Dead Serious Democrats

KEENE, N.H. -- The bold plan for near-universal health care offered last week by Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri sent echoes across the entire Democratic presidential field. Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, who were campaigning in New Hampshire over the weekend, were asked at voter forums if they could match it -- which, at this point, they cannot.

Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean, a physician whose campaign posters proclaim "The Doctor Is In," paid tribute in his own acerbic fashion by trashing the ambitious Gephardt proposal as "pie in the sky." Dean has hoped that his own strong health care record will sustain the early momentum he has gained from his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, but he plainly is threatened with losing that franchise.

At the Saturday night spaghetti dinner of the Cheshire County Democrats here, Dean supporters were out in force -- many of them stalwarts of the local organization, noted for its liberalism, and others who had come over from Vermont to show the flag. They may have outnumbered the supporters of Kerry, the other neighbor candidate, who leads the early and largely meaningless polls in the Granite State.

Edwards, the speaker of the evening and a relative stranger to the New Hampshire process, got a good taste of its famously unpredictable and sometimes weird voters.

The first questioner demanded to know what the former trial lawyer's position was on "corporal punishment." Plainly puzzled, Edwards asked a question of his own: "What do you mean by corporal punishment?" As he later confessed, he was on the verge of coming out boldly "against beating 6-year-olds" when the questioner corrected himself: "I meant capital punishment."

The next question came from a man wearing the campaign button of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Edwards had salted his speech with a Reaganesque line expressing the hope that the United States would once again be seen by the world "as that shining city on the hill, a beacon of freedom and democracy."

Kucinich's man quoted back the senator's words and then asked in scornful tones, "What year was that" when the United States so shone?

That's been our entire history, Edwards said. "Tell it to the Native Americans and the African Americans," came the reply -- and they were off on a spirited debate, which ended in prolonged applause for Edwards's defense of America's good name.

Despite such diversions, the overwhelming sense I received from my first prolonged dip into the home of the leadoff primary is that Democrats are dead serious about real issues -- and nearly desperate to find someone who can carry their cause against President Bush.

Broder needs to dust off his knee pads after writing that one.

He throws out so many adjectives like "bold" it's sickening.

Here are my favorites: " Democrats are dead serious about real issues". Yeah, right.

"From the stunningly well-prepared residents of the Kendal Senior Citizens Center in Hanover". You mean the stunningly rehearsed and planted as the glitch with Edwards and the "corporal vs. capital" punishment event he reports proves. This guy was planted to ask Edwards about capital punishment and he goofed. But Broder, the lap dog for the left, eats it up not even realizing he's given away the game.

"Substance over slickness" the NH voters know about, he says, is amazing. This is a flat out attack on Bush. He throws in Clinton vs. Tsongas at the end but, then again, Clinton won the White House. Broder doesn't get he again contradicted his intended point.

But here's the topper: "That is what Gephardt has done by laying out a detailed plan that would recapture the revenue from the Bush tax cuts and use it to subsidize employers, state and local governments and individuals so that virtually all Americans would have health insurance."

Oh, to be David Broder and see all in my magic crystal ball. What hooey! He then talks about how the plan is debatable but doesn't bother to say how or why. That's because he really believes that garbage. He's so anointed and elitist he actually thinks this could happen. He totally ignores the free exercise of decisions made by millions of Americans a day.

And look at the phrase, "recapture the revenue from the Bush tax cuts". If taxes are revenue, then lowering the price (tax rates) would increase sales volume (the tax base) and raise more revenues (tax receipts). But he sees it as a tax cut costing revenue. How do people like Broder buy homes with that level of understanding of economics? How much are they being ripped off by high priced accountants because they can't understand a simple 401(k) investment?

Of course, this is all premised on the fact that I'm supposed to believe these idiot lawyers can predict 10 years into the future what tax revenues and expenditures are going to be?

I'm supposed to believe Gephardt's stupid plan that will wipe out jobs and small businesses left and right is only going to cost $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years? What about the next 10? The next 10? And since when has ANY government program come in at it's predicted cost? Right...NEVER!

And that's a lot of money to cover they mythical 41 million of "uninsured" Americans.

Here's the reality of Gephardt's totalitarianism:

- employers can't expense health insurance anymore but instead gets 60% of their cost rebated.

- the employee has to pick up the 40% with some poorer getting yet another gov't aid package to help them pay. The vast number of employees pay less than that today.

- this will result in employees increasing their usage of healthcare since it's "subsidized" and they want to get all the bang for their buck. Thus the gov't will have to come back and attached higher copays and deductibles.

As I see it, Gephardt just wants a huge, bureaucratic run HMO.

Oh please let the Democrats swallow this nonesense. They'll need the healthcare after all the heart attacks they have in Nov. 2004.

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