Cynical Opposition

From Paul Krugman at NYT:
"A brief thought, linking two people: Robert Samuelson and Greg Mankiw.
Both enjoy lecturing us on the need to take strong action — Samuelson demanding that we do something about rising health care spending, Mankiw that we join the “Pigou club” by taxing oil consumption.

But both can reliably be counted on to reject any actual proposal along these lines that either (a) has any chance whatsoever of becoming legislation or (b) is proposed by Democrats."

From Ed Yardeni via James Pethokoukis at Reuters:
"Proponents of ObamaCare repeatedly ask senior citizens if they are happy with Medicare. Not surprisingly, they love it. It’s free, and places few restrictions on the services and drugs that are covered by the program. Medicaid works the same way for non-senior citizens who are too poor to pay for health care insurance. So why don’t we all get Medicare? Because it is a fraud.

Ask doctors and hospital administrators about Medicare and Medicaid and they will tell you that it amounts to a theft of their services because the government doesn’t pay them enough to cover their expenses for the care they provide. So they pass those costs on to patients covered by private health insurance. This is why medical care prices are rising faster in the CPI–which includes workers’ out-of-pocket expenses, but not the government’s costs of coverage–than in the PCED, which includes both. Then the audacious proponents of more government in health care have the audacity to claim that costs are rising too fast because of waste, inefficiencies, and fraud in the privately-run system!"

TW: There are a couple of strains of Republican opposition- the neo-con, Hooverite, social conservative, populist baiters (Palin, Limbaugh, Fox News) and the reasonable but highly cynical folks. Am not sure which is worse.

Folks like Greg Mankiw and Ed Yardeni amongst others actually provide some intellectual heft to their party (frequently with a rational libertarian bent). Being loyal Republicans, however, their role has become lockstep opposition to Obama whilst launching endless suggested policies which while intellectually interesting have zero chance of enactment.

Their proposals include amongst others:
1) a carbon tax to address global warming and U.S. oil dependency (I fully support this)
2) opposition to Medicare (I empathize with their concerns although would not abolish it by any means)
3) taxing employee health care benefits (I fully support this)
4) removing many tax entitlements (i.e. mortgage interest deductions- I fully support this as well).
5) they supported "stimulus" but only in the form of tax cuts. Just like they have supported any and every tax cut since Reagan as they are mostly "supply siders" believing in the mystical powers of cutting taxes (primarily in the wealthy) to somehow generate increased tax revenues.

They cynically make quotes like the above about health reform to sew doubt and dissent about Obama's efforts. But their proposed alternative "solutions" are utterly impractical and they know it (this is the piece that chafes me about these folks). There is a reason only non-elected economists like Yardeni and Mankiw make such proposals, if a politician made them they would either never be elected or occupy a fringe seat like a Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul.

But the Mankiw et al. play an important role for the Republicans, they provide a raft for those moderates with libertarian streaks who like their theories and who do not identify with the neo-con, populist, social conservatives to take the easy road and oppose change.