It's the Same F.....ing Law

It was an obscure Congressional Hearing, and the witness had been on the stand for a long time.  He was being grilled by hostile Republicans, who predictably were attacking the proposed Affordable Care Act at every turn.  The witness was an insurance expert, who had been instrumental in getting the Health Care Act passed in Massachusetts, nicknamed RomneyCare by friends and foes alike.

The witness carefully answered the hostile questions, that often implied the ACA was a "socialist plot".

At the time, the "single payor" optionn was still in the ACA, which meant insurance companies would have to compete with the United States government in providing their "products" to the public.  This would be a disaster for them, since they would have to cut profits dramatically and would have to actually have to compete.

In Massachusetts there was no single payor.  The state did not offer insurance, but there were insurance exchanges, and most other major features of the ACA.  

Finally, after discussing the single payor option, the witness blurted out, "It's the same f......Bill".  

Right there the deal was sealed.  Without the single payor option, the ACA was and is virtually identical to the Massachusetts Bill.  And its partial author at least was Governor Romney, whose idea was the insurance exchanges.

Romney was planning then, it was 2010 , to craft his run for President around  RomneyCare, that after a rough beginning, was beginning to get traction.  

But, as we all know, after the brutal primaries, where conservatives dominated, Romney had to actually run against his greatest single governmental accomplishment.  And he lost his bid for the Presidency, declaring that he would repeal "Obamacare" that was essentially the "same f....ing bill" he had successfully passed in Massachusetts.

Today, as the Republicans predictably continue their insane assault on the ACA, even going so far as shutting down the government to repeal the law, we see the same problems implementing the law as occurrred in Massachusetts.  The young and healthy wait until the individual mandate, penalty, is imminent, before they rush to enroll.  But once this happens, the law works, health care is spread to millions more people.  

In the end, 97% of Massachusetts citizens are enrolled in health care, healthy statistics are increasing, employment is higher than in the U.S., the economy is doing better; in all, the "same f....ing bill" is working.

And it will in the United  States also, particularly in states that decided to adopt the law and embrace it.   Their exchanges are working, and the sign up is taking place.

It will take at least five years before we will be able to assess the ACA as in Massachusetts.  But, we do have a laboratory if you will in Massachusetts and the "same f....ing bill, works".  

With the single payor option, it will really work to bring health care costs down!   That is the next big reform we need to put back into the ACA.   

The Uncaring American

If you have the time, and the inclination, browse statistics about where the United States ranks in social welfare, or the safety net for the poor compared to other nations in the world.

If you factor in health care, the United States ranks near the bottom.  We savage our poor.

If you factor out health care, the United States does a little better, but the percentage of the poor, the gap between the rich and the poor is the highest in the industrialized world.  We are becoming a banana republic.  

America is no longer the "beacon of light" to the world.  The American Dream has become a middle class nightmare, social and economic mobility have slowed to a crawl in the United States.

What happened?  What happened to the beacon on the hill?

America has always had a strange inferiority complex relative to the world.  We witnessed it in the 1970s, when the world began to catch up economically to American hegemony after the utter destruction of every national economy on earth save the United States.  

When Japan began to challenge American car manufacturing, even slightly, Americans panicked.  The push was on to out compete and beat the Japanese.  

American conservatives seized on this "threat" (Japan's GDP was a fraction of the United States'), and pushed for less government regulation and tax cuts.

Ronald Reagan gleefully moved into this paranoia, pushed even more tax cuts as an economic stimulus.  

Ironically, these tax cuts drastically cut government revenue and government, creating deficits that carry through to today.  In the long term, this lack of revenue actually damaged the economy it did not improve it.  

Meanwhile, in the 80s and 90s, the world really did catch up with the United States.  Europe and a revitalized Russia, with new manufacturing infrastructure began to out compete America's aging infrastructure.  

Detroit for example, stayed with large cars and trucks, while the rest of the world produced more economical models, and America became for the first time in fifty years, a second tier world car producer.

And then there was manufacturing.  American manufacurers assumed their hegemony would last forever after WWII.  They neglected to understand that the only reason they were number one, was the simple fact that the manufacturing sectors of Europe and Asia were destroyed by WWII.  So, Americans stayed with inefficient plants, high wages via unionization, and got rich and complacent.

Meanwhile the rest of the world automated their plants, and paid less wages.  They undercut American manufacturing at every turn.

And American manufacturers blamed:  the workers!    It was the union's fault for their inefficiency.  Workers had to be cut, wages reduced, while the plants still remained pre 1950 in technology.

