Now, a year and a half later, it’s still not entirely clear what sort of health policy Brown favors. But we know more about what kind he doesn’t: In Politico, Brown has announced his opposition to the budget and entitlement overhaul proposed by the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan. The primary reason why? Medicare.
Brown writes that Medicare’s “increasing cost must be addressed” and that attempts to do so are “long overdue” as part of any “serious” effort to do something about the long-term national debt. But Ryan’s plan is just too stingy, apparently: “As health inflation rises,” Brown writes, “the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support—and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays.” So Brown agrees that the problem with the current Medicare system is that it puts the public on the hook for ever-rising health care expenses, which are growing faster than we can afford to pay for them. Yet his first complaint about Ryan’s plan is that it backs away from that commitment, altering the system in such a way that the federal government doesn’t continue to spend on Medicare at a rate that’s rising at a dangerous and unsustainable rate. Like many Democrats, Brown seems to be upset that Ryan’s plan solves the problem Rep. Ryan intended it to solve.
Somehow, though, the former Cosmo pin-up model managed to support last year’s financial regulation bill, despite the fact that it didn’t solve the problems it was intended to solve.
Those three paragraphs really encapsulate how glibertarians think. Medicare costs are increasing too fast, so in order to get those costs in line, we’ll use the Ryan plan! We’ll give trillions away in tax cuts and then… stop paying for Medicare. Voila! Problem solved!
Try that shit at home, folks. Your significant other comes to you, concerned that food prices are going through the roof and you all might not be able to pay your food bills. Offer up this snappy plan- tell them you are going to spend a shitload of money on hookers, gambling, and beer, and then stop paying the grocery bills. See the genius in it? Problem solved! Report back to me the reception this gets at home- I’m betting it is much like the reception the Ryan plan is getting everywhere outside of Reason HQ and Paul Ryan’s office.
Brown’s point is that we need to somehow address the escalating costs of providing medical care, not just tell millions of people to piss off and die while sending tax cuts to the Koch brothers.
I really need to stop reading these people. Oh. And then you have this.
Sentient Puddle
Are you sure he’s even connecting those dots? Most of what I hear from him is something more along the lines of “Oh shit, I forgot I’m in a blue state!”
Alex S.
The guest list is priceless. Daniels AND Brooks AND Alan Simpson AND McArdle. At least, they can be really, really serious to each other and discuss why a country like Somalia is not that bad for corporate profits.
The Moar You Know
I agree, it’s by far the best way to get out of a stifling relationship.
You think my comment’s not relevant? Think about it for a while. You’ll get it.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Hey, that sort of solution works – don’t knock it. Is that a baby which will go and turn over or guzzle the methlab while you’re passed out? The answer is “no”…..
dmsilev
Worst law firm ever.
Also, too, is it wrong to pray for a well-timed meteor strike?
MattR
It doesn’t matter how many times it is said, it just does not get through their skulls that health care is not a normal good or service where people are going to cut back on their use of it if the price goes up or if they are forced to pay for it directly. Additionally, they also ignore the fact that forcing people to forgo health care now for economic reasons generally leads them to need other, more expensive care in the future.
trollhattan
I’d like to have a serious, adult conversation about why that pic rulz! Is Sen. Brown adding reality milk to his CocoaPuffs? He sounds almost reasonable there.
Jazz Superluminar
assuming facts not in evidence, Cole. IANAL but I’m informed this is bad.
And we have photographic evidence of where you keep bryanD. Please keep in this position for forseeable future, preferrably ignoring all cries for food and drink.
martha
As I said to Omnes earlier, these corporate media shills/rich people need to get out more. You live in the real world. I live in the flyover. Good grief, these people need to put on a t-shirt and crummy pants (I mean Levis or Carharts or something similar) and go to bars in little counties in little states they’ve only flown over or driven through on the interstate on their way to Aspen or Vail or Squaw Valley or the Bohemian Grove. Then they might get a sense of the actual country’s mood.
Djur
Reason commenters are great:
“This. Does anyone really think a politician from California or Massachusetts can get elected on a small government platform? Here in Cali most of the plebes believe at our present spending levels that we are already experiencing an austerity budget. The disconnect is strong with these tards.”
