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Liberals’ Favorite Conservative
By Kyle | July 6, 2010
Or is that “conservative”? I like David Brooks and recommend this New York magazine profile of him (I doubt George Will would have posed for a slightly silly picture, though). But as Jonah Goldberg has noted, all these point/counterpoint shows, on which Brooks often appears, typically have a centrist guy like him or David Gergen labeled as the conservative voice, and a true-blue liberal on the other side. On a conservatism scale of 1 to 100, booking one guy who rates a 1 and one guy who is a 50 isn’t balance.
A few amusing things. The writer of the profile says, sarcastically, of the Tea Party that Brooks feels “they’re not racist, based on that time he saw some tea-partyers mingling with some black people.” Why is racism the only crime of which you are presumptively guilty? The writer offers zero evidence that the Tea Party is racist, but disparaging its members is easier than rebutting their ideas, so he takes the easy path. Do liberals really believe the Tea Party would be fine with Obamanomics if only it were implemented by a white guy? If they do, they should offer some evidence.
Here’s the key line in the piece, though: Brooks “doesn’t mind government projects so long as they incentivize mobility and innovation rather than stifling them — a caveat that could conceivably serve as a fig leaf for any kind of government action.” Just so! And the Washington Fig-Leaf Growers’ Association is more determined and powerful than at any time since the 1930s.
Brooks likes government, and he really, really likes government when it’s run by the kinds of people he hangs out with, or who describe things as Burkean, or whom he knew at the University of Chicago. This doesn’t make him a bad person, but on the central political question of our time, Brooks is on the liberal side.
Later in the piece we learn that Brooks doesn’t like suburbs (I don’t either; they’re ugly, soulless, car-centric and boring — yet of the two of us, I’m the one who lives in a city) and that he believes, of course, that his personal likes ought to be made reality by government intrusion: Policy “should try to foster good habits with ‘communitarian’ solutions like pre-K education, or zoning laws to prevent Wal-Marts fromtaking over neighborhoods.” This reminds me of George Will’s quip about John McCain, which went (I paraphrase), “McCain is easily irritated, and often seems to think that whatever irritates him should be illegal.”
Topics: Movies |
July 6th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Anyone claiming racism on the Tea Party clearly has no exposure to them. How has the media very conveniently overlooked the large number of minority candidates backed by the Tea Party? Allen West and Nikki Haley spring immediately to mind. If memory serves all 32 black candidates running for GOP nominations in national races this year are doing so with Tea Party backing.
The whole racism argument leftist trot out for eeeeevvvverything just smacks of laziness.
July 6th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
One thing I dislike about the political blogosphere is it’s tendency, during periods of slow news, of finding someone obnoxious on the other side to fisk, express outrage about, or just be critical of because the writers can’t think of anything else to write about and popularity is all about teh outrage.
Andrew Sullivan generates so much condemnation on the right that one wonders if the gets a percentage of the tips. David Brooks is another who is popular for this kind of treatment.
Look, the following has already been established:
Andrew Sullivan = screwed up jerk unworthy of further attention by decent people.
David Brooks - weasel and modern Lord Ha Ha unworthy of futher attention by decent people.
Time to move along.
July 6th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Kyle. I’m a fan, but “ugly, soulless, car-centric, and boring”? You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, and I’m not going to get all outraged on you. But, my friend, that attitude is a tad cliched amongst you city-folk. Let me briefly tell you my own story. I was a Manhattan and Brooklyn dweller from 1985 to 2005. I began as a single guy, and by 2005 I was a husband and a father of two. We cashed in our Park Slope brownstone and left behind astronomical private-school bills and snotty, nosy, busybody progressives. We gained a neighborhood a short commuter train ride from the city (where I work in the financial industry) which has political diversity if not racial diversity; beautiful tree-lined streets; a quaint downtown area; great schools; myriad recreational opportunities; warm, friendly inhabitants; and yes, some good restaurants and cultural offerings. You can see famous folkies play at a local church, or you can, for instance, see Nick Lowe with Graham Parker at the Mt. Tabor Tabernacle, as I am going to do this fall. (Oh, dear, I have now given away my home state and general age group.) There are some crazy local bars where I regularly play gigs with my rock and blues band. What do I miss about the city? The quality of the Chinese take-out food. I can live without that. Ugly, soulless, boring? Never. Car-centric? Last time I checked, there were a few vehicles in NYC. And by the way, I walk to and from the train station every day. So life is what you make it. And I have to say, it’s friggin’ good out here!
July 6th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Fine. Doesn’t bother me that you like the suburbs.
July 7th, 2010 at 12:13 am
Nah, you’re right. It’s like “Revolution Road”. Shoot me now.
