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.

Democrats: The Party of "No"

No sooner had Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts, pundits began rerunning their schtick that the Republican party was, "The Party of No."

Actually, they have that backwards.

Brown's election means that the Democrats no longer have 60 seats in the Senate. Since 60 votes are required to cut off debate and call a vote, they must now get at least one Republican to agree with any legislation they intend to pass.

One Republican seems a pretty small requirement. When the Republicans controlled the Senate in a 50-50 tie, they needed 10 Democrats to invoke "cloture," and the people's business still got done.

The difference was that the Republicans listened to the Democrats' cries about the "rights of the minority." They had to, even if they thought those cries were disingenuous. But, Democrat Senators have gotten in the habit of saying, "No," every time the Republicans wanted that legislative body to perhaps consider something that some of them could support.

Democrats didn't need Republicans over the last year, so their answer was, "No. No, we won't consider your ideas; no we won't reach a compromise the American people might prefer; no, we won't even acknowledge that you have ideas." They ran with that last comment to every journalist they could find, pretending that the other side didn't even offer ideas. Sadly, too many journalists let them get away with it.

So, when your opposition won't listen to you, about all you have left is to say, "No. No, we don't agree with where you're going, and, no, we can't stop it, but, no you can't make us vote for it, either."

Republicans have had ideas all along, and have been offering them. Whether they're the best ideas ever, or utterly foolish, isn't the point. Democrats will now, at least, have to stop saying, "No."

There Is No Plan

Remember a couple weeks ago, when Timothy Geithner announced the plan to fix the economy? The day before, the President had demurred when asked to provide some details, saying he didn’t want to step on the Treasury Secretary’s toes. Huh? Okay, maybe he hadn’t been briefed yet, or didn’t want to talk about something that complicated without some notes. Only…the next day, Geithner didn’t announce a plan. He announced a plan to create a plan. The market didn’t exactly freak, but it sure dropped.

Yesterday (Feb 23), the President held a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” at the White House, a bipartisan affair attended by over a hundred economic and political leaders. The idea was to come up with a plan--well, I thought that was the idea. The attendees split into "breakout groups" and…well, apparently, all they did was talk. President Obama facilitated a wrap-up discussion when the summit was over, asking key members of various groups to “outbrief” their team’s results. It became painfully obvious that none of the members had any idea what to do, none of them had any actual plans, and none of them seemed to even grasp the concept that they needed to come up with a plan. It was just an academic roundtable.

Memo to the President: Sir, we need a plan. We don’t need talk about creating a plan--I have now officially lost track of the number of times you’ve said, “We’re going to come up with a plan.” It usually involves a vague pronouncement that someone is going to do that.

Excellent. When?

The campaign is over. It’s been over for months. During the campaign, during the transition, and during your short time in office, you’ve kept promising us that there’s going to be a plan. I’m starting to question that. I’m starting to think Senator Reid was including you when he said, “No one knows what to do!” That really worries me, because delegating every bit of planning, and not holding your planners accountable, indicates you still think this is an academic exercise--that you're still the editor, instead of the author.

Mr. President, you’re not at Harvard any more. It’s time to start governing.

Fairness Doctrine RIP? Let's Hope.

Today, President Obama stated, through his press secretary, that he wasn't interested in reimposing the "fairness doctrine." He had indicated as much during the campaign, so it was good to hear him politely rebuke the Democrats who have been calling for it over the last week.

Across several bulletin boards, posters hailed this as proof that the right's worry was simply trumped up. Alas, not so fast. No less than former President Clinton stated in a radio interview this week that it should be reimposed, as did Congressman Waxman. Sorry, posters, but those two examples alone are enough to cause worry.

President Obama should go further, however. He should come out forcefully and state that the fairness doctrine is nothing more than censorship, which has no place in America. The marketplace of ideas does not need government interference, whether by blatantly insisting on "equal time" (but only on certain media) or subtly suggesting we need "local ownership."

The right should praise Mr. Obama for this statement, take him at his word, and trumpet it--not least because doing so will make it more difficult for him to walk back from it, but also because it would demonstrate that their differences are based entirely, strictly, and always on policy.

Executive Pay--Bipartisanship, or the Issue?

President Obama has recently made the case that executives in companies that accept "bailout" money from the federal government should be restricted to salaries of $500,000. His argument is that they shouldn't be rewarded for running their companies into the ground, and the taxpayers certainly shouldn't be subsidizing the reward. An interesting argument.

It certainly has populist appeal, and liberals are obviously supporting the concept as a matter of how they see fairness. Conservatives counter on principle--that once the government starts telling these businesses how to run their affairs, what's to stop them from telling all businesses? Or all of us?

That's not a ridiculous worry--when the income tax was being debated in Congress, one member was belittled for worrying that someday, 5% of the population might be subject to it.

What's more interesting to me is the obvious counter the President could play, if he really wants a bipartisan approach. Sure, liberals like the idea because they think it's fair. But the conservative argument should be that executives and boards need to be discouraged from taking the bailout unless their companies really need it. Taking a bailout is likely to devastate the shareholders--the owners of that company. There needs to be a personal disincentive to ensure that boards act on behalf of their investors, the owners, and don't get the idea that these companies are a personal playground.

He could move on to asking Congress to figure out a way to ensure that the CEO brought in to pull a company out of the ditch doesn't have to pay that penalty (nicely assuming he now automatically wins over his opposition with the previous argument).

The downside, of course, is that requires him to acknowledge the other side really has good ideas. Since, so far, "bipartisanship" has mostly consisted of, "Come to the meeting and then vote for my plan," that could be a problem. But that begs the question--is this about bipartisanship, or the issue?

Pelosi: Abort the Poor

When someone says something ridiculous, and then follows it up with, "I'm serious," my general inclination is to respond, "No, you're not. You're trying to be outrageous. And you have a reason."

Rarely, I'm willing to accept that they're just making a silly argument to support a position they genuinely hold. I think that's what's going on here.

On Sunday (Jan 25), the Speaker of the House appeared on ABC's "This Week," where she explained to the host, George Stephanopolous, how funding contraceptives and family planning would stimulate the economy. Let's be clear--responsible and honorable people hold positions on both sides of the "family planning" argument. Just because you disagree with the other person doesn't mean they're evil, and anway, that's not the point of this post.

The point is how she made the argument: that family planning would stimulate the economy by cost avoidance, because the children who would not be born would not need state aid. Last I checked, the children of the rich don't need that state aid, and generally don't qualify for it. So, did she think about what she was actually implying? Can you imagine the outraged headlines if, say, her neighbor, Republican Senator John Ensign from Nevada, had made a similar argument?

Now, I believe the Congresswoman holds her positions honestly, and I have little doubt she approves of family planning as a matter of principle. But, can we please not make ridiculous arguments to justify funding our pet philosophies? And, the next time her opposition says something that can be twisted unfairly, I hope she considers what headline could have been written about her on Jan 26. I wrote it here--but, then, not many people read this blog.