From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THINKING THINGS OVER
Behind the Prescription-Drug Standoff
Why Ted Kennedy fights for middle class handouts.
After exhausting themselves with late-night sessions to push a prescription-drug benefit through both houses of Congress, our solons would like to duck the issue at least until after their next recess in August. But the administration wants faster action on the Bush-Kennedy "compromise;" the White House seems oblivious to the underlying clash of grand political strategies.
The venerable David Broder recently plumbed Republican strategy, taking off on a column by tax-cut stalwart Grover Norquist. The latter's plan for successive annual tax cuts, Mr. Broder wrote, amounts to "a massive rollback in federal revenue," a government "wiped clean, on both the revenue and spending side, of almost a century's accumulation of social programs designed to provide a safety net beneath the private economy."
Republicans don't want tax cuts for the sake of lower taxes, that is. It's all a secret plan to punish the poor.
Well, the outcome of Bill Clinton's welfare reform suggests that the poor may do better if they're treated as independent and responsible individuals, rather than as wards of the government. And the actual revenue effect of tax cuts depends on whether they promote a healthier economy, good for both private and public sectors. Meanwhile, Mr. Broder reports, "A wide variety of Democratic groups are gearing up for what they describe as 'long-term strategies' for their party's comeback."
Hmmm. With the same generosity Mr. Broder applied to Republicans, some of us think that the Democrats' long-term strategy was spelled out back in 1938 by Harry Hopkins. Though the FDR braintruster went to his death denying a friend's report, he's forever tagged with the line, "We will spend and spend, and tax and tax, and elect and elect."
Since the Roosevelt years, the Democrats have run out of "poor." Back when Bill Clinton kicked off his first presidential campaign, pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote an American Prospect article spelling it out with brutal honesty: Democrats need to be "defending and enlarging social insurance initiatives that reach the lower and middle classes rather than constructing safety nets that protect only the poor."
This strategy was never more poignantly on display than in the after-midnight hours of the Senate's prescription-drug marathon. An early vote suggested the Senate was about to accept an amendment that would reduce Medicare subsidies for "the rich." Senator Edward Kennedy stormed to the well of the chamber to threaten assembled Senators. "You can have this amendment," one report went, "or you can have this bill." When he set up to filibuster the whole bill, Republican leaders arranged to have the amendment turned away by voice vote.
What is this all about? Long-term strategy, that's what. Senator Kennedy is point-man in the Democratic strategy of making voters dependent on the government. You tax middle-class Paul to pay middle-class Paul; you tell him the money comes from a beneficent Washington, and, by the way, he'd better remember this when he votes.
Whether this is the kind of society we want to build has always been the deepest issue in the drive for "universal health care." Harry and Louise didn't think so, and Hillarycare came apart at the seams. Ditto House Speaker Dan Rostenkowski's "catastrophic health insurance." Health care, Americans feel, is too important to leave to government.
In any event, the Europeans have spent the last half-century demonstrating that there are limits to the welfare state, and thus the tax-spend-elect formula. A swollen government sector leads to economic stagnation, by taking resources from the private sector and by taxing away incentives. One of the big keys to American economic vitality is keeping total government outlays around 35% of economic output, instead of the 50%-plus common in Europe, let alone the amazing 73% Sweden hit in 1993. Universal government health care would be a giant step toward a European outcome.
| Spend and Elect: The Limits The Welfare State Curbs Prosperity
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And making even "the rich" dependent on government for prescriptions would, as Senator Kennedy sees it, be a good salami slice toward his ultimate objective--a $400 billion slice over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For its part, the Bush administration is at pains to argue that the "compromise" starts to pare back the government role. But this argument hinges almost solely on Section 241 of the House bill, which would introduce competition by private health insurers starting in 2010. This provision, which would give Medicare recipients a plan similar to that already enjoyed by federal employees and retirees, is not included in the Senate bill.
Presumably Senator Kennedy will renew his filibuster if the conference bill emerges with a provision to give retirees a plan like the one that already protects him. Even with Section 241, the bill passed the House by only one vote, and 44 Republicans have written Speaker Dennis Hastert that they will vote no if the final bill omits it. In my book, some hint of reform in the year 2010 is not a game worth the candle, and another deadlock is a consummation devoutly to be desired.
For the stakes involved here go far beyond who pays for prescription drugs. Does the republic want government trying to play universal nanny, or does it want to build and maintain a society of independent and responsible individuals?
Mr. Bartley is editor emeritus of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.