You can definitely tell the deep abiding love of the libertarian for the common individual.
gene108
I think you need to add to the discussion, this important question: How many men does it take to duct tape a baby and his (her) favorite stuffed animal to the wall?
There’s no way one man could handle a baby and that much duct tape on his own.
Jazz Superluminar
Needs more Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs for added raptureness.
geg6
While you are completely correct to pile on the stupidity that is McSuderman, I think you are cutting Scott Brown WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much slack here by insinuating that he has any fucking clue as to what he’s talking about. He’s changed his tune on the Ryan Plan approximately 78 times since last month. Cosmo Boy is a joke. He keeps forgetting that he lives in a blue state and has to keep walking back the talking points that Mitch McConnell keeps feeding him.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/walkback-complete-scott-brown-now-attacks-gop-medicare-plan-he-recently-praised.php?ref=fpb
cyntax
@Djur:
Holy Jeebus those people piss me off. Not to mention that we actually have cut spending to the bone here in California, so we’ve got a real firm grasp of the situation at work in that quote there…
gene108
@MattR:
In the free-market there are only normal goods, so the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith tells us – as it does a cute puppet face, with its thumb tucked into its index finger – which of course we can’t see because….IT’S INVISIBLE!!!
What a waste of talent…but anyway…
Because economists can’t see this Invisible Hand, they’ve come up with some crazy ideas like elastic and inelastic goods, inferior goods, substitutes, etc. to keep themselves employed.
None of those things are real. Only supply, demand and normal goods are real. If price drops, demand increases and everyone makes tons of money and get blue ribbons for being winners. If prices go up because there’s a tax increase or for any other reason, people buy less and no one wins their blue ribbons…booo-hoooo :-(
Anyway, that’s talking-head economics.
EDIT: Please note discussing the supply side of the supply-demand curves isn’t allowed on T.V. It’s an FCC rule or something.
Jazz Superluminar
@Djur
well that bit was an accurate commen…oh, he wasn’t talking about the Reason crowd?
geg6
@gene108:
I agree.
While I think a woman could manage this, no woman actually would DO such a thing. Hell, I don’t really even like babies or children, but even I wouldn’t do it. However, I can certainly see a group of about 4 men thinking this was the greatest idea since sliced bread. But no less than 4, for sure.
Georgia Pig
The glibertarian solution to a problem is to make it someone else’s problem. There are no collective problems, just problems with individuals or groups that aren’t me. It’s perpetual adolescence.
Skippy-san
Try that shit at home, folks.
That is awesome! The whole Ryan plan summed up in one paragraph.
And it probably takes a lot of beer to satiate fat pigs like the Koch’s.
Cat Lady
I HATE to say it, since Sen. Centerfold is my burden to bear, but in the credit where credit is due department, he’s right. Unlike McMegan, Brown’s smart enough to know that he is basically unfit to do any other job as important as the one he’s got and to keep it, he can’t go wingnut. He’s still popular here. What’s The Atlantic’s excuse?
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Not to mention the delusion that the public is magically not on the hook for rising health care costs just as long as Medicare isn’t paying for it. I guess we’ll somehow save money if old people instead use the emergency room as their exclusive health care provider and then die owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the hospital. We all know that unpaid emergency room expenses have no effect on everyone else’s hospital bills, nosirrie.
Of course, I assume her solution to that conundrum is to allow hospitals to turn the uninsured away from emergency rooms, like her god the Invisible Hand intends. That way, nobody but the fantastically wealthy can get health care after they retire! Don’t scoff at this very serious solution to this problem!
Objectivists are fucking hypocrites. If McJackass was in her 60s, she’d instead be howling about the evil leftists trying to take away her Medicare. But, since she’s not, she’s howling about the evil leftists trying to make her pay for the Medicare of others. The only real principle these scavengers live by is “Gimme gimme gimme!!”
Snarla
I’m seeing an ad to sign a petition to defund Planned Parenthood. Boy, are they barking up the wrong tree here.