And America lost.  Jobs were outsourced to Asian and European plants, that produced products at lower prices.

Meanwhile in America, Republicans finally had a cause to emasculate the hated New Deal.  Manufacturing jobs were hemoraging, the middle class was shrinking, and who to blame, unions and big government.

And the American people, panicking as usual, bought the lies!  

Of course, neither one of these were the real reason for America's "relative decline".  And it was still relative.  The American economy, in spite of losses, still remains today as the world largest, most innovative and strongest.  

But conservatives have made a living hacking away at American's self confidence.  They have reduced the social welfare safety net to one of the worst in the world.  America alone in the industrialized world does not have a universal health care system.

The ACA, is being fought at every turn, by conservatives that for some reason want to reduce the one thing what can improve America's economic competitive position.  

Basically,  economic opportunity, that drove American exceptionalism if you will, is dying.  

And the irony is this is all self inflicted.  There is no reason to do this, other than feed the dilusions of the right wing.  The country can afford a universal health care plan.  The country can afford to educate our citizens at global competitive levels.  The country can afford to build a public transportation system, an energy modernized grid; all things necessary to really compete in the  global economy.

But America has one big disadvantage; its right wing of negativism and obstructionism which leads always to an unequal distribution of wealth, and an inevitable losing posture in the global economy.  

The greatest threat to American economic and political leadership in the world, is the right wing movement.  Its recent success in destroying the social welfare safety net, its intrangenance in fighing the Affordable Care  Act will result in American slowly and painfully becoming a second rate world economic power.  

The beacon on the hill is flickering.  

A Comment on Forging A New Paradigm

At least the level of discourse of these comments is way above the "idiot" "moron" type I usually see.  There is little doubt our political system is being damaged by radical ideology.  And any political scientist worth his/her salt can identify the radical elements of the discourse.  It is coming from the right.  The genius of our political system is in its tendency to stay away from the radical noise and rule from the middle.  I suggest that is exactly what the ACA controversy is about. The law is a middle of the road attempt at a universal health care plan.  Its antecedents are easily studied because the former candidate for President, who called himself an extreme conservative, implemented a nearly identical law in Massachusetts.  That fact is NEVER acknowledged by the reactionaries (thanks for the definition Hal).  

So, ideological opposition is ridiculous when exercised from the right:  the ACA was their idea.  Progressives still have trouble with the ACA BECAUSE IT RELIES COMPLETELY ON PRIVATE ENTERPRISE!

So why the opposition?  I suggest a whole lot of political theater, with a healthy pinch of racism.  The Republican Party remember, inherited the Dixiecrats, who would not be expected to accept the first African American President, especially one who outflanked them with the first legislated universal health care plan FROM THE RIGHT.  

That fact is driving conservatives crazy.  It fuels their anger, and has made them reckless, witness the last few weeks.

The President is way smarter politically than anyone gives him credit for.  He was able to get universal health care passed when every previous President had failed,  and, he adopted the plan from conservatives, emasculating his future Presidential rival, and appears to have split the Reagan Republican coalition as well!

Great Presidents  forge new political paradigms. Lincoln did it, Teddy Roosevelt did it, FDR really did it, and (it pains me to say it) so did Reagan.  It appears Obama is going to do it also. 

Conservatives are taking the bait, and are paying for it.  They are getting played, by a savy politician and by demographics, and apparently have decided to fight back by committing political suicide.  

And the new ruling coalition that Obama is crafting will rule from guess where....the middle.

Poor and getting poor

Well we survived I guess.  A temporary extension of the Debt Limit and the government is open today.

And we are poorer today.  What came out of this was an "agreement" (extortion works) that continues the austerity madness conservatives have given us.

Food stamps have been cut.  Unemployment is cut.  Government spending is cut, with no new revenues to "attack" the deficit.  We cure a sick economy by making it sicker!

These attackers completely forget that most of the deficit exists because the GOP decided to fight two wars, with massive tax cuts.  It is the revenue that we lack, to pay the bills that these same stalwarts of fiscal responsibility rang up.

And we are getting poor and getting poorer.

The ACA survived lets see:  the fiftieth challenge to its existence.  Meanwhile over one half of all states have refused total federal funding of Medicaid which leaves millions poorer and still without health insurance.  We are getting poorer.

The cuts to government spending are at huge levels in this latest "agreement" to extend the government's life for a few weeks.  Democrats have at the point of a gun, been forced to accept the economics of austerity while unemployment is over 8 percent in most of the country.

A comparison is 1936, when FDR foolishly bought back into the austerity idea of "curing" the economy, cut spending and the nation dipped back into depression.  He famously said it was the "worst mistake I ever made".

