Posted on 05/15/2011 5:19:41 AM PDT by radioone
Mitt’s health-care “solution” is a major problem for his presidential campaign.
Unless things change, the man (or woman) elected in 2012 will be the last American president to preside over the world’s leading economy. If things get really bad, he will find himself presiding over the early stages of American collapse. Not “decline” but “collapse.” “Decline” is what happens when you’re Britain in the 1940s and you cede global dominance to a major ally that shares your language, legal system, cultural inheritance, and broad geopolitical objectives. That deal isn’t on offer this time round.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Love the last paragraph.
I’ve never been a Mitt supporter, but it seems to me that he’s backing away from Romneycare and maybe seeing the problems with it up close & personal, puts him in a better position to argue against it than his opponents.
The inflationary factor in Massachusetts health care was not caused by deadbeats’ using emergency rooms as their family doctor but by the metastasizing cost distortions of government intervention in health care: Mitt should have known that — just as he should know that government intervention in college loans has absurdly inflated the cost of ludicrously overvalued credentials and, in a broader sense, helped debauch America’s human capital. And just as he should know that government intervention in the mortgage market is why every day more and more American homeowners are drowning in negative equity.There's an extremely important idea outlined in these 2 sentences. I wonder how many college graduates understand this idea. I wonder how many elected officials do. I wonder how many "Republicans" do.
The inflationary factor in Massachusetts health care was not caused by deadbeats’ using emergency rooms as their family doctor but by the metastasizing cost distortions of government intervention in health care: Mitt should have known that — just as he should know that government intervention in college loans has absurdly inflated the cost of ludicrously overvalued credentials and, in a broader sense, helped debauch America’s human capital. And just as he should know that government intervention in the mortgage market is why every day more and more American homeowners are drowning in negative equity.Mark Steyn "gets it". I wonder who else "gets it".
Obviously Romney is leader of the pack of those who just don't get it.
But just as obvious: Trump doesn't get it. He has said that national healthcare is a necessity, and we just need the right "deal" to make it work.
Le Fleur de Mal.
Which is all good. Mitt needs to be retired.
s/b Les Fleurs du Mal
This remninds me of a P.J. O'Rourke column in which he speculated that the countries of the former British empire would invite the Brits back: "Please to come back, sahib English, and snob us and make the Coca-Cola machine work again."
“There’s no evidence he’s backing away, and if he does it in the near future, people will rightfully see it as another flip flop from him.”
He sounds like he’s trying to start backing away from it to me. As for another flip flop, if he presents a good case for why it didn’t work & wouldn’t work on the Fed. level, I think people would see it as honesty coming from direct experience with it.
If he doesn’t admit that it was an experiment that didn’t work, he has no chance.
When Rush, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and virtually all stripes of conservative bloggers are poking fun at you for your stance (all at the same time), it's not a good thing if you're trying to win the GOP nomination.
Frankly, I'm glad, he put himself into this pickle and has to lay in the brine.
I agree. He could say, "I thought this would work. Dang it, I was such an idiot! Now I know that this kind of government intervention in free markets and individual lives is both totally wrong and massively ineffective. I commit myself to dismantling every possible government bureaucracy, repealing interventions in free markets, and working to restore a republic of maximum freedom and minimum government. Who's with me?!?"
Mark Steyn is part of the problem if he proudly holds that Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution is a “technicality”.
As much as I like Mark Steyn,...Wow!...What a disappointment!
“The problem is, he didn’t back away in his speech last week, he affirmed his decision...”
I know. That was a mistake. If he doesn’t man-up and stop trying to have it both ways, he hasn’t got a chance.
We're talking about Romney here....
:-)
He made it worse this week, backing off now will be seen just like his other changes, nothing but political opportunism.
I think this was his big chance, I'm glad he blew it.
(A middle par)
“American conservatives’ problem with Romneycare is the same as with Obamacare — that, if the government (whether state or federal) can compel you to make arrangements for the care of your body parts that meet the approval of state commissars, then the Constitution is dead. And Americans might as well shred the thing and scatter it as confetti over Prince William and his lovely bride, along with an accompanying note saying, “Come back. It was all a ghastly mistake.” For if conceding jurisdiction over your lungs and kidneys and bladder does not make you a subject rather than a citizen, what does?”
Yup. That’s a good one too.
On so many levels, Mr. Steyn is right.
Morally and spiritually college is for many a debauching experience, and, for too many it comes with permanent physical disability of herpes, papilloma virus, genital warts, and other maladies. It also emotionally deadens their capacity to form a lasting marriage, infantalizes youth in unreal adolescence playpen, delays their maturation, and contributes to their willingness to form their own families with children. When they finally leave college they are burdened like indentured servants with debt that many will need to carry throughout their entire lives. All this, and for what? A credential?
I was listening to Mark Steyn sub for Rush some weeks ago. He made a very good point that ( paraphrasing) too many of our young people don't get into the labor market until an age that would have been considered middle aged by our Founding Fathers. Yes, this long delay before finally doing serious work hurts the young person financially, and robs America of their creativity and production of wealth, but it also has profound emotionally and spiritual consequences, as well!
Steyn has a way with words. But I state the obvious.
In the real world, debt ceilings are determined by the lenders, not by the borrowers. In March, Pimco (which manages the world’s largest mutual fund) calculated that 70 percent of U.S. Treasury debt is being bought by the Federal Reserve.
So under the 2011 budget, every hour of every day, the United States government spends $188 million it doesn’t have, $130 million of which is “borrowed” from itself. There’s nobody else out there. .... Most sobering lines
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