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Title: The War on Logic
Source:
NY Times
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/o ... ml?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Published: Jan 17, 2011
Author: Paul Krugman
Post Date: 2011-01-17 12:39:48 by go65
Keywords: None
Views: 11756
Comments: 20
My wife and I were thinking of going out for an inexpensive dinner tonight. But John Boehner, the speaker of the House, says that no matter how cheap the meal may seem, it will cost thousands of dollars once you take our monthly mortgage payments into account. Wait a minute, you may say. How can our mortgage payments be a cost of going out to eat, when we’ll have to make the same payments even if we stay home? But Mr. Boehner is adamant: our mortgage is part of the cost of our meal, and to say otherwise is just a budget gimmick. O.K., the speaker hasn’t actually weighed in on our plans for the evening. But he and his G.O.P. colleagues have lately been making exactly the nonsensical argument I’ve just described — not about tonight’s dinner, but about health care reform. And the nonsense wasn’t a slip of the tongue; it’s the official party position, laid out in charts and figures. We are, I believe, witnessing something new in American politics. Last year, looking at claims that we can cut taxes, avoid cuts to any popular program and still balance the budget, I observed that Republicans seemed to have lost interest in the war on terror and shifted focus to the war on arithmetic. But now the G.O.P. has moved on to an even bigger project: the war on logic. So, about that nonsense: this week the House is expected to pass H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act — its actual name. But Republicans have a small problem: they claim to care about budget deficits, yet the Congressional Budget Office says that repealing last year’s health reform would increase the deficit. So what, other than dismissing the nonpartisan budget office’s verdict as “their opinion” — as Mr. Boehner has — can the G.O.P. do? The answer is contained in an analysis — or maybe that should be “analysis” — released by the speaker’s office, which purports to show that health care reform actually increases the deficit. Why? That’s where the war on logic comes in. First of all, says the analysis, the true cost of reform includes the cost of the “doc fix.” What’s that? Well, in 1997 Congress enacted a formula to determine Medicare payments to physicians. The formula was, however, flawed; it would lead to payments so low that doctors would stop accepting Medicare patients. Instead of changing the formula, however, Congress has consistently enacted one-year fixes. And Republicans claim that the estimated cost of future fixes, $208 billion over the next 10 years, should be considered a cost of health care reform. But the same spending would still be necessary if we were to undo reform. So the G.O.P. argument here is exactly like claiming that my mortgage payments, which I’ll have to make no matter what we do tonight, are a cost of going out for dinner. There’s more like that: the G.O.P. also claims that $115 billion of other health care spending should be charged to health reform, even though the budget office has tried to explain that most of this spending would have taken place even without reform. To be sure, the Republican analysis doesn’t rely entirely on spurious attributions of cost — it also relies on using three-card monte tricks to make money disappear. Health reform, says the budget office, will increase Social Security revenues and reduce Medicare costs. But the G.O.P. analysis says that these sums don’t count, because some people have said that these savings would also extend the life of these programs’ trust funds, so counting these savings as deficit reduction would be “double-counting,” because — well, actually it doesn’t make any sense, but it sounds impressive. So, is the Republican leadership unable to see through childish logical fallacies? No. The key to understanding the G.O.P. analysis of health reform is that the party’s leaders are not, in fact, opposed to reform because they believe it will increase the deficit. Nor are they opposed because they seriously believe that it will be “job-killing” (which it won’t be). They’re against reform because it would cover the uninsured — and that’s something they just don’t want to do. And it’s not about the money. As I tried to explain in my last column, the modern G.O.P. has been taken over by an ideology in which the suffering of the unfortunate isn’t a proper concern of government, and alleviating that suffering at taxpayer expense is immoral, never mind how little it costs. Given that their minds were made up from the beginning, top Republicans weren’t interested in and didn’t need any real policy analysis — in fact, they’re basically contemptuous of such analysis, something that shines through in their health care report. All they ever needed or wanted were some numbers and charts to wave at the press, fooling some people into believing that we’re having some kind of rational discussion. We aren’t.
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#1. To: All (#0)
I think Krugman misses the point - the GOP doesn't oppose the ACA because of spending, taxes or deficits - they oppose it simply because they oppose anything Obama favors. They still haven't offered their alternative plan.
So far, nothing the Obama favors bodes well for America, sure sounds like the right thing to do.
It takes a special kind of partisanship to argue that we were better off in January of 2009 than we are now.
Partisanship? LOL. How 'bout "common sense?" Look at the blue lines in each chart, for 1/2009 to now. See a trend? Don't like shadowstats, but can't disprove them (other then saying "I believe the government, and will choose to ignore reality)??? How about these?
#8. To: Capitalist Eric (#6)
Thanks for the info charts.... I'm no economist,...mostly follow the money from WW-2 and who logically has it. Japan has lots of Gold and Silver from their looting of Asia. Is the money Cartell groups from Circa WW-2,...all one happy family now,...or are there problems? I pick problems for 500 Alex : )
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#2. To: go65 (#1)
- they oppose it simply because they oppose anything Obama favors.
#3. To: eskimo (#2)
So far, nothing the Obama favors bodes well for America, sure sounds like the right thing to do.
#6. To: go65 (#3)
It takes a special kind of partisanship to argue that we were better off in January of 2009 than we are now.
Replies to Comment # 6.
Some of it is parked in Swiss Banks with the Nazi haul since those days aswell.
There's still underground cache's of Japanese stolen Gold just sitting in its foreign location with Japan's ruling families from WW-2 schemeing to get it out without cutting a deal with the country's its still hidden.
Japan even sank one of their own Cruisers loaded with Gold from a cache off the Phillipines,....supposedly they have visited this wreck and got their gold,...or someone else did.
So ya,....Incredible wealth stolen from WW-2.
We know the Nazi/Bormann Flight Capital group blew town starting 1944 and set up some 700 corporation fronts in foreign climes.
Some of that was taken apart/taken away from them,...with more morphing into future Corporation reach.
Your Bilderberg group is another tranche of the Nazi Cartell which worked with Anglo money interests.
Rumor is the Bormann group is breaking off with the Anglo financial block and calling in Markers now,.....Some consider the TARP racket as schemed up to cover derivates and markers called in.
We are going to be shocked at whose wealth built what.
China did have ancient Gold,...but way more ancient Silver.
Still not enough to account for growth,..and their Military prowess increase.
Question,...is the money just for trade,...or is there more to the plan?
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