As the special election NY-26 illustrated, the Democrats will come after the eventual Republican nominee for President with all guns blazing.  In that race, according to most pundits, the defining issue was entitlement reform, specifically Medicare.  Framed by those on the Left as a referendum on Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan, a more likely factor in the Republican loss was the presence of a third candidate who pulled votes from the Republican Party in that race.  However, to deny the influence of the Medicare debate being played out in upstate New York would be a denial of reality.  And it is a prequel to how the Democrats will play this issue in 2012.  Lest anyone forget, remember George W. Bush and the uproar after his reelection in 2004 when he said he use his political capital to reform Social Security.  One might say this was the beginning of the end for Bush- the point at which he completely jumped the shark.

Numerous articles have been written by various think tanks and publication about the possible effects of Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan.  However, the most important point is this: The Ryan Plan is a proposal while Obamacare is the law.  Much of the analysis of the Ryan Plan fails to mention or take into account the totality of Medicare reform in association with other entitlement reforms and tax reform.  Also not mentioned is that the plan is phased in over a ten year transitional period.  It does not affect any current or soon-to-be Medicare beneficiaries.  The bottom line is that the population at large does not understand, nor do they care, about the differences between a “voucher” and “premium support.”  Entitlement programs are notoriously complicated, not to mention the nuances of reform proposals.  The reforms will necessarily demand hard choices along the way.  Any amount of educational effort on the part of the Republicans will reach everyone’s ears, but register in few brains.  It is not that the population at large lacks intelligence, but that the complexity of the issue is better left to the policy experts.  In essence, I believe Obama and the Democrats will adopt the same posture in the 2012 campaign as they did in NY-26′s campaign especially if the economy remains stagnantly dismal.  That election was the starting point of poking and prodding the boundaries of what they can get away with regarding Medicare.

For example, DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has asserted that under the Ryan plan, seniors with pre-existing conditions would be denied health insurance by private companies.  She also mentioned that future beneficiaries would be abandoned under the Ryan Plan.  The assertions were so false that even liberal rags like the Washington Post and Factcheck.org took her to task on these assertions.  As the supporters of the plan have correctly noted, the Ryan Plan changes the structure of Medicare; it does not abolish Medicare.  Regardless, the Democratic Party and their cronies in the unions and special interest groups will air television commercials depicting Republicans running granny off the cliff in their wheelchairs.

Obviously, the visceral attacks have a greater effect than educational efforts.  Actually, the educational efforts should be more directed and subtle and better played out by the policy wonks and those who pound out the details in the halls of Congress.  In effect, to get ahead of this story and redefine the issue in terms the voting population can understand, the Republican Party has to reclaim Medicare reform as a campaign issue without letting the Democratic Party define the issue for us.  In order to counter the negative advertisements and over-the-top accusations from the likes of Chairman Wasserman Schultz and liberal, Democratic mouthpieces like the lame stream media, this involves a three-pronged attack.  First, conservative attack dogs must be unleashed while distancing the Party from them.  People like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and others- people who have large listening audiences and readerships- need to lead with the visceral attacks on Democratic visceral attacks.  This also includes conservative PACs and 527′s.  If Democratic Party groups can show their ugly commercials, conservatives have to repay in kind with equally ugly commercials showing the very real effects of Obamacare- a law, not a working proposal- on senior citizens.  Here, I would argue that Republican/conservative mouthpieces like Sarah Palin would serve a stronger role than if she were a Presidential candidate.

Second, the RNC and the Republican Party needs to reframe the Ryan Plan as a working proposal- a broad framework for necessary reform while emphasizing that Democratic policy of “kicking the can down the road” will not suffice.  That is, Obama can propose commissions and glossed over reforms that actually do nothing, but in the interim, the entire system is teetering on the edge of insolvency.  That scenario- do nothing, or raise taxes- serves no one- current or future Medicare beneficiaries.  That is the alternative that must be argued.  Additionally, the RNC needs to be the go-between with the senior citizen advocacy groups like AARP and the National Senior Citizen Law Center, etc.  In short, the RNC must be the educational arm for Medicare reform.  Finally, those involved directly in Medicare reform in Congress- people like Paul Ryan and others- need to stay above the fray and argue their position from one of intelligence.  The recently reported behind-closed-doors debate between Ryan and Obama over Medicare and demagoguery is all well and good.  However, it must be remembered that it was Paul Ryan who made a positive name for himself when he publicly took on Obama during the health care debate.  When it comes to actual policy formulation and intelligence, Ryan runs circles around Obama and leaves the President a blubbering fool.

To get ahead of this story and reclaim it, the Ryan plan needs to be presented as the starting point of a grand design, but necessarily the ultimate end game.  If nothing else, the Republican Party can show a willingness to debate the issue in a mature, adult way- something foreign to Washington political discourse and an area where Wasserman Schultz is at an obvious disadvantage.  Secondly, they can show a willingness to compromise with Democrats where necessary- an area where the Democratic Party has an obvious disadvantage.  Finally, it can show that the Republican Party is a party of ideas and that Democrats are the true “party of no” when it comes to true reforms, not the tried-and-failed, tax-and-spend policies of their party.  Other than increasing taxes and hypothetical savings through fraud and waste elimination, Democrats have no new ideas.  The subject of entitlement reform in general is a touchy subject for the Democratic Party as much as it is for the Republican Party.  Whether Obama likes it or not, it is the 800 pound elephant in the political room.  Obama can ignore it, he can study it, form commissions around it, and kick it down the road.  But as he and the Democratic Party do so, the clock is ticking and the money is draining.  Emphasis on this fact is the ultimate scare tactic that the Republican Party must emphasize and use against the Democratic Party.  It is time to reclaim Medicare reform for the Republican Party.

