participating in the NCAA Basketball Tournament over the next three weeks. An excellent point from his column:
"If a team fails to graduate even half of its players, how serious are the institution and coach about preparing their student-athletes for life?"
3. Lastly, former NBA player and basketball analyst Jalen Rose writes about the reasons why college athletes should actually be paid to play for their schools. While it seems controversial on the surface, Rose makes some great points in the column, which is definitely worth reading.
1. Matt Miller picks apart the president's speech on education with a pointed critique of the difference between his words and his actions.
2. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pens an excellent op-ed piece about the lack of commitment to education among the school's participating in the NCAA Basketball Tournament over the next three weeks. An excellent point from his column:
"If a team fails to graduate even half of its players, how serious are the institution and coach about preparing their student-athletes for life?"
3. Lastly, former NBA player and basketball analyst Jalen Rose writes about the reasons why college athletes should actually be paid to play for their schools. While it seems controversial on the surface, Rose makes some great points in the column, which is definitely worth reading.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
But it's so expensive already!
I know I'm always plugging this guy's column but today's is another great one. If you think gasoline prices in the US have gotten ridiculously high of late, here's a little tidbit to pique your interest:
"What does a gallon of gas cost today in England, Italy and Germany?"
"...in all three countries, a gallon of gas today costs more than $8!"
Enjoy the rest of the column. It's a good one.
"What does a gallon of gas cost today in England, Italy and Germany?"
"...in all three countries, a gallon of gas today costs more than $8!"
Enjoy the rest of the column. It's a good one.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Social Security is indispensable to our seniors' economic well-being and also a program whose autopilot increases should be trimmed to leave room for
Another great Matt Miller column titled "Andrew Cuomo and the liberal case for Social Security cuts". Yes, sometimes that baby is just ugly...
Thursday, November 18, 2010
That ugly baby is really quite breathtaking.
Sometimes you just have to call the baby ugly rather than make people wonder if you were just being nice by saying it’s breathtaking.
Likewise, Matt Miller talks about our incessant need for reassurance and Nicholas Kristoff talks about how us turning into a banana republic is insulting to banana republics. What is striking about Kristoff’s column is he is typically a foreign affairs columnist that focuses on third world issues more than American politics. That is why this particular paragraph gave me chills to read:
“I’m appalled by our growing wealth gaps because in my travels I see what happens in dysfunctional countries where the rich just don’t care about those below the decks. The result is nations without a social fabric or sense of national unity. Huge concentrations of wealth corrode the soul of any nation.”
Hey America, your progressive income tax rates are really breathtaking.
Likewise, Matt Miller talks about our incessant need for reassurance and Nicholas Kristoff talks about how us turning into a banana republic is insulting to banana republics. What is striking about Kristoff’s column is he is typically a foreign affairs columnist that focuses on third world issues more than American politics. That is why this particular paragraph gave me chills to read:
“I’m appalled by our growing wealth gaps because in my travels I see what happens in dysfunctional countries where the rich just don’t care about those below the decks. The result is nations without a social fabric or sense of national unity. Huge concentrations of wealth corrode the soul of any nation.”
Hey America, your progressive income tax rates are really breathtaking.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Pearlstein and Miller This Week
As I stated in a recent blog post, Steven Pearlstein and Matt Miller of The Washington Post are becoming my regular weekly must-read columns. Here are some excerpts:
From Matt Miller’s column today:
“The mother of all inconvenient truths is this: Global capitalism's ability to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China, India and other developing countries comes partly at the expense of tens of millions of workers in wealthy nations. This awful, inexorable fact will soon pose an enormous moral and intellectual challenge for the American left.”
From Steven Pearlstein’s column yesterday:
“If you asked Americans how much of the nation's pretax income goes to the top 10 percent of households, it is unlikely they would come anywhere close to 50 percent, which is where it was just before the bubble burst in 2007… From World War II until 1976, considered by many as the "golden years" for the U.S. economy, the top 10 percent of the population took home less than a third of the income generated by the private economy.”
Please enjoy both reads and let me know what you think.
From Matt Miller’s column today:
“The mother of all inconvenient truths is this: Global capitalism's ability to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China, India and other developing countries comes partly at the expense of tens of millions of workers in wealthy nations. This awful, inexorable fact will soon pose an enormous moral and intellectual challenge for the American left.”
From Steven Pearlstein’s column yesterday:
“If you asked Americans how much of the nation's pretax income goes to the top 10 percent of households, it is unlikely they would come anywhere close to 50 percent, which is where it was just before the bubble burst in 2007… From World War II until 1976, considered by many as the "golden years" for the U.S. economy, the top 10 percent of the population took home less than a third of the income generated by the private economy.”
Please enjoy both reads and let me know what you think.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Be very careful what you wish for...
I'm adding Steven Pearlstein to my list of essential weekly reading, which currently includes Matt Miller, also of The Washington Post. My favorite line in today's column:
"Here is the hard political reality: You can't expect to support and finance political candidates who preach that government is menacing and wasteful, that public employees are incompetent and corrupt, that taxes are always too high and destroy jobs, and then turn around and expect that the government will respond to your demands to hold down the cost of health care, or fund basic research, or provide good schools, efficient courts and reliable transportation systems."
Again, be very careful what you wish for...
"Here is the hard political reality: You can't expect to support and finance political candidates who preach that government is menacing and wasteful, that public employees are incompetent and corrupt, that taxes are always too high and destroy jobs, and then turn around and expect that the government will respond to your demands to hold down the cost of health care, or fund basic research, or provide good schools, efficient courts and reliable transportation systems."
Again, be very careful what you wish for...
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Yet another awesome Matt Miller column...
I have to admit, I'm becoming a huge fan of Washington Post columnist Matt Miller solely for his independence of thought. He is neither a cheerleader nor an antagonist like other Washington Post columnists on the left or the right, respectively. Today's column is another excellent piece about things that need to be better about the Obama administration's economic policies related to healthcare and education.
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