July 7th, 2010 at 12:27 am
Sarcasm, of course. And I know it’s “Revolutionary Road”. Oh, how I hated that film.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:48 am
I read all of Brooks’ columns, many of which are rather cogent arguments for a liberal viewpoint. He then, in the second to last paragraph, usually remembers that he’s supposed to be the “conservative” columnist, and throws in some gratuitous swipes at liberals, just for the con bona fides.
@ Kyle and Brandon. I agree. The Tea folk would be outraged by a big-spending white dude in office. We used to call them Perotistas, and they’ve had many other incarnations over the years, long before a brother was in the Oval.
@ Brandon. You’ve never answered my questions about whether the TP would push for cuts in Medicare, raising the Soc Sec age, or trim the defense budget. I even emailed you. Tumbleweeds. Middle-class entitlements and defense are the biggest parts of Big Govt.
@ Kevin W. Very eloquent defense of your lifestyle choice. Let’s talk when gas goes to $5 a gallon and stays there.
July 7th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Brooks wrote that “bobo” book, was ridiculously wrong. As a resident of Brooklyn(the car-friendly outer part rather than snooty Slope)by all means, build the Walmart off the Belt Parkway. There are times when a trip to Trader Joe’s or the local Italian buther is a treat. But for bulk mac&cheese and paper plates, why am I forced to pay way more than the rest of America? And for those who rightly claim most small bodegas have limited, expensive and often rotting fresh fruit and vegetables, Walmart would improve that dramatically.
He also propogated the ideal of “American exceptionalism”. Readily agree this country is great for many reasons, but the idea that is exportable dangerous nonsense.
July 7th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Bugg: Brooklyn Costco. What’re yeh waitin’ fer? Go there. Life-altering warehouse.
@ Kevin W. Where you live sounds lovely. But most of suburbia and exurbia is as Kyle describes. And it’s unsustainable long-term. Forget “Revolutionary Road,” which was a drearily contemptuous book (didn’t seek the pic). Read anything by James Howard Kunstler. OK, he’s a radical, but I suspect he’s also the canary.
July 7th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
@ Yankee
I went back digging in my email trying to find it but had no luck and am too afraid to even attempt to look into my spam folder which is at a 2,107 messages.
That said I will try to answer your question here. Would the Tea Party as a group push for Medicare cuts? I’d say no but the reason I say no is not due to hypocrisy but is simply due to the fact that like 9.5 out of 10 Americans they simply don’t understand it enough to know where cuts could be made.
Conversely people like myself who are affiliated with Tea Party groups and do understand Medicare are a different story. I have long preached for the total erradication of Medicare (a process that would have to be eased in stages over a 25 year period) but that’s because I’ve worked in healthcare for the last dozen years and know that Medicare is almost solely responsible for the current pricing crisis in healthcare. I know that according to the statistics kept in the House Ways and Means Committee the cost of healthcare has doubled every 4 years since Medicare’s inception in 1966. I also know it’s the price fixing mechanisms put in place with the Medicare Fee Schedule that have stifled true innovation and improved care for all Americans.
The average Tea Partier does not have this level of industry specific knowledge and neither do liberal columnist or others who chose to “take sides” on the healthcare boondoggle. I think it’s that lack of understanding that would make the Tea Party or any group reluctant to call for Medicare cuts. I also think it’s that lack of understanding that makes people freak out when they here about “cuts” but in this case they were right to freak out about the cuts because these cuts are being made to Medicare Fee Schedule rates to specialist. This will be greatly limiting and in some cases eliminating senior’s access to specialized care.
July 7th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Well-thought-out view Brandon, but you realize that in a political context, you wouldn’t be elected Undersecretary of Dogcatchery, even (especially?) as a Tea Party candidate.
One of my oldest and best friends is a doctor. He thinks more than 70-80% of spiralling health costs are due to people living much longer, and technology allowing them to live well beyond when the Good Lord has called them home.
He has a one-word solution: rationing.
Or what some of your fellow anti-government-except-for-the-very-biggest-parts-of-govt Tea Partiers would call “death panels.”
July 7th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
In other news, I am sure you will all join me in celebrating the news that Michael Moore has just been elected to the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picrure Arts and Sciences - AKA AMPAS! Go Mike!
July 7th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Yet another odd statement from the self-proclaimed “libertarian” Hunter Tremayne.
July 7th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
A summary of recent remarks by Yankeefan:
1) You cost-cutting conservatives would never support cutting Medicare, you unprincipled hypocrites!
2) Okay, you not only support cutting Medicare, you really, really support cutting Medicare. But that’s politically impossible! How naive you are to stick to principles!
