How Obama should explain Obamacare

There’s a obvious way to explain the fact that Obamacare has led to the cancellation of millions of health insurance policies, so I thought I’d give our President a helpful tip. Here’s what he should say:

I understand that many of you have had your policies cancelled, are upset that new policies under the ACA will cost you more than you were previously pay, and cannot afford the increased premiums.

Let me be clear: No one feels your pain more deeply than I.

However, you are, perhaps, missing some of the benefits of the ACA. Sure, it probably will be more expensive than your present plan, but you’ll get a lot more for your money. Besides, the biggest health problem facing America is obesity; so, if you just cut down on the amount of food you buy, not only will you be able to afford your new health care, but you’ll eat less and thus be at far less risk for obesity-related diseases.

This will, in the final analysis, save both you and your country a great deal of money. You should thank me.

Why don't we just skip all the fighting and declare defeat now?

Let me see if I can get the logic straight here:

1. “In part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action, as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin” … the international community will pressure Syria to give up chemical weapons.
2. Because the “credible threat of U.S. military action” was so important in achieving this (potential) diplomatic breakthrough, “I have, therefore, asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path.”
3. Therefore, while we needed the threat of force to get on the “diplomatic path,” that threat is not necessary in order to assure that we keep moving down that path. But Assad will understand that the U.S. can renew that threat at any moment – and Congress will surely go along.
4. Or, more likely, Obama cannot convince even the members of his own party in the Senate to authorize a military strike, so he's avoiding a catastrophic political/foreign policy defeat. Gosh, it's a good thing Putin and Assad are too dim to figure this out!

Wow -- a cogent criticism

So – a commenter mentioned that it would be worthwhile to mention where in Religio Medici my little quotation comes from: It's Section XXIV of Part I. Widely available on line; I like Bartleby.

Sir Thomas Browne and demosclerosis

The august Instapundit links today to Mickey Kaus’s discussion of Walter Russell Mead, which leads to links to discussions of demosclerosis, a term invented by Jonathan Rauch in Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government (1994).

Basically, the idea is that the government is too big and does too much, so too many people are invested in and lobby for particular government programs, causing the true commonweal to be ignored.

But this is not a new problem. It happens in all large systems. For instance, in his Religio Medici (1643), Sir Thomas Browne wrote

Tis not a melancholy Utinam of my own, but the desires of better heads, that there were a general Synod; not to unite the incompatible difference of Religion, but for the benefit of learning, to reduce it as it lay at first, in a few and solid Authors; and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of Rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgements of Scholars, and to maintain the trade and mystery of Typographers.

As a quondam typographer, I’ve long liked this sentiment. I have, more than once, added to the “swarms and millions of Rhapsodies” – books which, I can only hope, were never read and, if read, not remembered.

Of course, now there is hardly any typography left … and don't get me started on copy-editing and proofreading.

To return to my point: Let us reduce, not learning, but the Federal law “as it lay at first,” stripping from it that legislation which serves “only to distract and abuse the weaker judgements” of lawyers, judges, politicians, and pundits.

You didn't build that; you can't shoot that

I should begin by confessing that I do not own any firearms. I do, however, own two target bows, and, six weeks after I picked up my first real bow, I placed 50th in the NCAA nationals (then Title IX killed Men's Archery at my college *sigh*). And when I do go to a shooting range, I do tolerably well -- shooting is shooting, after all: though the mechanics change, the mind is the same.

However, my wife just got her rifle and pistol permits from the State of New Jersey ...

Reading the arguments for gun control, I was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu. They are very similar to the Obama economic policy, which is aimed first to belittle and then to prevent unapproved entrepreneurial activity. Your economic role is, preferably, to be an employee or client of the government; failing that, you should do non-profit work; or work for a creative or academic industry; or, if nothing else fits, work for an approved large corporation (GM, Goldman Sachs, Solyndra, etc.).

If you insist on working for yourself, following your own ideas, then you will be punished -- first by thousands upon thousands of pages of Federal regulations, then by the tax code, and, finally, if you get through those, by societal disapprobation. (See, e.g., the roles of businessmen in Hollywood movies.)

In other words, the Obama doctrine has no room for people doing their own thing in the marketplace -- only in the bedroom. The marketplace must be carefully controlled, for everyone's mutual well-being, by the government and its "Gleichschaltung" businesses.

Similarly, so must violence be controlled: Just as you have no business coming up with your own ideas for economic activity, you have no business defending yourself. If you are accosted by a violent criminal, your only approved option is to call the police. If they somehow fail to arrive in time (when seconds count, the police are only minutes away), then it is your duty to die.

