Note to GOP: Stay on Message

If the Republicans in Congress have any sense, they’ve taken this week’s blizzard in Washington, DC, as an opportunity to hole up in a conference room somewhere and really think through what they’re going to say at their "bipartisan" health care meeting with the President.

The President has already telegraphed that he intends to call them obstructionists with no ideas, and then argue that we’re way too far down the track with the current bills to even consider starting over. If they’re going to counter him, Republicans will have to be a lot more agile than they have been. They’ll have to know their message and stay on it, which will mean figuring out who is quick enough on their feet to be the talking head. It might be better if they used some bench strength and left the CEO-lookalikes in the cloakroom.

First issue: that they have no ideas. They have to slap that one down, hard, fast, and relentlessly. If the President says it, the President must be mocked—politely, but mocked. They were successful in their last meeting with this technique. “The President says we have no ideas, and then reads from our plan to explain why it's wrong? Didn’t his staff tell him he was reading from our plan? ” Keep it light, but stay on that talking point until the interviewer acknowledges it. Better yet, replace, ‘his staff’ with ‘Rahm Emmanuel’ or ‘David Axelrod’—not likeable figures, but not targeting the President. 'Rules for Radicals' works both ways.

Second: that the train left last year. The American people pulled the emergency cord on that train. They don’t like it; they like it less every day, and Republicans aren’t about to help the Democrats pass something the American people don’t want. Democrats didn’t fail to pass their bill because of Republicans—they had all the votes they needed. Democrats failed to pass their bill because even their own members didn’t like it. Why would anyone with sense sign on to that? That’s like the captain of the Titanic complaining Republicans won’t help him rearrange the deck chairs!

Third: Republican ideas. Pithy, clear, and specific, but it’s also time to be a policy wonk. The ideas have to be completely spelled out, in advance, in legislative language, or it’s a return to issue #1. They can’t be a hodgepodge of “ideas.” They have to be a complete package, one that addresses or refutes every aspect of the Democrats' argument. No weaseling; no deliberate ambiguity; no assuming the American people are idiots. Pound ‘em with substance. To wit:

Cost versus price. Democrats argue they want to keep costs down. A: No, Democrats are trying to control price. That’s not the same thing. Price controls lead to rationing. Everybody knows that. (Don’t forget the “everybody knows that” part.) The solution is really to control costs. Cut costs, and competition will drive down prices. So, the goal needs to be to drive down costs.

Cutting costs. A) Malpractice reform. (Stop calling it tort reform. I took civil law and still think it sounds like we’re talking pastry.) Get some doctors to work through the “But what about…” arguments, or just accept that tough cases make bad law. For that matter, go after the lawyers—argue we should cap their fees. Why does John Edwards deserve $28 million for winning a case? Any case? B) Let insurance companies compete across state lines. How can Democrats oppose that? Their bill requires everyone to buy insurance from those companies, so why wouldn’t they want everyone to get the best deal possible? No weaseling here—defend the insurance companies? Yes. “Folks, the President want you to think the insurance companies are evil. He’s been demonizing them and their profits. We recognize they may drive you nuts, but the reality is their profit margin is about 2%. 2%. If you make them completely non-profit, that isn’t going to save you any money. They aren't the problem, but they can be part of the solution.” C) Time for “the vision thing.” Here goes—

Vision. Health care ‘costs’ are climbing, with no end in sight. Democrats’ solution is to cap prices, and guarantee rationing. Even the President has acknowledged that we might have to cut back on end-of-life care. (“Maybe your grandmother should just take the pain pill.”) No, no, no. Republicans absolutely do not, will not, must not ever agree that the solution is for government to ration care, or for government to suggest that doctors ration care. Wrong approach. Dangerously slippery slope. Immoral. But…what about cost?

Here’s where it comes full circle, and Republicans haven’t yet answered the mail. Yes, end of life care is the most expensive, so pretending there isn’t a cost issue suggests this is all just cynical political positioning (or naiveté). And the answer is…Capitalism. With a capital C.

