[Posted by Karl] Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has joined House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) on a bipartisan plan to revamp Medicare. The crux of the matter is that Ryan ostensibly gets a premium support plan of the sort he has long championed, while Wyden ostensibly gets traditional Medicare enshrined as one of the options for seniors’ helath insurance. Ed Morrissey likes the introduction of more competition into the Medicare system and the supposed political benefit of potentially blunting Democrats’ Mediscare tactics in the upcoming election. Ben Domenech asks eight questions of Ryan that need to be addressed (although I think Ben’s concern about the lack of means-testing overlooks that the plan contemplates wealthy seniors getting less) and fears the Ryan-Wyden proposal will be viewed as a “walkback” that will actually hurt Republicans who stuck out their necks on the Medicare reforms Ryan included in the House budget. On a political level, the fact that the GOP frontrunners are already closer to Ryan-Wyden than the House budget suggests to me that the proposal will not affect the overall political environment much. On a policy level, given that this is a mere proposal, rather than legislation, most of the devil will be in the details. Aside from Domenech’s primary point that it may be too late on a solvency basis, the two questions that concern me most are: (1) the potential for Medicare to engage in unfair competition in the premium support system (as the so-called “ public option ” would have under Obamacare); and (2) relying on Congress and the Independent Payment Advisory Board to restrain costs. The latter is actually somewhat less of a concern to me than you might think. Kicking the cost can down the road is already the status quo. The introduction of IPAB under Obamacare pushes the system in the direction of rationing by cutting payments to hospitals and doctors, which will force many doctors out of the health care system, decreasing access and likely quality of care. Getting a premium support system in place at least advances market competition as the alternative for cost containment, which is more attractive as policy and politics. However, that assumes fair competition, which is why the role Medicare would play in the new system is key. To be effective, a premium support system including Medicare would have to reform Medicare to make it equivalent to a private plan , without taxpayer subsidy… and that’s where I think Dems would start an enormous pushback, even though Pres. Obama essentially conceded the argument during the debate over Obamacare. Nevertheless, Ryan may be calculating that Republicans would rather have a debate over reforming Medicare to eliminate unfair competition than its outright elimination. –Karl
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What’s behind the Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan?
Remember: One of the victims of the joint Sprint/Justice/FCC Triple Alliance against AT&T is T-Mobile itself. T-Mobile has no 4G, no iPhone, and no clear plan for what to do if their right to sell off to AT&T is taken away by the big government wonder team. Nobody benefits when big government tramples the little guy. Even if FCC is clearly wrong , and it is , the committee’s meddling is a problem at this point. I do hope alternatives can be found that government’s boot can’t crush . The Government in going after these firms is simply trapping the public in the middle. We’re the ones who lose out with lesser competition thanks to this deal potentially being blocked. Good news though: SOPA is in trouble . The bill has been rightfully compared unfavorably with Net Neutrality by Google . Net Neutrality, Google now seems to admit, is a costly power grab. SOPA is worse, so much so that an alternative is now circulating . This alternative isn’t the pure Federal Reserve-based approach I hoped for, copying the UIGEA, but it does importantly focus on funding-based attacks, rather than try to have the US government censor the DNS system. If we can target illegal activity without censorship, let’s do it. Al Franken and Ed Markey are having hissy fits about some software called Carrier IQ. However one thing missing from the shouting is a clear list of what’s being done, by whom, where. It reads to me like speculative, overblown excuse making to create new regulations while demonizing businesses. That is, it’s business as usual for the pro-regulation Democrats in DC. House Republicans are moving forward with online security efforts that sounds good . If the bill truly does focus on voluntary information gathering and sharing, enabling the private sector to get key information and assistance from government in a voluntary way, as well as share information that can then be used to help others, I see no harm in that whatsoever. Voluntary cooperation, not controlling and regulating the Internet, is the key to shoring up our security without threatening liberty or innovation. This is half of the online security model I want followed in fact: voluntary information sharing plus harsh criminal enforcement against attackers. Once this passes, then we look at the criminal penalties side, eh?
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Tech at Night: FCC victimizes T-Mobile, SOPA in trouble, Google’s Net Neutrality admission?