Unapproved defence, like unapproved business, can only lead to societal chaos.

Further thoughts on the liberal rich

I should have separated out immigration amnesty as a sixth policy. Unchecked immigration helps keep wages down for the lower classes, thus further impeding their ability to rise on the economic scale.

Also, the decoupling of work and welfare and the expanded provision of “benefits” such as unemployment insurance and food stamps help to diminish motivation at the bottom. That makes seven.

Finally (for now), the inattention to the national debt—remember, Obama admitted on the Letterman show that he doesn’t even know what the national debt is—and, a fortiori, the failure to deal with the fiscal gap will further diminish prospects for all those not already rich.

The “fiscal gap” is the difference between the present value of the expected cost of future government obligations—pensions, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, &c. Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University estimates that the Federal fiscal gap is $222,000,000,000,000, or about $707,000 per capita. Add to that the state gaps (nearly all states have ridiculously underfunded pensions), and you can easily get to three hundred trillion dollars, which is nearly one million dollars for every man, woman, child, and illegal alien in the United States.

Why do the rich vote for Democrats?

The news is that 8 of the 10 richest counties in America voted for Obama over Romney. Since everyone knows that rich people are selfish criminal bastards who don’t want to pay any taxes, this would seem to be counterintuitive. Why would they do that?

One theory is that rich people tend to be well educated and therefore can be expected to have an enlightened view of their responsibilities and of the role of government in society.

Yeah, right.

Thomas Frank, in What’s the Matter with Kansas, make the liberal—or Marxist—argument that the only criterion one should use to decide how to vote is economic. Since, he argues, Kansas’s economy is actively harmed by Republican policies, it makes no sense that they consistently vote for more of the same.

So, using Frank’s approach, we should look for economic reasons for the rich to vote for Democrats.

Once one is in the top 5% of incomes, additional movement upward becomes very difficult, so one will be more interested in ensuring that one maintains one’s status than in striving to advance it. Throughout history, old money has always looked down upon the nouveau riche. One doesn’t, after all, want hoi polloi moving into one’s nice neighborhood.

Democratic economic policies could well have been expressly designed to keep the rich comfortable.

1. We have an income tax, not a wealth tax (except for the relatively minor property tax). Thus, once one’s income is no longer derived from wages and is larger than the Social-Security cutoff (currently $110,100), income tax is not a great concern. However, for those trying to become rich, the marginal tax rate (federal, state, and sometimes local income tax, as well as payroll taxes [entrepeneurs are quite aware of both the employee and the employer “contributions” to Social Security]) can easily reach 50%, making the task far, far more difficult.
2. Our suburbs sprawl throughout the landscape, and most lower- and middle-class families desire bigger houses with bigger yards. These desires, if fulfilled, would naturally diminish the quality of life currently enjoyed by the rich in their suburban enclaves. This explains the long campaign against suburban sprawl. By aggressively promoting policies designed to keep people—especially minorities—cooped up in the urban core, the suburbs are kept safe for the rich.
3. The rich also need to deal with other countries, who might get wealthy and either compete with them for resources or actually move here. (Illegal immigration of the poor is fine, of course: they need someone to tend their lawns.) Hence the concern with global warming: the policies desired to prevent global warming will also prevent third-world economies from becoming a threat.
4. Unfortunately, given the structure of the American Constitution, anyone can, in theory, start a business and become rich. However, we can create regulations that will make it prohibitively expensive for all but those who are already rich to do so. Established companies owned by those who are already rich can either be grandfathered out of the regulations, lobby the government for an exception, or simply absorb the costs, relying upon economies of scale. None of these strategies are open to the small businessman.
5. Most effectively of all, the rich can ally themselves with the government, ensuring that government money is spent on them and on their friends. This is called crony capitalism, and adds further obstacles to upstart competitors. If your competition has a guaranteed permanent contract with the government, they will always have a substantial income advantage over you.

Thus, if you are rich, you would be foolish to vote for policies that would further the economic freedom of those who wish to be rich like you. Such policies would inevitably diminish your relative status and are to be discouraged.

Given the Constitution, there is no conceivable set of polices other than these—higher income taxes, sprawl prevention, anti–global warming, more regulations, crony capitalism—that would be more effective in maintaining those who are now rich at the top of the economic heap. So, really, Frank’s question should be, “What’s the matter with rich Republicans?”