The solution to making end-of-life care more affordable is to make all care more affordable. To encourage research and development into new, cheaper drugs; new, cheaper treatments. To allow patients to pick insurance plans that only cover what they need. To figure out whether there are real things government can do to help out—say, by encouraging new medical research reactors to bring down the cost of radiopharmaceuticals. (You think radioisotopes grow on trees? Why do you think Iran claims it wants one?) Or, by allowing hospitals to depreciate new equipment faster. Or (gasp!) by making all hospitals tax-exempt. There's more, but this is getting long enough already.

On that last idea—cutting business taxes on hospitals—here’s the real trick. When Democrats argue, “But how will we pay for that?” do not accept the premise of the argument. This discussion is not about keeping tax dollars rolling into the Treasury. It’s about getting medical costs down. “How will we pay for that?” is a deliberate distraction.

Stay on message.

ACORN: Slavery Is Okay

Nothing quite like an incendiary headline to make the point--as long as it's accurate. I think it is.

The current blowup between ACORN, a couple undercover journalists, and Fox News (who simply reported a story interesting enough that it got immediate action in both houses of the US Congress) utterly misses the point.

The journalists and Fox point out that the hidden camera video shows ACORN is corrupt. ACORN insists the journalists are somehow entrapping them. There is a ridiculous charge that the journalists broke the law--if that's the case, then the law is so obviously unconstitutional, its supporters should be embarrassed. Neither is asking the most important question.

Why do the ACORN employees seem to think human trafficking--a.k.a. slavery--is okay?

Serious question. The undercover journalist/activist said he was going to bring underage El Salvadoran girls to the US to be prostitutes. And, by "underage," they didn't mean seventeen-and-a-half. They said 13 to 16. THIRTEEN. There's a word for that--SLAVERY. But, the ACORN employee (who was interestingly enough, black) didn't seem to have a problem with that.

I am truly stunned. I have long concluded that most racism exists on the left. I have always accepted that the left has different standards of acceptable conduct, and that maybe they could consider prostitution a victimless crime. Reasonable people can disagree about that.

But, to blithely accept the idea of sex slavery as something that doesn't even merit a comment? A remark? The slightest objection? What kind of person could do that?

That, frankly, is a lot more interesting to me than some corrupt organization. No one seems horrified. Why not?

Maybe that explains why human trafficking still exists. It's much more popular to talk about a slavery that ended 150 years ago than it is to talk about the slavery that's still going on. Easier, too--because there are things, besides talk, that can be done to end something that's still occurring.

I think they call that an inconvenient truth.

Does Congress Hate Workers?

This week, Congressman Sherman (D-CA) called on Wall Street CEO’s to sell their corporate jets in order to raise capital. Last week, when Senator Levin (D-MI) said basically the same thing, I started wondering, “Why do these guys hate workers?” Levin represents a state that practically identifies itself by its blue-collar roots (“the working man”). So, why does he want to put blue collar workers on the street?

I mean the folks who build the jets. Do you think they come from a magic jet fairy? They are built by blue collar workers. They are fixed, flown, and fueled by workers. They cost about $2000 per hour to fly. Where do you think that money goes, Senator? Congressman? It goes to pay the salaries of the people who keep them in the air. So they have jobs. Jobs our President wants to save, as I recall.

Oh, but it’s a terrible perk and sets the wrong example? Ah, like luxury boats—the kind President Clinton put a tax on? And then people realized they were putting the boat builders out of business? Selling that jet also means one less jet the workers need to build. Oops.

And let’s look at that “perk.” Let’s say your CEO earns $10 million per year—a lot less than most of them, but I think most people could agree that a successful CEO might be worth that. That works out to $5000 per hour, assuming a 40 hour work week and 50 weeks per year. (Certainly they work more, but let’s assume they just do the extra pro bono.)

By my math, if they fly commercial—or drive, like the idiots from Ford, GM, and Chrysler—then every hour, they are stealing $3000 in value from the company. They’re stealing from me, their stockholder. (The jet costs around $50 million, but it lasts 10 years and flies lots of suits at once, so let's not do more math.)

