Infecting the Republicans
by Donald Devine
Issue 136 - July 22, 2009

Why do the top “progressive” columnists for two of the preeminent establishment media outlets spend almost as much time blaming Republicans as praising Democrats? The Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate, absolute control of the House and the presidency. The GOP is irrelevant politically. Yet, neither the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne nor the Wall Street Journal’s Thomas Frank is one to waste his powerful propaganda pulpit. What is up?

Anyone wise to the ways of Washington knows that President Barack Obama’s two top priorities of universal health reform and cap-and-trade climate control have zero probability of emerging from Congress in any form that will either please his progressive political base or have any possibility to institute real reform. The outlines of the likely legislative results have emerged for both policies and they are already highly compromised, a lobbyists dream of special interest protections and political payoffs. So the Democratic media flacks need someone to take the blame – and who better than the hapless Republicans?

The poor Republicans are confused. The Dionnes’ keep telling the GOP they must support the popular president – especially on health reform - to save the party politically. Why should Republicans assume these progressives have their best interests at heart? Still, it is extremely difficult to admit you are irrelevant. Even President Bill Clinton insisted he was relevant after the 1994 Republican victory when his advisors told him to hold back and let Newt Gingrich overreach himself, which he did after Clinton stopped complaining. Unless the GOP recognizes its weakness and shuts up now, it will walk into the only trap that can possibly save the Democrats from an absolute disaster in the 2010 election, one that could make them look back to 1994 with nostalgia. When your opponents are busy destroying themselves, it is foolhardy to step into the middle of the fight.

Listen to Democrats on their number one priority, the policy all are anxious to support, universal health care. President Obama’s top goal is a “government option” health plan to compete with private plans, supposedly “to keep them honest.” Who first raised the objection that any government plan would have special advantages that would threaten all private insurance policies, special advantages that would force them out of business? It was Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. A Democrat, Ron Wyden, in fact, introduced a plan without the option. This led Dem. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad to propose a national co-op institution with state affiliates and looser government controls. But these immediately were protested by Dem. Sen. Charles Schumer as not regulatory enough. They were in a fix. The more power the government had, the more worried the Democratic middle became – but the less control given to the Feds the more concern rose on its left. Independent Democrat Joseph Lieberman came to the conclusion “a public option” is “a cost we can’t take on.”

Cost is the crux of the issue. When President Obama set the health price tag at $1.6 trillion, Democratic Finance Chairman Max Baucus rejected it outright as impossibly extravagant, demanding something less than one trillion. Since covering the millions presently uninsured inevitably means higher expenditures, the only alternative was more income to offset costs, which came into conflict with President Obama’s pledge that no one earning under $250,000 would face increased taxes. The Democratic House leadership proposed a tax for those above $280,000 – bringing the top rate to 45 percent, the highest since the 1986 reforms – but that would pay less than half the cost so other House Democrats suggested either a value-added national sales tax or taxes on alcohol, sweets and other “unhealthy foods,” both, of course disproportionally falling on the poor.

Sufficient money could be raised by using the funds exempted by the present employer tax credit to pay for benefits. But that was opposed by candidate Obama since it would adversely affect union members who have more generous health benefits than the rest of the population. So the top 70 unions threatened the whole project if Democrats adopted it, calling such a proposal “dead on arrival.” Sen. Baucus then proposed excluding union health plans from his proposal, upsetting Democrats from non-union Southern states without appeasing the unions.

The likely result is a very expensive bill that does very little, compromised to death by Democratic special interests. Business-friendly Democrats have proposed reducing the penalties for not joining the new “mandatory” health system but if these are low enough, employers may find it cheaper to pay the fines, upsetting Democratic health reform enthusiasts. To reduce the great expense of subsidizing all currently uninsured, the Senate Democratic draft bill would cover only those earning up to 300 percent of the poverty level, forcing millions just above that level to buy health insurance they cannot afford. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy priorities complained these folks would then “face daunting bills, with no relief.” Additional coverage could come from expanding Medicaid but since it is also supported by state funds Dem. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked “how could I support that” when it could cost her struggling state of California $5 billion more per year?

All of this is upsetting the people who are the supposed beneficiaries of this government largess. Sure they like the idea of free health care for all, who would not? But when they hear about a Medical Advisory Council to decide what medical services are “essential benefits” to be covered and which are not, modeled on the British board that limits total payment and type of care available to individual patients, there is unease. A Federal Health Board on top of that to decide which kind of treatment is “best” and therefore eligible for reimbursement sounds awfully close to the word President Obama – understandably – has banned from the debate, “rationing.” Although the president touts polls that say people support a government option, a Washington Post/ABC News poll asked whether people supported one if it did not allow private plans to compete and a majority opposed his approach.

Three-fourth of Americans were worried a new plan would increase bureaucracy in the health care system, 79 percent were concerned access to physicians would be restricted, 83 percent thought the quality of care would be lowered, 82 percent worried coverage would decline, 84 percent were concerned the government deficit would be larger, and 84 percent were worried the costs of their health care coverage would be increased. No wonder Democrats are nervous. It brings back images not only of the 1994 Hillary-care debacle but of 1989 when the Democratic Ways and Means chairman was personally assaulted by elderly activists, leading to the actual repeal of the “reforms” adopted the previous year.

The number two priority cap-and-trade climate bill passed by the House has so many compromises already that Democratic-leaning Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth now oppose it. But Dem. Majority Leader Harry Reid went forward promising “as a legislator, everything is negotiable” for still further compromises in the Senate. Beyond that, even President Obama is worried about the massive spending on Medicare and Medicaid that will follow immediately thereafter from the retirement of the massive Baby Boom elderly generation. Finally, the economic recovery plan passed to avoid unemployment of 8 percent has reached 9.5 percent and will soon be 10 percent, one-fifth higher than the initial concern. The stock market is down more than 40 percent from its high two years ago. AIG is still in the government emergency room, government-owned General Motors is teetering, and the toxic subprime mortgages remain on the bank books. Worst of all, inflation from the massive Fed injections of liquidity will come next.

Everything is falling apart. The only question is how bad things will get and when? Democrats cannot escape a poor economy and the major complaints are from the Democrats, who are in total control, and from their constituents. Surely, it was much more fun to criticize the Republicans than govern. Criticism is what Democrats do best – so they will try to contaminate the health of the GOP once again. Infecting the Republicans is the only way to avoid electoral disaster in 2010.

The counter strategy for Republicans is for minority leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner to insist that GOP congressmen answer every media question before the final Democratic bills are presented with the response: “The Democrats have the votes and the presidency, let’s see what they will propose.” When a bill becomes public, explain in the most somber terms why that proposal will bankrupt the country - again and again - and otherwise keep mute.

Politicians, of course, cannot stop talking so the odds are the GOP will walk into the trap just as they did in 1996. The good news for the minority is that the disaster may be so great the Democrats will suffer big losses anyway. The bad news is that if the Republicans win, President Obama like President Clinton before him will probably learn from the experience and move right to improve his chances in 2012.

Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University.