The House failed to pass a plan to cut the budget deficit this week. The Senate however, did so with the provision that ANWR be opened for oil exploration. It seems renegade Republican house members could not agree on the same measure.
So it stalled, with a promise to return to the fight this week.
I have my own theory about this. Her name is Harriet Miers. Bear with me.
I think that when conservatives turned on moderates and the president in the recent meltdown over the nomination of Harriet Miers, many moderates felt abandoned, even unappreciated.
They did not feel that way because of Miers herself so much as they did because of the attack by the pundits of anyone outside the fold.
So they might be reminding the right, that without them things don't go so well.
I think we need to open ANWR myself, for two reasons: the Middle East and Hugo Chavez.
I also think the canards about the small amount of crude there are simply not true. If it were, the energy industry would not pursue this so relentlessly. I also think the environmentalists should spend their time trying to bring New Jersey back to its original ecological condition as one of the continents largest natural wetlands and leave the tundra alone. We are talking about an area so vast that the oil industry could go in there and pump out that oil and unless some anal environmentalist made an issue of it...no one would ever be the wiser. Including the caribou.
But the real point here is that some of the moderates in the Republican party might be reminding the conservatives that they do not control everything.
Just a thought. Don't throw things at me. I am a moderate and I hate to argue.
16 comments:
Mark, would it actually make any difference to point you to the sources that explain (contrary to what you're saying) that the "cuts" were reductions in the rate of growth of future increases, or explain to you what the word "fungible" means in the sentence "Oil is fungible"?
If your kid's broken arm or bird flu doesn't get treated next year under Medicaid
Broken arm == bird flu? Equating the trivial with the severe has been the standard excuse for thought on the left for many years. I suppose it counts for profound insight because no average person could make such deep connections.
Anyway, Mark, where is that secret treatment/cure for bird flu at this time? And what are you doing to help your community prepare besides cultivating a helpful cynical attitude. Is snark the long sought universal treatment for the flu? Perhaps we should bottle it.
you NEED that tax cut don't you?
Gosh, now I'm rich like Soros or Teresa. Mark, without your astute observation I would never have known. I will be thinking of you as I try to spend my new found million$.
Don't tell me, I'll give your talking point for you
Thanks, Mark. I could hardly exist but for your tireless efforts to tell me who I am. I am deeply appreciative and will remain eternally grateful.
terrye
Your theory would make more sense if the "moderates" had not been sticking it to the party since long before Miers came along.
Think of the Gang of 14 for one example. Or Jeffords defecting and handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.
flenser:
I did not only mean Harriet Miers, in fact I would guess that many of these people were not really that supportive of her.
I am talking about the attitude of many purists toward moderates.
mark:
I take care of sick people and I deal with medicaid and medicare every day of my life, or very nearly everyday.
Now they are introducing the new medicare drug program which will cost a lot of money. In a few years the state will be picking up a very large percentage of the health care bill once the baby boomers go on Medicare. People have no idea what that is going to costs.
As for medicaid, I know a lot of people who get all their health care and medication from medicaid. It is not a question of cutting them, it is a question of slowing down the increase.
Flu shots are not going to be cut, in fact they are giving them free to clients right now.
For instance a client of mine has a nervous daughter and a sick husband and a grandchild with fetal alcohol syndrome. Three generations right there whose entire medical bill is being picked up by the state. And they complain that the service is not better.
We do need to slow down the increase in entitlements or it will overwhelm the system.
I have health insurance, but it is expensive and I pay taxes too, but I am not rich. I do remember when Clinton raised taxes and I had to pay more.
Many of our clients have not paid taxes for years.
And before you get all self righteous none of the cuts discussed here are as big as the ones pushed by Clinton in 1997. I knew old ladies who lost their home health care service altogether when that happened. So it seems the Democrats can cut spending when one of their own is in the White House.
You have completely missed my point.
Speaking of big tents, I know I got kicked out of the Democratic one when Michael Moore moved in.
And the idea of opening ANWR was [once upon a time] jimmy Carter's. How times have changed.
I don't think opening ANWR will make a bit of difference in the long run, one way or the other. As Terrye notes, it wouldn't really be noticed by environmentalists except that it has become a symbol. On the other hand, I don't think it will make a lot of difference in our dependence on foreign oil.
Where I live there is a lot of city- and county-owned "Open Space" which cannot be built on, cannot have bikes ridden on, and in some cases cannot be walked on. The Open Space is sacred in the local religion and I do not exaggerate with that statement. Five years ago I noticed that in a little corner of the Open Space near my house, a corner which is not easily accessible to cars, they were drilling for oil. Now this ultimate sacrilege was close to home but it was not visible. There were no protesters because nobody knew about it. No one had made a big deal out of it so nothing happened. Yet some of my neighbors living right around here, people who were completely unaware of this drilling right here, were outraged at the prospect of drilling thousands of miles away in Alaska.
Because it won't make a lot of difference, the Republicans are foolish to flog this particular horse. It earns them no particular kudos and lots of brickbats. I think it's inevitable that ANWR will be drilled, but it would be wise to wait until the crisis is more severe and the need is more obvious.
meaningless:
I think something else is at play here. I think the moderates feel used by the conservatives.
Kind of like the Rodney Dangerfields of the Republican party and so they are letting all and sundry know that they can be petulant too.
It is political and no doubt there is more to it than we see. There always is.
mark
what a maroon you are. If it weren't for the tax cuts that mom probably wouldn't even have her job at Wal Mart.
Besides, she can vote. Let her. She has a voice.
That type of rhetoric coming from you just sounds pathetic. Vote your own goddamned pocketbook, not mine or anyone else's.
mark:
Nonsense. They tried to do something like that in Tennessee and it failed, in a big way.
Besides in another 20 years most people are going to be on some kind of health care anyway.
I could just as easily say get rid of the lawyers.
So, Mark, your answer would be that no attempt to impede the growth of spending is permissible as long as you could find saomeone who you think needs the money? That's the antural consquence of your argument. And your windmills take years to come on line too.
So, I'm guessing the answer is "no".
You want to cut medical costs? Then pass universal healthcare. Every other industrial first world nation on earth has it and they pay about 8% of their GDP on healthcare as opposed to our 13%.
Never actually lived in one of those countries, eh? I have. Another one of those little details you keep missing --- along with the fact that if ANWR oil goes to Asia it makes the price of your gas go down even if we buy all our oil elsewhere --- is that the way those countries manage this is by rationing their health care. Don't get a brain tumor in England --- they give you steroids and send you home to die. Don't develop a need for eye surgery for a degenerative problem while living in Canada --- you can't get ophthalmic surgery in less than three years unless it's an emergency, ie, the degenerative eye problem has already made you legally blind.
But it's free, when they get around to it, Charlie. I mean, can't you see that?
Oh. Sorry.
Mark,
I agree with you that we are headed toward a health-care crisis. But we've been teetering on the edge since the 70's at least. Allow me to point out though that every commodity is rationed. That's the nature of life. Every thing you might want to buy is limited. You never get as much as you want. The question then is what is the fairest form of rationing. PostOffice Healthcare is a form of rationing in which everybody is equally poor. Rationing by price has the advantage of giving an incentive to producers so that more is produced.
meaningless:
That is true, it is also true that poor people get health care in this country. It is also true that government already is assuming a lot of the costs.
It is also true that a lot of people from Canada come here to see a doctor and home to buy their meds.
80% of our clients are either medicaid or medicare.
As for drilling in ANWR, we are talking about world prices of commodities here, not local. So wherever the oil is drilled it will add to overall supplies. It will also be there if we do need to have more domestic supply.
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