Bulworth
Well, I think the bill was intended, in part, to prevent any more Too Big To Fail situations. And admittedly, after one whole year!!, we still don’t know if the bill will prevent a reoccurance of Too Big To Fail.
Also, too, the bill was supposed to eliminate unemployment and produce 6% GDP growth, which it hasn’t.
Citizen_X
@dmsilev:
Exactly what I was thinking. Along with, “Sorry, Pres. Clinton, but sacrifices must be made.”
gene108
@geg6:
I think a determined group of two could pull it off.
Han's Solo
John, I love ya man, but you are way over thinking (two words that, when used in unison, are the exact opposite of Scott Brown) what Scott Brown is doing.
You assume he thinks through issues and comes to conclusions. You also assume that Brown has a point, but I’ve seen no evidence. If I had to guess at his point it would be, “I’ll say and do anything to keep my seat.”
Put plainly Scott Brown lacks the intellectual tools needed to think through issues. As far as policy goes you would have better luck asking for advice from your toaster than Scott Brown.
Bulworth
There wasn’t a linky from the Atrios site, so I’m having a hard time believing someone would knowingly create a gathering of these people in one room.
Ash Can
And instead of buying groceries you’ll grow your own food, even though you live in an apartment and your agricultural space consists of a couple of small pots on your kitchen window sill.
Wag
My friend Tom says the picture is an “Alaskan babysitter”
Ghanima Atreides
You should be more sensitive. Peter has a horrific case of SMS (short man syndrome) because he is shorter than McMegan (the tall elf).
He is compensating.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Ash Can: Why go to the trouble of growing your own food when tasty hobos are plentiful? /capitalist
mr. whipple
OMFG!
piratedan
you know what… with the money being spent on this summit, it’d be better served opening a public service company to sweep the streets. At least then some shit would get cleaned up and a few people would have jobs. What the fuck do THESE people know about jobs? A bunch of fucking beltway columnists that probably haven’t washed a car or waited on a table in their lifetimes and some asshat from Wyoming who got elected because somebody had to because it sure isn’t based on anything he’s said in public recently.
What’s next, the Roman Catholic Church seminars on the viability of High Speed Rail?
Hunter Gathers
@geg6: The only thing Senator Cosmo Von Truck Nutz is sure of is that he drives a truck.
Fantastic job, voters of Massachusetts. One of your Senators is the equivilent of Dan Quayle in pink hot pants.
dollared
@Citizen_X: FTW! Is he so much of a whore that he will attend these things just to get some Petey Pete money in his foundation?
El Cid
Well, it is true that if you stop paying for peoples’ health care when they can’t afford it, the costs of health care will come down, since people won’t use it as much.
And surely we got places we can stick all these sick, lame, rotting stroke-addled and tumorous money wasters, so they’ll at least be out of sight.
Warren Terra
@Bulworth:
Remember all those dire warnings about how CERN was going to create a black hole and dearly the earth? Seems like the nefarious organizers of this event have something similar in mind, trying to create a stupidity phenomenon so concentrated and dense that no thought can escape. We must warn everyone, and act now to prevent Armageddon!
Unless it really is a “put all the rotten eggs in one basket” plan.
MattR
@El Cid:
Were you aiming for the perfect segue into John’s next post about prison overcrowding in California? Intentional or not, well done.
@Villago Delenda Est: I have been trying to avoid economics discussions, but I agree with you. I was gonna reply to gene108 that things like price elasticity are very real but they are not constant nor easily quantified. At the same time, too many economists (especially in the political media) rely on the perfect theoretical models without considering how reality differs from theory.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
The thing is, Adam Smith actually discusses some of this stuff, and states, every so often, that he’s discussing how things should operate in a condition of “perfect liberty”, then explains how it varies from this, and furthermore, why.
He even talks about how markets are manipulated by withholding information.
Then again, he is the vile soshulist who brought us the labor theory of value…
freelancer
Lemme get this straight. You have a Category called “David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute”, and this post doesn’t make it in there?! This blog is weird.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
Unless there was alcohol involved. If there’s enough booze involved, all bets are off.