The fact is we get poorer EVERY TIME we listen to the conservatives.  Their leadership results in widespread poverty and harm.

Wealth is so poorly distributed in our nation today, it rivals the "banana republics" of Latin America.  The middle class dwindles more everyday.  Young people graduate with huge loan debts from college, and can't get a job.

And then, we finally get a universal health law, and it is attacked with no end by ideologues, who would rather destroy the country than allow people to have health insurance.

And we are getting poor and getting poorer, while the rich get richer.

And we getting tired of this yet?   Please vote.  Please vote these fools out!

Sedition and Treason

Sedition used to be a crime.  During WWI there was an outburst of patriotism and paranoia. The patriotism was because the unrestricted submarine warfare had enraged the reluctant nation into entering a European war it would rather stay out of.  The paranoia arose toward German immigrants, most of them first generation, who still had direct and recent ties to the mother land.

Many would argue this paranoia was in fact common sense, for two reasons:  One, German immigrants were very recently arrived in the United States, many still had allegiance to the Kaiser.   Two,  the Civil War was a few decades in the past and northern states remembered the struggles during the war against spies and espionage.  John Wilkes Booth was after all  a southern sympathizer, some say a spy, who assassinated Lincoln, dramatically affecting the post war nation.  There was recent concrete historical evidence of he damage sedition and treason could render.

So, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed, and free speech, anti-governmental talk was repressed, sometimes brutally.

We do not look back well at this time.  In fact, because of it the United States tolerates anti-governmental speech and action more than most other political states, it is seen as a dark time for civil liberties.

This is particularly evident today.  Radicals in the Republican Party are currently holding the country hostage to advance an agenda that by any measure is made to damage government itself.

The threat of default was used along with actually shutting down the government to advance a radical agenda, that called for upending established law, hamstringing the government's actions; during a TIME of WAR!

American combat troops are currently engaged in Afghanistan.  Casualties are happening, combat deaths are happening, while radical political elements are defunding the government and sabotaging the government.

That is sedition.  And they are getting away with it.

Ironically, this is being done by a political element that purports to be patriotic.  In fact, Senator Cruz has called the act of sedition a "Profile in Courage".  An act of courage?  To stop your government, and defund it during an act of war.

That is treason and sedition.  It should be dealt with as we did during WWI:  throw them in jail and hang the traitors.  

Beware the Users of Fear

If you have been able to stomach the past few weeks, many have not, and have not simply tuned out, you have maybe noticed how the Tea Party Patriots have used fear at every turn to both shut down the government and now are on the verge of bankrupting the nation.

A major fear use is the absolute demonizing of the ACA.  Cruz and partners claim that the ACA will destroy American democracy, socialize the nation, and ruin our children.

Fear, absolute fear, as a motivator is used at every turn.

Fear is very powerful and very easy to use as a motivator.  It is easier than using logic or rational argument.

The next time, which should be almost immediately, just slow down  and and listen to the obvious talking points the Tea Party crowd uses.   You don't have to look that hard; fear is the first and last talking point.

Now, they also accuse the Democrats of using fear, when the Democrats  produce statistic after statistic showing the damage  the shutdown, and the default is causing.  They also claim fear mongering by the President for factually based damage their campaign is causing.

The  Tea Partiers (some party?), then pivot and blame the President for using scare tactics.

Next time you tune them in, if you can stand it, just wait for it, more fear.  The favorite is our childrens' children will lose their liberty; or will be doomed to everlasting poverty, or will be overrun by foreign enemies, if Obama care survives.

Their tactic of closing down the government and default is actually the thing to fear, because real damage is being done.

Fascists use fear to build power.  Even a cursory study of fascism shows the use of scapegoating and fear by fascist minorities to scare and harass the majority.  If the fear is effective the right can manipulate its minority status into a majority; and that is exactly the strategy we are seeing played out right now.

Senator Cruz, who bares a remarkable similarity to Joseph McCarthy, uses the exact same strategy "tail gunner" Joe used to scare people and gain power.

And it worked, at least for awhile.  The politics of Washington are so politically charged, and so self-serving, that fear of political consequences goes a long way.  This has not changed in the 70 some years since McCarthyism.  And we can see it being played out right now, as Republicans recoil in fear of political retribution.  So far, there is not evidence of ANY bravery in Republicans during all this.....none.

The politics of fear work.  It worked for McCarthy for about three years.  At that time it ruined several lives.  This time it may ruin millions of lives, if another Great Recession develops.

