DtP on fire

Peasant Burning:

Dennis the Peasant is on fire. There's some highly pragmatic, insightful political advice buried amid all that cursing and mockery. :)

The health care bill has always been an exercise in time. When the Senate voted for it just before Christmas Eve, it looked like they might just beat the clock... until the next day:

I'm not sure why this is happening. I mean, I know about the polls; and I recognize that the left and the right both hate it. I understand that it's a terrible mess, and I've got no idea why anyone would actually want to pass it. However, until today I've been convinced that passing it was the first order of business on the minds of the national Democratic party.

It came through the House on a squeaker, though; and the Senate version passed with a zero-vote margin to spare. Now Congress has to come home on recess, to constituents who are very angry about the whole thing. When they come back in January, apparently the President wants to do something else for a while -- until after his State of the Union speech, at least.

I wondered at the time if that delay meant a concession by the Democratic leadership that the bill was dead. Putting delays in front of it, when the 2010 election season has always been the chief danger, was almost suicidal.

However, I'm beginning to think it was pure incompetence by the administration. They clearly have fought for it, as with the President's personal appeal to voters over the weekend. They are still shouting from the rooftops that they'll find a way to pass it.

Combined with this incompetence may have been pure murder by Senate wise-men who understood that the bill needed to die. Stretching it out until now means they can kill it without suffering personal blame. Witness Jim Webb:

As Democrats reel from the loss of a U.S. Senate seat in deep blue Massachusetts, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb becomes the first senator we've seen tonight to call for suspending all votes on health care until newly elected Republican Scott Brown can take office.... It's been obvious to me for months now, just from observing Webb's body language and listening to his words, that he was not happy at all with the health care reform legislation, either the substance of the process. For months now, I've been wondering whether Webb would jump ship, and now he appears to have done so.

The last chance, really, is the House performing the ping-pong strategy. The good news for HCR supporters: due to gerrymandering, and in direct contradiction to the Founder's intentions, House seats are much safer than Senate seats on average. The bad news: the entire House is up for re-election, and we've just demonstrated that the definition of "safe" is going to be different this year. Witness Barney Frank:

Frank said that, for now, lawmakers must "rule out" any effort to pass healthcare anyway.

"I am hopeful that some Republican senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of healthcare reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the healthcare status quo," Frank said. "But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a healthcare bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened."

Now, there are ten months until the main election.

I suggest that the main thing is to build a new Congress based on small-government principles. Party isn't really the issue here, although if we begin to see the Tea Party movement capturing the Republican party that may change. I was never willing to leave the Democratic party for the Republican party; but I might be willing to leave it for a party that was honestly devoted to the principles of the Founders, gutting the social-welfare state, and very limited government interference in one's life.

At the moment, though, we need to look at our local races and figure out who among the candidates is the "limited government" candidate. We need to de-leverage American government, so that it isn't so heavily indebted and so that we aren't particularly dependent upon it nor subject to its whims.

Finally, I've noticed that some people are upset that Sen. Brown is a supporter of universal health care -- at the state level. Well he might be! That is a 10th Amendment issue. The state may have authority to do something like that; it's the Federal government that plainly does not. If Massachusetts wants to have universal health care, let them have it. If Georgia doesn't, we'll get all the jobs come the recovery: Atlanta will outstrip Boston because of better deals on taxes and spending.

Meanwhile, citizens who want universal health care can move to Massachusetts; whereas those who want less government in their lives can go elsewhere. That's genuine freedom, which doesn't exist given a one-size-fits-all Federal solution.

There's room in this country for liberals and conservatives alike. We just need to make sure that we're practicing our ideology at the state level. At the Federal level, the powers are meant to be specific and limited, and the government small and relatively absent from our day-to-day lives. The Federal government should look outward, for the most part; its power should mostly be used to push back the world, and maintain a space for liberty. It is the state, which any citizen can leave if he doesn't like it, where any expansive government functions should be exercised. Those of us who really want very little government should be able to have it; but there will remain some states where those who want cradle-to-grave security can try to have it, if they can indeed afford it.

Personally, I think that approach will always fail; but if they want it, let them try it there and not here. If they can make it work, at the state level in a state where it doesn't bother me, more power to them.