3) Suggested practical, politically feasible solution: Death panels!
July 7th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Reckon The Tillman Story is a shoe-in to win the Best Documentary Oscar now.
July 7th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
@ Kyle. I am simply pointing out that when you get into the nitty-gritty of actually cutting government, anti-government types balk at the necessary cuts. The largest aspects of domestic spending are middle-class entitlements. Tea Partiers, and many other conservative voters frankly, howl when actual cuts are proposed to Medicare or Soc Sec. TP folks have been polled repeatedly on this, and they oppose cuts to Medicare and raising the Soc Sec age.
I am not proposing death panels. The term “death panel” was advanced by Tea Party favorite Palin when a VOLUNTARY PROGRAM to discuss end-of-life options was proposed. If a voluntary program elicits the charge of death panels, then what type of rhetoric would *actual* proposed cuts to Medicare inspire? Well, “they want to kill gramma” for starters….
July 7th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
@Yankee
LeBron James is an outstanding basketball player arguably the best in the world today but would that make him an outstanding GM? Same goes with your doctor friend he knows medicine very well but I imagine knows nothing about running a hospital and the true cost of healthcare. I’m the same way I don’t know much about medicine, more than most as immersion in the industry allows you to pick up bits here and there, but I know inside and out the cost dynamics of the industry.
Also I don’t disagree that people would be unwilling to elect anyone saying they wanted to do away with Medicare but that goes back to people not understanding what Medicare has done and continues to do. I’ve done a good bit of consulting on healthcare with Senatorial candidates this last year or so (I’ve been brought in as their “expert”) and candidly mention my issues with Medicare and they understand but know it is political suicide. However if people could be made to understand it I think they’d come around just as many people who once supported farming subsidies have come to understand how foolish they are.
Regarding rationing that would ultimately do nothing to curb the cost of healthcare. Think of it logically and you’ll realize making a service more scarce would in fact increase it’s cost just as DeBeer’s tight controls on diamond mining drove up the price of diamonds back in the 1930s.
The easiest ways to fix the cost of healthcare are this:
1. Immediate elimination of the Medicare Fee Schedule this puts the pricing of healthcare back in the hands of the hospitals and clinics and would be step one in phasing out Medicare. Once this was done physicians would begin having to compete for business by lowering their cost to draw consumers. For an excellent example of this look no further than the cost of LASIK eye surgery which has seen it’s cost in the last 15 years move from over $10,000 per eye to around $1,200 per eye. When was the last time the cost of traditional medicine came down?
2. Reconnecting the consumer to the cost of healthcare through policies based on spending accounts and benefit caps. Currently if you go to the doctor and have insurance you will only face a copay of between $10 and $50 depending on your policy. This has created a fundamental disconnect between the consumer and the actual cost of the services rendered leading people to go to doctor for frankly foolish reasons that did not require a doctor at all. The significance of this of course is these needless visits all require the insurance company to spend money and the more they spend the more they have to attempt to recover in order to be profitable which naturally they do through increased premiums. This has been the primary driving force for increased insurance cost over the last thirty years.
Why don’t you take your car to the auto shop frequently? Because it’s too expensive. Think how often you’d take your car to the shop if you only had to pay $25 each time. You’d go every time you heard or thought you heard a noise, afterall it’s only $25. This is what has happened to healthcare.
The answer is to assign benefit amounts per policy. For example I am a 33 year old male in good health who works out frequently and probably does not need much coverage. So under this system I would buy $5,000 worth of benefits with a $1,000 deductible and for extra maybe I buy a catastrophic rider for expenses beyond $15,000 in case I incur a major injury. This would mean I would pay the first $1,000 out of pocket and after that the insurance carrier would only pay for $5,000 of care. As a consumer this means I’d have to be more careful since I have a set amount (just as we really do with our bank accounts) and I would not recklessly use my benefits. From an insurance standpoint it would drive down the price of insurance because insurance carriers could more easily predict the risk of each insured. The healthcare foolishness they just passed does the exact opposite of this by removing the ability to cap benefits which will lead to dramatic increases in premiums since insurance carriers will have lost the ability to predict the risk.
July 7th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Hunter as an actual Libertarian I must say “I know you not”. Leftist and Libertarians are so far apart that one cannot effectively impersonate the other. It’s kind of like watching a dog pretend it’s an airplane.
July 7th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Leftist? Me? Hardly. Where did I ever say that? What’s wrong with being a Libertarian who is for gun control but is against big government, is pro-choice but against affirmitive action? What’s wrong, in fact, than thinking for yourself?
