"People say bureaucrats never do anything. The bureaucrats of CBO might have killed health care."
Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:
I must say that I have little (okay, almost no) faith in bureaucrats but in this case, the CBO rose to the occasion and we should give credit where credit is due.
The White House misread the national mood. The problem isn’t that they didn’t “bend the curve,” or didn’t sell it right. The problem is that the national mood has changed since the president was elected. Back then the mood was “change is for the good.” But that altered as the full implications of the financial crash seeped in. The crash gave everyone a diminished sense of their own margin for error. It gave them a diminished sense of their country’s margin for error. Americans are not in a chance-taking mood. They’re not in a spending mood, not after the unprecedented spending of the past year, from the end of the Bush era through the first six months of Obama. Here the Congressional Budget Office report that a health care bill would not save money but would instead cost more than a trillion dollars in the next decade was decisive. People say bureaucrats never do anything. The bureaucrats of CBO might have killed health care.
I must say that I have little (okay, almost no) faith in bureaucrats but in this case, the CBO rose to the occasion and we should give credit where credit is due.
Labels: healthcare, politics
16 Comments:
TO: Dr. Helen, et al.
RE: Heh
The problem is that the national mood has changed since the president was elected. Back then the mood was “change is for the good.” But that altered as the full implications of the financial crash seeped in. -- Peggy Noonan, as cited by Dr. Helen
As your good BlogFather likes to put it....
Who are the rubes?
As I was saying in the run-up to this fiasco....
On average, 50% of all change is 'bad'.
So now we have the proof of it. And all the idiots who put US here have got to own up to it.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth is coming out.....]
It won't matter. Bureaucrats don't pass laws. COngress does. Congress does not care what the American People want, only how to get away with it. THis will keep coming back until every American agrees that "something must be done".
I agree concerning the CBO but Noonan's all wrong about moods. This has nothing to do with moods. Obama has proven that his greatest, and maybe only skill, is reading a teleprompter.
The economic slide has steepened since he took office. He's proven himself unable to clearly see the problem or slow the slide. All he and his fellw Dems can do is propose legislation that promises to increase the cost of living, government spending, the federal deficit, and government control over the lives of individuals.
Recognizing this and protesting it have nothing to do with moods.
Peggy is an idiot. The mood was never "change is inherently good." It was that Obama knew how and what to change. He proved via the disastrously wasteful stimulus that he knows very little. Speechifying? Absolutely so. His decision making is deeply flawed elsewhere, bordering on thoughtless. If he was trying to make change work here tort reform, and taxation of benefit packages would have been on the table. The Edwards and Gettelfinger special interest wings of his party would not allow it. As is this is a miserable plan. It is a "trust me" plan. We did and he burned us. Now he has to come to the table with specifics, not platitudes. He is not capable, and so it shall fail. Surprising a brilliant elitist like Noonan can't see this; but then, Peggy is an idiot.
The inexperience of the president is witnessed by the fact that he didn't declare a "War on Health Care" and have his financial advisor announce that it would only cost $50-60 billion in the regular budget. Then he could simply ask for the $950 billion later in "special supplemental funding".
Newb mistake.
Obama went beyond "fixing" the health care system to just making shit up--nobody believes that the feds can run anything more efficiently than "evil" insurance companies.
What really did him in, though, was the sequential fiascoes of TARP (which he voted for), the failed stimulus package (chock full of pork, which he promised wouldn't happen, but did), the money we blew on GM and Chrysler and Obama's backtracking and lies about almost everything.
In other words, Obama campaigned on a combination of "we will fix everything" and "change." He hasn't fixed a damn thing, has made things worse, and has done nothing but support government as-is.
In short, everyone knows in their hearts that Obama is a lying asshole way in over his head. Liberals still claim to see what they want to see, but it's quite obvious listening to them that they know Obama is a fraud.
"I do not want to Nationalize GM".
***Nationalizes GM, fires CEO, puts UAW on the board***
I'd say that got some attention.
>On average, 50% of all change is 'bad'.
Your optimism is refreshing. You are obviously not acquainted with the operative law here, which is Sturgeon's Law: "90 per cent of everything is crap".
I remember hearing the president speak about how we need to set short deadlines so things get done. That bothers me. I think the constitution, two houses of congress, presidential vetos, supermajorities, beauracracy, etc., were all difficult by design.
It should be a long and difficult process for the government to make massive changes, especially ones they have no busines making.
People still read Peggy Noonan?
Doctor
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I hate to appear cynical, but my take is those at the CBO are just afraid that if health care is nationalized, they just may be put on the same plan being shoved at the rest of us.
br549, whatever it takes!
Trey
I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, TMink.
br549 said... "my take is those at the CBO are just afraid that if health care is nationalized, they just may be put on the same plan being shoved at the rest of us."
_________
I think that would be valid. If you have to exempt people from a law to get their vote and support, that may be a clue it is bad...if it were wonderful, wouldn't they want to participate?
Perhaps if the president and congress had to live by the rules they forced on the rest of us, the rules would be a bit better.
"I must say that I have little (okay, almost no) faith in bureaucrats but in this case, the CBO rose to the occasion and we should give credit where credit is due."
Is there anyone specific at the CBO that we could thank?
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