Bulworth
Apparently the invite for Balloon Juice’s Business and Economic Editor was also lost in the mail or the Intertubes.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@El Cid:
Yes, they’re called lime pits.
geg6
@gene108:
If, and only if, the determined two were engineers. Otherwise, forget it.
The Moar You Know
@El Cid: It’s called a trench. You jsut run a bulldozer over the top of it and voila, problem solved. No more whiny Lucky Duckies.
Worked for the Nazis, amirite?
catclub
@gene108: I think the point was that the stupidity of the group of drunken men grows wit their number. Two could tape up the baby, but only two are not stupid enough to think it is a good idea worth doing.
Culture of Truth
Brown got lucky with his timing and position. He didn’t have to vote on it but he does have to run soon. Every pol, even Newt, has learned that the Ryan plan is toxic; since Newt’s downfall* pols have learned you must back away from the Ryan plan very carefully – nevertheless, it must be done if you plan on winning in a non-nut state.
* has anyone done “Hitler Learns What Newt Said”?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Yeah, except under the true Gibbertarian model the baby would be held up by staples.
@The Moar You Know: The only problem is you exit on a stretcher.
FlipYrWhig
@Hunter Gathers:
Which he bought to tow a horse trailer to his daughter’s show-jumping events. Except he couldn’t figure out how to back up with a trailer, so he stopped doing that. No lie. That’s why he had the famous truck that won him the motherfucking election.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
They’re called “graves”. HTH.
PhoenixRising
@gene108:
I think a
determinedsufficiently inebriated group of two could pull it off.Fixed for ya.
Also, as I said to the offsprung this very AM, in connection with the home skoolin’ math curriculum which I paid good money for: Two is not a group, two is a pair. Three or more are a set or group…and with a pair, make a full house.
vheidi
@Citizen_X: what CX said
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
Fortunately properly oriented Objectivist Cadres already have a solution to this problem:
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here’s one.
The Dead Collector: That’ll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There’s your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not.
The Dead Collector: He isn’t.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I don’t want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
Tonal Crow
@Bulworth:
I doubt that it will prevent that. Do you really think Citibank or Bank of America won’t be bailed out if they get in deep trouble? Na. They’re clearly too big to fail, just like they were before the crash.
We need to continuously monitor corporations for any that become too big to fail. Then we need to break them into pieces that can fail without imperiling the economy. That’s the only way we’ll ever have market discipline for Big Business.
Montysano
Shorter comment section at Reason: “Old folks can fuck off and die.” Seriously.
As someone approaching 60, that gave me a bit of a chill.
Hunter Gathers
@FlipYrWhig: You know that when I cast my ballot, truck ownership is at the very top of my list of qualifications for public office. Along with Cosmo spreads, fuckable offspring and the ability to confound the meanings of the words ‘for’ and ‘on’. I have bags of mulch in my garage that are more self aware than Senator Pink Hot Pants.
jacy
Am I the only one looking at that picture and thinking, “That’s cute, honey, now who’s going to repaint the damn wall when you pull that tape off?”
Full disclosure: I never actually duct-taped any of my kids to anything. Not that I didn’t consider it.
As to Scott Brown’s point, Scott Brown has no point. He said something he thought would make some people like him, heard that it made some other people not like him, so he said something else in the hopes whatever he said first would be erased from memory. Scott Brown is nothing more than a spoiled, yet insecure, 14-year-old cheerleader.
Southern Beale
Brown writes that Medicare’s “increasing cost must be addressed” ….
Okay. Let’s repeal that part of the Bush Medicare law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating directly with drug companies. You know, like the VA does and like every other branch of the government does. Let’s just get rid of that big sap to Big Pharma. Problem solved!
I’m a fucking genius, I know.
{eyeroll}
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale:
You are a fucking sooper genious, SoBe.
No one in the GOP could have ever seen that coming…they were too busy counting their campaign contributions from BigPharma to notice…
bemused
Spending on hookers and gambling instead of food is the best analogy ever.
bemused
@martha:
I don’t think that would work. I just don’t believe that most of them give a rat’s ass. They only get it when they end up in the same circumstances and even then, it’s their own asses they care about….others, not so much.
