Krauthammer on the Senate’s health care reform bill
Here’s a great summary article by Charles Krauthammer on what’s wrong with the Senate health care reform bill, and how better to go about doing the job. Please send it out to all your friends.
[ADDENDUM: Somewhat unrelated, but here’s another fine article, this time on seven public perceptions about Obama that he will need to counter if he wants to keep his approval rating high.
Only trouble is, these impressions are not just spin, they’re based on what Obama has actually done. If he’s ever to correct them, he needs to do so with deeds rather than mere words. Even more important is the fact that, once a person has squandered the public trust, people remain suspicious. In Obama’s case, they should be.]
Reasoning is wasted on the Left. We might just as well have surrendered to Islamists.
Here is a pithy summary of the health care bill from
Tigerhawk:
An addition: any two thousand page health care bill that does not deal with tort reform is not worth being passed.
Obama -14.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Krauthammer is pretty sharp.
You sense the weakness of the politico article correctly. The writer seems to think these troublesome narratives are just perception, which Obama must more effectively manage. Harris is rooting for Obama to do so – or perhaps is so complete an inside-the-beltway mentality that the horse race aspect of elections, not their results, are all that matter to him. Still, it is a very perceptive article.
A lot of horrible words on the planned economy are spun out. Outlandish things are written: “the direct social character of work in socialist society…The surmounting of the law of value and the elimination of the anarchy of production…The planned management of the economy as a means of realizing the conformity of production relations of socialism with the character of productive forces.” Some sort of perfect planned economy is described. It needs to be put simply: under capitalism it is impossible to conduct production according to plan on a societal scale because of competition and there is private property that disconnects things. But in the USSR all enterprises are united by socialist property. Therefore we can and must conduct a planned economy. The planned economy is not our wish; it is unavoidable or else everything will collapse. We destroyed such bourgeois barometers as the market and trade, which help the bourgeoisie to correct disproportions. We have taken everything on ourselves. The planned economy is as unavoidable for us as the consumption of bread. This is not because we are “good guys” and we are capable of doing anything and they [capitalists] are not, but because for us all enterprises are unified. For them at most a few trusts or cartels can be unified within narrow parameters, but they are not capable of organizing the whole economy. –
(Here it is useful to remember Lenin’s criticism of Kautsky on high imperialism.)21
Capitalist industry, agriculture and transport cannot be run by plan. In capitalism the cities must gobble up the countryside. For them, private property interferes. Say it simply: for us things are unified, for them things are disconnected.
On page 369 [of the draft of the textbook] it is written: “the planned running of the economy [is] a means of realizing the cooperation of productive relations of socialism with the nature of productive power.” This is all nonsense, some sort of schoolyard bumbling!
Marx and Engels wrote from afar, they should have spoken about contradictions. But why the devil are you feeding us those kinds of abstractions? Say it simply– they have a disconnected economy, property is disconnected, but here socialist property is unified. You are in control, and the power is yours. Speak more clearly. You need to determine the tasks of the planning center. It should not only establish proportion. Proportion is not the important thing, it is fundamental, but just the same it is derivative.
What is the main task of planning?
The main task of planning is to ensure the independence of the socialist economy from the capitalist encirclement. This is absolutely the most important task. It is a type of battle with world capitalism. The basis of planning is to reach the point where metal and machines are in our hands and we are not dependent on the capitalist economy. This is important. On this basis the plan of GOELRO22 and the subsequent plans have been founded.
if you dont know their frame of mind and what ideas they hold you can never understand them. even worse is when you imagine that since you dont understand them, they must be stupid and plain old lucky to have the worlds most powerful nation fall into their laps.
The second task of the planned economy consists of consolidation of complete ownership of the socialist economic system and closing off the forces which give rise to capitalism.
sounds like thats what they are implementing. no?
in their time, proposed the closing of unprofitable advanced enterprises.
you mean like the banks, general motors, and such? what did WE call it? oh yeah… too big to fail. what did they call it? oh yes, the closing of the basis of a socilaist economy.
This would have meant the “closing” of socialism. Capital would have flown towards flour milling and the production of toys, because that is what brings profit. We could not follow that path.
ah… so the failure of the largest industries would have resulted in a shift of monies to more profitable entities, and therefore increse the disconnect. (that is the abilty of the state to control things as they have no connection to the means of production. ie. if they let them fail, they lose control)…..
People not versed in economic relations will not make the distinction between the People’s Republic of China and the people’s emocracies of Central and Eastern Europe, such as the People’s Democratic Republic of Poland. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Polish people’s democracies are dissimilar.
The people’s democratic republics are typified by:
1) the dictatorship of the proletariat;
2) nationalization of industry;
3) the leadership role of the Communist and
Workers’ Party;
and 4) the transition from building socialism in the city to building socialism in the country.
so really the way that they see it is that they are making a dictatorship of the proletariat, natinolizing the largest parts of industry, and putting unions (soviets) in leadership positions.
now… what they seek to do is take the socialism that is rampant in cities and compressed areas where people cant get slammed by reality… and now, its time to move that all into the country side…
What are wages? They are the living wage plus some savings. You need to show
what the living wage is, the nominal and real wages. Show this decisively. We are in a
struggle with capitalism right now on the basis of wages.
anyone know who is talking in my quotes? who is talking about a “living wage”? who here talks about a living wage?
the point is to make sure you understand that they are reading a different economic textbook… one that I have read, and you have probably not.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]