The head of my own company (which, let’s just say, is REALLY big) recently mused at a gathering that perhaps he should’ve driven down from corporate headquarters, instead of flying. It would’ve taken him 4 hours instead of 1 hour, each way. I know he was trying to be considerate, and I didn’t want to be rude, so I bit my tongue. What I really wanted to say was, “Sir, respectfully, if you don’t have something better to do with your time than spend 4 hours driving here, we have the wrong boss.”

We need to get past the idea that CEO’s fly on corporate jets because it’s fun, or fashionable, or chic. They do it because their time is really that valuable. If they screw up the company, then fire them. But that doesn’t change the fact that the company needs someone whose time is really that valuable. America is an egalitarian society, so we don’t like to think like that. But let’s get serious for a minute—that’s what we say we want in our nation’s leaders. Why would businesses want someone who’s just mediocre? Who, exactly, do we expect to end up in the cabinet?

Wrong versus Stupid

I had a boss once that we called “The Crazy Man,” because he would lose his temper for no apparent reason and end up in an apoplectic rage. Moreover, if you disagreed with him, you weren’t just wrong, you were stupid. He’s no longer with the company, but a recent blog I read got me to thinking about that concept.

In his December 20 column in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?ref=opinion), Nicholas Kristof made the interesting observation that self-described liberals give less to charity than self-described conservatives. He then invited readers to offer their thoughts on why at his blog, http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/ and did they ever!

The first thing I immediately noticed was the rage. Kristof had been straightforward in his purpose: “a transparent attempt this holiday season to shame liberals into being more charitable.” My immediate thought was, “Good for you!” Encouraging one’s own group to live up to its ideals always seems like a good goal to me. Alas, Mr. Kristof and I were alone in that opinion.

There were 685 posts when I first looked, and I stopped reading after about 100. By then, the trend was pretty clear, and interesting in about three ways. First, many of the posters were clearly very angry at the notion they should do more. Some insisted that they gave of their time, so that was better than “simply dashing off a check.” While I’m glad they’re giving their time, economics don’t really care who’s doing the work, so I don’t grant them a special moral position. Some insisted that giving to political causes would do more good than giving to charity, because that would restructure the country. Here, again, I admire their dedication, but that seems just a bit too convenient. There’s a reason some organizations have tax exempt status and others don’t. But the largest portion seemed to insist that they had no obligation to give to charity—they paid their taxes, and aiding the poor was a communal duty, period. They had absolutely no obligation to pay more, because that just meant others would take advantage of their generosity.

That seems completely absurd to me. The very people who insist we should care more about our fellow man also insist that they don’t have to do one iota more until everyone else has paid their fair share? (However that’s defined?) So much for leadership by example!

To be fair, a lot of conservatives seemed pretty put out by the other posters, but that makes sense based on the subject of the Op-Ed. I think I could sum up their position as, “We give more but get called selfish and greedy. Who are the hypocrites here?” And, to be fair, some liberals pointed out that they give personally, which never gets counted. That’s legit—I have helped out several relatives, and that isn’t counted by anyone as charitable giving. By the way, the second time I checked, it was at 858 posts.

What struck me as the most interesting, however, was the liberal argument that having government provide charity services is “more efficient” than relying on private charity—one poster called it more “professional;” another called charities “bureaucratic;” a third praised government bureaucracy for being able to avoid the need for donor mailings. Having worked for government, and being able to read, I know that the government spends more on overhead than any charity would ever be permitted. I don’t know how these posters arrived at their conclusion, other than that’s what they wanted to believe.

I suspect that is, in fact, the case—they simply want to believe that government is a better solution. My first evidence is the posters’ words—that they don’t think charity should exist at all, because it won’t assure that the money goes where it’s truly needed. My second evidence for this is the number of posters who insisted that conservatives should pay more, because they had higher paying jobs. The problem with that assertion is that Kristof was quite clear that he had corrected for income, and the conclusions didn’t change—in fact, the poorest conservatives gave the most, percentage-wise. So, either the liberal posters couldn’t read, or they simply didn’t register an inconvenient truth. They didn’t want to believe it was true, so they didn’t.

And anyone who disagreed with them wasn’t just wrong. They were stupid.