A long time ago, Roosevelt started his first Inaugural Address with "The only thing to fear is fear itself".  He knew the dangers the country faced, real dangers verging on starvation for many.  But he also knew, the greatest danger was of fear itself, having just witnessed Germany falling under the spell of Adolph Hitler.

You see the danger is not in Obama care, or in the socialist Democrats.  The real danger is in the fear that is being used right now by Ted Cruz and other Tea Party types, to scare us into the same trap Hitler used in Germany in 1932.

Because their tactics are the same, and their political philosophy is the same:   fascism!

Why the word fascism?

Why does Beale use the term fascism? Today I was asked pointedly by a good conservative friend why I use the "f" word so much? Since he was not talking about my golfing lexicon (I think), here's why: Look, I am not comparing the hard conservative right (and that includes the Tea Party) with Nazis (only they do that with President Obama).

I am concerned as a Political Scientist with the criteria for fascism (let's call it non Nazi fascism) that seems   to being met by the right wing in this country more and more. I have read literally dozens of books on the subject, the most recent "The Anatomy of Fascism". The similarities are striking. I have listed these criteria many times in my posts.

An over-reaching one is the need with fascists to destroy democracy, especially liberal democracy.

Now, liberal democracy does NOT mean liberals and democracy. Liberal democracy, to a political scientist means traditional liberal democratic ideals and government, as evidenced most in the United States Constitutional Government. Basically the liberal democrat believes in limited government, always mindful of the danger of liberty by over-reaching government, but holds a view that there is such a thing as a social compact. The social compact is an agreement or consensus in the country, as to the political freedoms and democratic ideals that are most important.

Liberal democracy holds that governments CAN be instituted among men that not only preserves political and economic freedom, but can maximize them within the rule of law. The rule of law is what holds the whole thing together, and it legitimizes the government or state if you will.

Fascism attacks this at every turn, usually with a thing called plutocracy or oligarchy as its base. In short, corporations and large businesses decide to destroy social democracies, and put dictatorships, or other forms of rule, monarchies, that will benefit narrow self interest. Fascism uses propaganda to fool the masses into believing that democracy is wrong, inefficient, and even takes away their freedom.

If you look at Egypt right now you will see how this works. Egypt tried to establish a liberal democracy, with a deep history of military fascistic rule. This was the goal of their "Arab Spring". However, radical Islamic fascists took over with a President who was too weak, and beholding to radical Islamic benefactors, and the fledgling democracy was one again taken over by a military fascist junta.

Now you will note that this regime has been welcomed by most Egyptians, because the liberal democracy that tried to grow, was too disruptive and dangerous for the establishment and for business interests particularly. Better to have peace for business that a liberal democracy.

Liberal democracy is messy. It is often inefficient. And it requires constant vigilance to maintain. There are always forces (some from the communist left, who have almost disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union) and most from the right, who push hard for "reforms" that are intended to discredit and destroy liberal democracies.

And that is unfortunately where we find ourselves today. Ironically, the Tea Party movement, made of many well meaning although duped Americans, under the guise of super patriotism and Constitutionalism, are working hard to disrupt and discredit the democratic institutions of our country.

Right now, in this latest Constitutional crisis brought upon us by the Tea Party, there is a fanatical effort to discredit the Congress and the President, by literally shutting down the government, and defaulting on the national debt.

The chaos that will ensue, is exactly what fascist movements want. They want people to say: our government doesn't work anymore. The next step is to set up a "twin government", that uses the "party" as its governmental base. Radical right legislatures right now are doing that, the governor of Michigan appointed a position to supposedly deal with city bankruptcies, but in fact has worked overtime to eliminate democratic local decision making. In short, the "manager" has become the city council and mayor, with no democratic decision making in evidence. It is more efficient, and pays the bills better, but democracy is dead.

Liberal democracy is fascism's natural enemy. And there are small but very powerful forces in the country right now, who are funding the right wing (Tea Party and other extremists), who make no secret of their desire to destroy the social welfare; ie., social democratic state. And most liberal democratic institutions that we have grown to consider part of our nation's heritage, social security, Medicare, employment regulations; etc., are directly on target.

So we find ourselves fighting battles that were decided years, even centuries ago.