Given the understandable concern people have over the state of the economy, it seems no one got around to asking current Republican frontrunner Herman Cain a difficult question on his views about abortion – until last night. Cain went on Piers Morgan’s show last night, and was first asked a ridiculous gotcha question about what he would do if his own granddaughter were raped. I won’t really dignify that question by covering it, because pro-choice politicians never get asked this question about extreme cases from the other end of the spectrum. Then, however, the conversation moved on to abortion more generally, and it turns out that Herman Cain is pro-choice: No, it comes down to is, it’s not the government’s role — or anybody else’s role — to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you’re not talking about that big a number (abortion because of rape – LHW). So what I’m saying is, it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president. Not some politician. Not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn’t try to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive decision. . . . No, they don’t. I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn’t be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to a social decision that they need to make . There’s a simple term for people who feel that abortion is personally wrong, but that the government shouldn’t do anything to prohibit it: we call those people “pro-choice.” This position is fundamentally indistinguishable from the positions taken by Mario Cuomo, John Kerry, or pretty much any other nominally Catholic Democrat you want to name. Nobody who doesn’t work for NARAL believes abortion is a good thing; the only question that is of significance to a politician is whether you also think it should be illegal. And if you believe, as Cain allegedly does, that life begins at conception, it defies logic and common sense to say in the next breath that the government has no business making it illegal to prevent someone from taking that life. If life begins at conception, but the government has no business regulating abortion, then you must also of necessity believe that the government has no business regulating any form of homicide. Of course, no one truly believes that, which is why the formulation espoused by Cuomo, Kerry, and Cain is really just a focus-group tested way of making people feel better about the fact that you’re pro-choice. I’ll be very interested to see if Cain attempts to walk back or qualify this position in the coming days. I had been seriously considering giving Cain a chance (I haven’t been all that interested in the 9 9 9 brouhaha since I give it 0% chance of passing Congress), but this is a dealbreaker for me. And if this really was a mistake on this part, then somehow he has gone his whole adult life without ever seriously considering the question of abortion or being aware of the standard Catholic Democrat dodge on the issue. This does not necessarily paint Cain in a good light, but it is certainly better than the alternative: that Cain believed and meant what he said, and is a pro-choice candidate. UPDATE: Behold John Kerry in 2004 . See if you can find a hair’s breadth of difference between Kerry and Cain. “I oppose abortion, personally. I don’t like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception.” … I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Catholic – raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life, helped lead me through a war, leads me today. “But I can’t take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn’t share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can’t do that. But I can counsel people, I can talk reasonably about life and about responsibility.
This just in via AEI. I am not making this up. This is from an interview of The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore on Larry Kudlow’s radio show. I love the idea [of a 9 percent national sales tax]. As you know, Art Laffer and I helped design the plan. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the American people and the voters do not want a national sales tax. He’s going to have to replace that national sales tax with a 9 percent payroll tax . And if you do that it’s a total winner. … I’m surprised how hostile people are to the sales tax. When we designed this plan, I thought people would go along with the 9 percent sales tax. But the point is they won’t. And why not just do a payroll tax. It’s the devil we know … So now we have a couple more data points. 1. Contrary to Herman Cain’s statements, the designer of the plan was not a hapless Rich Lowrie but rather Steve Moore and Art Laffer. This makes sense. Presumably Cain knows who his advisers are… the alternative is frightening. If he did know this he owes an explanation on his lack of candor. A man who will lie about the identity of his advisers will quite possibly lie about something else. 2. Art Laffer pimped 9-9-9 without disclosing his involvement in its development. Another troubling development, especially considering 9-9-9 would have had more impact if Cain had announced Laffer had developed it. In addition, we now know that the new and improved 9-9-9 will be a 9% personal income tax, a 9% corporate income tax, and a 9% payroll tax. According to NRO: The Cain campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether Cain was considering making the change.
The S&P has downgraded American credit from AAA to AA+, the first time in history. The left is scrambling to blame the GOP for this and is fixated on one paragraph Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade. The issue here, however, is that while present law presumed the GOP tax cuts would go away, the policy presumption is that they would get extended. Likewise, this is not blaming the GOP. This is a statement of reality that the GOP wasn’t going to raise taxes. Consequently, because the GOP refused to raise taxes, the alternative needed to be more cuts. And S&P clearly believes that the cuts the debt deal made were not enough. And who opposed big cuts? Why yes, a guy named Barack Obama and the Democrats. We view the act’s measures as a step toward fiscal consolidation. However, this is within the framework of a legislative mechanism that leaves open the details of what is finally agreed to until the end of 2011, and Congress and the Administration could modify any agreement in the future. Even assuming that at least $2.1 trillion of the spending reductions the act envisages are implemented, we maintain our view that the U.S. net general government debt burden (all levels of government combined, excluding liquid financial assets) will likely continue to grow. The Democrats can spin this as blaming the GOP all they want since they clearly got outplayed and still saw a downgrade, but the S&P downgrade has nothing to do with any specific policy. In fact, S&P says Standard & Poor’s takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.’s finances on a sustainable footing. The whole focus is on the debt burden. And if taxes are not going to go up, as is reality, spending must go down. The left, spinning otherwise, is simply trying to escape blame.
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Left Rushs to Blame the GOP for S&P Downgrade