July 7th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
shoo-in not shoe-in
July 7th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Yes it is, but Spain just made the World Cup Finals so wine was partaken of.
July 7th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
@ Brandon.
>>>LeBron James is an outstanding basketball player…. Same goes with your doctor friend he knows medicine very well but I imagine knows nothing about running a hospital and the true cost of healthcare.
Good point. And I want to be clear: I wasn’t advocating rationing. But the concept does get bandied about in health circles, not just by my friend. Also, you seem to have figured out my doc friend quite well.
You put forth many thoughtful proposals, but let me ask a simple question, and it’s not rhetorical: How is it that countries like France and Canada and others spend less than half as much as we do per person on healthcare, and have better outcomes?
July 7th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
@ Brandon. On one other point…
Libertarian = wants small govt for everyone else. (Surely you know this to be true from your candidate-advising work.)
July 7th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Later in the piece we learn that Brooks doesn’t like suburbs (I don’t either; they’re ugly, soulless, car-centric and boring
Kyle, you ignorant slut.
July 7th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
@ Yankee
The Canadian and French arguments come up frequently but both actually further prove my point about Medicare. The cost of our healthcare has been driven up by Medicare’s price fixing efforts; neither France or Canada have Medicare so there is that. Naturally you will point out they both have more aggressive state run programs and you would be correct but here are the chief differences…this may involve lots of statistics sorry about that.
Looking at Canada first as of 2008 Canada averaged around $5200 per citizen whereas the US averaged around $7700. A good size gap. This difference is caused by access to care which in Canada leads to rationing. Due to the government system in Canada paying so little few doctors are willing to do business there so in Canada they average about one doctor per 500 people whereas in the US we average about 1 doctor per 350 people. Since there is more access to care in the US and more frequent use of services there is naturally a higher expenditure in the US than in Canada where your access is more limited. I addressed this earlier of course by mentioning how we abuse going to the doctor in the US. Even more interesting when you figure the doctor to patient ratio versus cost we are pretty much on par with Canada; Canada spends roughly 68% of what we do on healthcare per citizen but they do so with a doctor to patient ratio 70% of that of the US.
The French are more interesting and also harder to figure out. A consulting firm I worked with for several years studied the various healthcare systems around the world and the French is the hardest to get information on which makes a good deal of their boasting hard to verify. Their system is a hybrid of private and state run with roughly 30% being funded by private insurers. We know the number of physicians they have is per capita on par with the US. One notable difference with the French system is the public portion of their plan generally only pays 70% of expenses leaving the rest to the patient, for this patients buy supplemental private insurance. What this really means is the patients in France face a larger cost burden per visit than in the US this prevents people from going to the doctor needlessly. Our studies showed French attend the doctor only 60% as often as Americans in spite of near equal access. They average a very impressive near $4000 per citizen because that 30% out of pocket cost seems to serve as a very effective deterrent. In the US members of Medicare and Medicaid generally face minimal to no cost burden and this cost burden bridges the majority of the per citizen gap between the US and France. The rest seems to be bridged by behavioral differences in utilization of medical care.
Now regarding the “better outcomes” portion. The problem with this has always been the US meticulously tracks healthcare statistics and determines or attempts to determine cause of death in all cases whereas not just the French and Canadian systems but most of the world’s systems do not do this. As a result the statistics on essentially every disease known to man in the US seem bloated in comparison but if you were to do a comparison of deaths listed as “undetermined” or “unlisted” you would find France, Canada, and other supposedly seemingly superior systems far outpace the US. That’s a long winded way of saying it’s impossible to prove any superiority in their systems because the statistics to do so simply do not exist because we do not track data on equal playing fields.
July 7th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
And yes Yankee I know Libertarians are for smaller government it is my contention that while Hunter says that is what he supports a couple years of reading his comments indicate differently.
For the record the candidates I’ve advised thus far have all been Republicans. I and my colleagues have reached out to several Democrats but they have shown no interest in discussing free market solutions.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:43 am
@ Brandon - great posts, excellent reading. Thanks!
July 8th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Brandon, thanks for taking the time. Even if it’s abundantly clear that you really want to pull the plug on gramma.
July 8th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Yeah, gramma has hung around long enough.
Seriously if you ever want details on how Medicare’s price fixing has affected healthcare let me know. I figure the more people are educated on the matter the better off we’ll be.
July 11th, 2010 at 8:48 am
“While Yates’s depiction of suburban life is nightmarish enough to exceed the worst fears of Jane Jacobs’s devotees, Revolutionary Road is far more than a complacent takedown of the ’burbs. It is in fact less an anti-suburban novel than a novel about people who blame their unhappiness on the suburbs.”