We find the Affordable Care Act, a conservative national health care plan, under mortal attack by the fascists elements in Congress, bankrolled by Billionaires who really could care less about millions of Americans without health care. The idea is to discredit any growth of liberal democracy. Why so fanatical you might wonder? Is the ACA really a threat to liberty? How is a system made up from private health insurance providers, regulated by the government under law, a threat to liberty. The ACA is squarely in the liberal democratic tradition of ideas, and ironically it did not come from the left; it was hatched, and instituted in Massachusetts by conservatives and the last Republican to run for President! Is that some kind of accident? No, it is the liberal democratic tradition of governmental problem solving at its best, blending economic liberty with a social/economic need, under law for the welfare of the people. That is why Medicare is most definitely NOT a socialistic program, private health providers are at its core, only the government acts as the insurance company. The ACA doesn't allow, much to progressive liberal's dismay, the government to be the insurance companies. The ACA is a private enterprise model!

Finally, it is ironic that conservatism used be rooted, in this country, squarely in the liberal democratic tradition. The genius of the American Political system was  that virtually everyone, be they Republican or Democrat, could agree on the basic liberal democratic principles embodied in say the Bill of Rights, or the Preamble to the Constitution. If there were disagreements, they could be hashed out in the Constitutional process, using a bicameral legislature, an executive and judicial review.

Tragically for our freedom, now even those basic agreements under law have been frayed, by the radical right, who question everything, and compare everything to their pure ideological goals. They don't believe in the liberal democratic tradition anymore!

So, they attack. They obstruct. They discredit. They spend billions on propaganda to convince people that liberal democracy, the foundation of the American Constitution is bad.

Shutting the government down, and worse, defaulting on the national debt, is meant to destroy government, and particularly the public TRUST in their government and even our free enterprise system. It is no coincidence that small businesses have been hammered as this struggle goes on, small businesses are at the core of the liberal democratic tradition (read Jefferson and De Tocqueville).

So, that is what I am fearful of. And that comes not from a "Democrat" but from a someone who knows what the liberal democratic tradition is. Another way of looking at this, everyone of America's Presidents, every one of them, were liberal democrats...

If the Tea Party gets their wish, we will get a President who does not share in that tradition, and that will be the beginning of the end for the world's oldest liberal democracy!

And fascism will win.

Constitutional Government At Risk

Today I read an article by Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post. 

She postulated that the government shutdown is just "leverage" and part of the political process; almost legitimizing the blackmail that is going on.  She explains that an easy "fix" of the latest deadlock is to eliminate the "medical hardware" tax, that conservative medical hardware companies want, and then pass another funding mechanism by agreement, and the thing is solved. 

Just "leverage" huh.  Not quite.

Try, just try to go back to your high school Civics class.  Remember the drill:  how a bill becomes a law. 

Remember the separation of powers that runs through the Constitutional Process, which makes it VERY difficult to get a bill into a law.  There are procedural roadblocks along the way.  The whole process demands consensus, compromise, and yes, politics, democratic process is the lawmaking process.

Remember how difficult it was to get the Affordable Care Bill into law?  Remember it really took almost 100 years before a national health care plan was passed.  Remember that the basics of the law are conservative in nature; basically putting the onus on the private insurance system to deliver affordable care.

And then, once the Law was passed and signed by the President, it was rushed to the Supreme Court by its opponents, hoping to have it overturned.  A major part of it was declared unconstitutional, but enough survived to put it into action.

All this, to get a bill into a law. 

This is the genius of our system.  It protects minority views constantly by limiting the power of majorities.  That is a democratic process that has sustained itself through a Civil War, a Great Depression, and through two World Wars.  Never in all that chaos, did the democratic process stop, never was in compromised.

Now it is being compromised.  It is being compromised by a conservative scheme to, even though conservatives only control one third of the government, to stop all governmental services except those they like, finding a last minute way to veto the Affordable Care Act.

And, predictably, what they did yesterday shows their agenda to end our Constitutional system of checks and balances.  The House passed a host of Bills, funding areas of government that they like.  The President even signed one of them: funding pay for the military. 

So, the "new normal" is to deny funding for government, except for what you want.  This can go on forever, if the Senate and President cave in. 

And, the debt ceiling "crisis" looms on the horizon.

Our checks and balances system is there for a reason.   It makes moving a Bill into Law extraordinarily difficult.  Moreover, it makes amending Laws extraordinarily difficult for a reason.

It is called the democratic process.  That process has been set up to purposefully protect the minority view from the tyranny of the majority, and conversely, protecting the majority view from a tyranny of the minority.  Any political scientist can tell you this tyranny cuts both ways.

What we are seeing now is not "leverage" it is the tyranny of a minority being played out. 

A constitutional crisis is what is really going on, with high stakes.

Because you see one tyranny of the minority is a thing called fascism; one party rule, that eventually destroys democracy completely.

And that is where we are today!