Demanding a federal budget that is fair, responsible, and meets our nation's priorities

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Robert Samuelson Is A Ruthless, Government-Hating Machine

Robert Samuelson has yet another ridiculous column on the long-term fiscal gap.

Here's a list of the things I don't like about it (in order of importance):

• He excludes OMB Watch from a list of think tanks he'd invite to an intense think-session on the long term fiscal problem.
• His ideological labels- He calls them liberal, but Brookings and the Urban Institute are non-ideological, though on this issue they're probably center-left. Ditto for Center on Budget and Policy Priorities- all have advocated for some kind of combination of budget cuts and revenue increases, and believe in finding savings in Medicare to the extent possible. There are of course differences, but for brevity's sake let's say they're on the center-left side. And he calls them conservative, but let's call Cato, Heritage, and AEI crazy because all they've ever wanted to do is cut and privatize Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which won't solve the problem, but will achieve the ideological goals of destroying government and promoting unbridled capitalism.
• Oh yeah, the substance- the man just can't get his head around the idea that maybe, just maybe, the entire problem results from inefficiencies in the health care market, and not his simplistic idea about population growth. The way to solve the problem, fundamentally, is to root out wasteful spending. Perhaps that puts me off Samuelson's political spectrum, but it also happens to be a solution based on a correct appraisal of the problem, an appraisal that most honest people who study the issue support.

People who don't overlook the facts disagree on how exactly to reform the health care system. I'm of the mind that other countries have blazed a trail toward humanitarian, cost-efficient, and yes, government-run, health care that we can follow. We can have that conversation with or without Mr. Samuelson (indeed, many presidential candidates are talking about how to bring down health care costs). If he wants to join it, he should get his head straight.