The following is my article in The Monitor.  The Monitor is the re-branded name for The Citizen, and it’s the Kansas City Metro’s premier center-right print and online publication.  Make sure and bookmark KCMonitor.com for regular updates on news from Kansas, Missouri, and the Kansas City area.  Click here to learn where to find one of the 200 locations distributing this free print newspaper.

This article is re-published with permission.

Did 2010 Create Real – Or Just Expedient – Change Among Elected Republicans?

Independent voters – who are largely conservative, particularly on fiscal issues – will throw out either political party when it says one thing and does another

Also:

– Koch brothers (the wrong ones) receive a death threat;
– Major school choice progress nation-wde

May 4, 2011

by Benjamin Hodge

In 1994, Republicans captured both Houses of Congress for the first time in four decades.  Those Republicans were sent to change Washington, but Washington soon changed the Republicans, who by 2006 were functioning as a pro-life, somewhat-less socialist version of the Democratic party.

When Republicans spend like Democrats, the result is both bad policy and bad politics.  Independent voters – who are largely conservative, particularly on fiscal issues – will throw out either political party when it says one thing and does another.

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Sometimes the people over at National Review just seem to completely miss the point. And then today they publish a commentary by Andrew C. McCarthy which takes aim at Speaker-elect John Boehner’s support for banning earmarks. Can you be any more tone deaf?

The debt is what the election was about: the growth-killing tab that runs up another $4 billion every day . . . Yet, Mr. Boehner is focused like a laser on . . . earmarks. They are, he says, “a symbol of a broken Washington.” Okay, but they are also less than one 1 percent of our unfathomable $3.8 trillion budget. The problem is not the symbols, it is the broken Washington.

McCarthy’s overall point is that we are headed for fiscal ruin on the gravy train of relentless spending by the federal government. Thank you, Captain Obvious. It wasn’t necessary to make that point by denigrating a major grassroots victory in the process. Opposition to earmarking was almost universally a deal-breaker issue for tea party activists and candidates across the country.

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Many progressives in the media and in the Democrat Party are all hot and bothered about this health care debacle, and it has them asking each other, “What are the alternatives if the current health care non bill bill ultimately fails?” Well, I think the progressives need to stop asking that question in the context of what would happen if a nuclear warhead misses the football field size asteroid headed toward earth, and instead take that question and apply it to the proper context of true, reasonable, libertarian reform.

The alternatives to a Trojan horse health care plan are quite simple and highly effective. Are they perfect? No, but the whole point of reform is to make gradual steps toward a more perfect system, not one giant leap toward the confines of the ever so desirable progressive Utopia. The Utopia doesn’t exist, it never has, and when tried throughout history it failed or transformed into a diabolical system of soft and or hard tyrannies.

One of my favorite examples of reform would be to reform medicaid and medicare. You all know my stance on these two programs, I want to ultimately see them outsourced from our system, but I tend to believe like Barry Goldwater that you cant simply pull the rug out from under our seniors and expect them to sustain a quality of life they rightfully deserve. Instead we need policies focused on drawing down medicare but we also need a plan b that doesn’t call for an expansion of government and tax dollars.

We also need to secure S-CHIP for children. I actually support this program because obviously children cant buy their own health care, but I would only allow this program to be used for low income children whose parents make around 17,000 a year, and I would let parents choose whether or not they want to enroll their child into the S-CHIP program. However I wouldn’t allow illegal immigrant children nor illegal immigrants or pregnant women to enroll in the program like they can since Obama signed the ACT back into law after Bush  vetoed plans to expand it.

Some other alternatives to the current nonexistent existing bill would be portability, a tax credit for people to buy their own insurance, a law one law mind you that no private company shall deny anyone coverage for pre-existing conditions and in exchange those insurance companies would receive tax credits and less regulatory guidelines that currently choke the industry.

I would also reform COBRA , eliminate illegal immigrant loopholes because that causes waste in the system, because we are providing coverage for people who came here illegally and citizens of this country have to pay out of their pockets to fun illegal immigrant who receive medical attention.

Lastly I would cut taxes, about 45% depending on income. For example the upper class would get a 45% tax cut on all earnings, I would eliminate the death tax and I would cut taxes for the middle and lower class about 25-35 %. We also need to look at the strong possibility of health savings accounts.

Now, some of these ideas of reform read like big government conservatism, but its not. The point is to draw down government programs and allow Americans to keep more of what they earn and to encourage them to use that money on something they will need later on. You don’t want to force them to buy something they may not need or can afford right now, but instead you want to promote the foundations of health care sustainability down the road, especially for young people when they get older.

A basic, yet effective and focused structure of reform is needed, not some Utopian Christmas list for all the progressives who have dreamed of socialized medicine since they could say the phrase “To each according to his need, to each according to his ability”