Power isn't pretty

Whatever happened
to bare-knuckle, Democratic bosses?

The state of Virginia requires me to have automobile insurance, and it's considered a good idea -- but if the federal government requires me to have medical insurance, it's socialism. Could you explain that one to me, please?

In fact, could you please explain to me:
• how is it that politicians say nothing is more important than supporting our troops, yet those troops are covered by a government-run health care system (the VA). Aren't government-run systems terrible?
• how is it that politicians say single-payer health care systems, such as in Canada, are inefficient and un-American -- yet more than 40 million Americans are covered by just such a system (Medicare).
• how is it that so much of the opposition to "socialized" medicine comes from the Christian Right, when the founder of their movement, Jesus Christ, was a socialist in his teachings?

The last point often blows people's minds, and I mean no disrespect, but facts are facts and the New Testament is a better argument for socialism than anything ever put out by Marx or Lenin. The story of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar pretty much sums up trickle down economics. Conservative Republican capitalists may decree that greed is good, but Jesus sure didn't. And considering what Jesus felt about charging interest, and how he handled the money changers, you have to think Goldman Sachs wouldn't have been bailed out in 30 AD.

All that aside, there's one over-arching question I'd like someone to explain to me in this health care debate, and it is this.

How in the world did the Democrats let this argument get away from them?

***

In tackling that question, we first have to admit the obvious -- even if the mainstream media doesn't have the time to emphasize this point. There is no Democratic majority in either house of Congress.

Oh sure, there are more people with D's than R's, but Virginia's Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb, are light-years removed from Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. This only makes sense; I might be the most liberal person on my block, but in Oregon I'd probably be the most conservative. Blue-dog Democrats (and their Boll Weevil predecessors) just do not vote in the manner of their fellow D's in union-dominated states.

As I write this (3-12-2010), the fate of health care reform is still up in the air as the House leadership keeps working to round up enough votes. If pressed to make a prediction, I'd say it goes down narrowly, and I say that because I just don't see the kind of lawmakers I used to cover back in my reporter days.

Here's an example -- that South Carolina nitwit who yelled "You lie!" at the president during a State of the Union address. In an old-school legislature, that guy would have lost his parking spot, his plum committee assignments, and anything in the budget that might have helped his district.

When I covered the Virginia Senate back in the day, the clerk was known as The Secretary of Revenge. Punishment was not only possible, it was expected, because remember, in a legislature, power doesn't come from what you can get passed but from what you can get killed. So, yeah, you could exercise your vote and your conscience -- but at your own peril.

A great example of this is the brilliant politician L. Douglas Wilder, the first black man in America to be elected governor. As he was working his way up from local pol, he made a deal, er, had an arrangement, with the guy who ran the Senate Finance Committee. Wilder might be out raising hell as a way to keep cred with his mostly liberal constituents, but whenever it came to the budget, arch-conservative Ed Willey had his vote.

Hey, works for me. Worked for the state, too.

***

Young reporters inspired by Watergate waged a decades-long war on backroom deals in legislatures. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but nowadays, I'm wondering if it's another example of the iron rule of unintended consequences.

For instance, a backroom deal to get Sen. Ben Nelson's vote on health care reform became a minor scandal, so the administration gave every state the same concession. A phony outrage that would have cost about $300 million is now going to cost around $10 billion, which doesn't strike me as progress.

Used to be a little pork was a good way to move something through a legislative body, and that the sanction for it was shame. If voters found it sleazy, the pol got voted out.

Now that shame is gone as a political concept, and now that porkish incentives from leaders have been replaced by a full-fledged run on the Treasury by way of earmarks, we have a Congress where little or anything ever gets done. Backroom deals are dead and legislative accomplishment is nearly non-existent.

Probably not a coincidence.

-30-

"Son, the first thing you have to do is learn how to count," said the lawmaker to the student statehouse reporter.

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