Monday, March 22, 2010

Falling to the left...

A reader comments:
You seem to be sliding (falling) to the left. Are you celebrating the Health Care vote today? I suspect you are. Just tell all us ugly conservatives how we pay for it. [Source]

I hope I have never referred to conservatives as "ugly", but laying that aside, I assume the commenter is not aware that the HCR bill was scored as deficit-reducingOr in other words, it pays for itself and then some.

Now, we all know, the CBO projections are not iron-clad predictions of what will happen from now on, but these are the de facto rulings that both sides have used as impartial refereeing.

But I remain curious.  Where were all these "conservatives" when Medicare D was passed without funding?  When the Bush tax cuts adds trillions to the deficit after his term? And did the conservative hawks think wars were cheap? While current "conservatives" have tried to disavow their work of the past decade, they are greatly responsible for those deficits at least. So I ask them, how will they pay for their own promises?

Pseudo-conservatives today don't care about their own deficits, IMHO, they care about deficits that benefit others. I do care about deficits, except when the country is mired in recession, as I have posted. I have been detailing first where we can't solve the problem, and then I will start to address the substantive issues of deficit reduction.

It is all good fun to yell "liberal" to stall for time, but it wore off for me a long time ago.

Whatever.

I continue to oppose subsidies to farmers, ethanol, and other businesses that should be able to handle reality in the marketplace, like most already do.

I support efforts to control health care costs and redirect health care spending from the elderly (like me) to younger citizens. And yes, I am cheering the beginning of decoupling of employment with health insurance.  In fact, I will post more about some of the not-so-obvious ways this legislation could change farms and farmers.

I support free trade with all the pain it brings. (Yeah - I'm talking about sugar and ethanol and beef).

I support habeaus corpus, oppose torture and want to reinstate the draft. I want free speech and privacy respected.

And if wanting all Americans to have an equal chance for health care coverage, and being willing to pay for it with taxes on people like me makes me something other than a conservative, so be it.

I don't think of it as falling to the left, as much as climbing to the light.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

agreed

Anonymous said...

John, you have to know the deficit from the Bush years you refer to is pennies on the dollar compared to what is happening now. Also, the CBO scored what was given to them. Do you really think they will cut medicare benefits as stated? This will be one the darkest days we will see in America. Too bad you cant see it.

Anonymous said...

John,
This health care thing will surely increase our taxes. Between federal, state, & county, in '09 taxes took 44.5% of my net. How much higher can we stand?

Anonymous said...

John,

I think it is a little disingenuous to use the CBO score to talk about how HCR will reduce the deficit, when the bill was structured to hide the true cost when it is up and running. First off, the bill takes in higher taxes for ten years, where the subsidies only show up for the last five. Secondly, many of the revenue streams will be taken back out as interest groups scream - the "doc fix" and "caddilac tax." However, the real outrage of this bill is that we are adding new open-ended entitlements when we can't pay for the ones we've got. Plus, while I agree that we need to ration health care more effectively - getting away from employer-funded insurance - the problem is that a.) the politicians will cave when care is rationed or b.) you have some bureaucrat making your health decisions. I would rather do the rationing myself. Finally, I too have been disappointed in the prolifgacy of the right, but they at least pay lip service to controlling spending (including entitlement reform),the biggest threat to our future. When finding out that your preacher has a drinking problem, you try to correct that problem, not go live in a tavern.

Andy Miller

Jim said...

Pretty much have to agree with most of what you posted, John. Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

All of us should go back and read "Atlas Shrugged" again!

Anonymous said...

Appreciate your comments and candor on a whole range of ag subjects. I agree with the previous note from Jim, keep up the good work.

Unknown said...

John, your bio describes you as a libertarian. Perhaps you should give a new label to yourself. A Libertarian does not favor mandates or more government control.

I guess we should also pass may more bills like this one that will "reduce" the deficit.

Joe and Deb said...

Thanks for a little light John

Anonymous said...

John correctly observes, "Pseudo-conservatives today don't care about their own deficits, IMHO, they care about deficits that benefit others." This may be a bit off-subject, but why are so many people like this? I see many people today that seem to take more joy from the failure of their neighbor than his success. It's amazing that we can be jealous of a person that receives an opportunity that we may have already received. We think we deserve everything we've got, but others shouldn't ever get a chance. Does capitalism cause us to view our neighbors as "competitors" rather than fellow human beings?

Anonymous said...

I'm disappointed in you, John.

dairy said...

Frank Rich has an interesting editorial in today's NYT that draws some comparisons and attempts to get to the root of all this anger we're seeing after the passage of the health care bill. Falling to the left may be the only sane alternative!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html