Alan in SF
How hypocritical of Scott Brown to oppose a bill he thinks is dangerously wrong, when just last year he voted for a bill that he thought didn’t go far enough. It takes a high priced economic analyst at the prestigious Atlantic magazine to uncover contradictions that might elude a normal mind.
Joseph Nobles
I disagree on the aptness of the analogy, but only slightly. I’d say same situation, but the person decides against getting a second job, cuts back to part-time hours instead, and then doesn’t pay for groceries. That way you have an actual cut in revenue to balance the cut in expenditures.
Hookers and gambling and blow are better optics, though.
Uncle Glenny
Bobo and McAddled?
I think Climber wasn’t off by much.
maya
I like the idea of that Pete Peterson fiscal summit. Will there be loaves and fishes?
Jeffro
That list…I’m picturing a GraphJam bar graph of IQs that looks like a pool slide…
jonas
Not only that, you tell her that you have an elaborate theory about how blowing cash on hookers actually increases your take home pay by making you more efficient, or something.
Dan
Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department (h/t).
El Cid
@Jeffro: I know he’d be polite and all, but it’d be interesting to see Bill Clinton as he watched the onrush of vapidity from the bursting of the levees when McAddled begins to speak. Bill Clinton is a sharp policy analyst, and even for policies that seem or are not good or not justified, he’s not just flailing around latching on to the stupid.
At least someone like Larry Summers can put together an argument that’s really sharp and seems supported and consistent.
Hell, I’d rather listen to some Reagan-worshiping Heritage Foundation economist / economy writer who could at least make a coherent argument even if on false premises.
newhavenguy
Nice post.
To the extent we have a structural deficit problem, it is because of three things and only three things:
1. Health care cost inflation.
2. A certain round of profoundly irresponsible tax cuts.
3. Permanent war. (More precisely, permanent AMERICAN wars.)
If one is “serious” about the deficit, one must examine these issues. If one wants to be “a serious GOP policy wonk”, brave and bold and all that shit?
Um, that bar is a lot lower. To shame the legitimate, professional media barely touches the problem. The Fourth Estate and the courts are now seriously politicized partisan territory, rather than the Referees our system of government sort of depended on for ballast.
“Sort of”? I guess I am an optimist after all. What I can tell you for sure is that we will find out, one way or the other, how important impartial institutions ARE to a functioning democracy. I am hoping that I am waaaaaaaaay wrong, hoping that they are not important at all. My heart hope that is true, but that annoying organ at the top of my spine keeps screaming “DANGER!”
Jeffro
@El Cid: Oh, Clinton is sharp and polite, sure. So how does he reconcile those competing characteristics when confronted with Mitch ‘Bush-Deficits-That-Used-To-Be-My Surpluses’ and Bobo/McCardle? I am thinking that tips the balance from ‘polite’ to ‘sharp’ (in a different sense than ‘smart’)…or is that just wishful thinking?
Jeffro
@newhavenguy: Very good point. The first Republican who can incorporate that graph that was up here recently (about Bush tax cuts and Iraq being the biggest contributors to our long-term deficits) with some good Republican Tea Party spin…somehow…could do pretty well.
I’m thinking they need to push the “Bush was a liberal” meme even harder if they want to save themselves. Jeb, are you listening? ;)
Jebediah
@Jeffro:
Yes. Yes, I am.
Oh wait – you aren’t talking to me, are you? Oh well.
SFAW
Bullshit. ONE f’ing engineer can do ANYTHING, given enough duct tape.
The only reason the Roeblings took so damn long on their little boondoggle (Happy Anniversary, boys!) was because duct tape hadn’t been invented yet. Same thing with Goethals (although I think he was more of a project-management guy, and had less control over the design).
That being said, the “Alaskan babysitter” line is pure win.
SFAW
And by the way, John –
Your “tell them you are going to spend a shitload of money on hookers, gambling, and beer, and then stop paying the grocery bills. ” ranks right up there with your “tire rims and anthrax” line.