Via David Frum, it turns out that Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party favorite in the hotly contested New York Congressional race -- the one in which the official Republican Party candidate is being rejected by conservative voters in favor of the third party guy -- doesn't actually know much about the practical concerns of the district he hopes to represent in Congress. From a local newspaper editorial about a disastrous editorial board meeting:
Mr. Hoffman spoke only generally about the need to improve the country's economy and to create jobs but provided no details, which were also lacking as well in his broadly stated willingness to help our military personnel. Help in what way he could not say.More:
Mr. Hoffman had no opinion about winter navigation and widening the St. Lawrence Seaway with their potential environmental damage. He was not familiar with the repercussions of a proposed federal energy marketing agency for the Great Lakes, which could pay for Seaway expansion contrary to district interests.A flustered and ill-at-ease Mr. Hoffman objected to the heated questioning, saying he should have been provided a list of questions he might be asked. He was, if he had taken the time to read the Thursday morning Times editorial raising the very same questions.
Coming to Mr. Hoffman's defense, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who accompanied the candidate on a campaign swing, dismissed regional concerns as "parochial" issues that would not determine the outcome of the election. On the contrary, it is just such parochial issues that we expect our representative to understand and be knowledgeable about, if he wants to be our voice in Washington.
That's just pathetic. I sit in on these kinds of meetings all the time, and it's very easy to discern which candidates understand the issues in their districts. If Hoffman can't handle an editorial board asking about bread and butter stuff important to the district, he doesn't belong in Congress. And come on, Dick Armey! Is it really "parochial" to expect a guy who wants to be Congressman to understand economic and development issues that will affect his district. Maybe Hoffman is better on balance than Scozzafava, the despised Republican, but if I were a voter in that district, I'd be extremely wary about casting a vote for a candidate who couldn't answer basic questions about ordinary governance, even if I agreed with his views on big-picture issues. The problem with Sarah Palin is that she was easy to identify with on big-picture issues, but when the press started talking specifics with her, her lack of knowledge relevant to the job she was seeking (vice president of the United States) was laid bare. That seems to have happened to Hoffman in this interview as well.
I know, I know, people tend to vote on a sense of shared values with a particular candidate, not evidence of competence. I wonder if that's true this year, though.
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Re: One can be confident that Hoffman, or any other candidate, will be supportive of parochial local issues once elected. Those are easy issues to support... Until we get spending in Washington under control...
The second part of the above (pardon the ellipsis) is directly affected, and negatively, by the first, It's precisely because congressmen, yes, even conservative ones, can be depended on to vote in favor of local interests that spending is not under control. It's easy to shout "Pork!" about spending in some other state, but can anyone cite a congreessman who was willing to oppose spending or legislation that would directly cost his own district money, or jobs? If so, he was probably a one termer, as the trouble is not just with Congress on this, but with We The People as well.
On the side issue of voting reflexively pro-Life this is something that can come back to bite, hard. Electing those who are stupid or corrupt simply because they mouth pro-Life formulas (sincerely or not) is a recipe for the failure of the pro-Life cause. Sooner or later the fools and knaves will screw up, and bring about a reaction against all they stood for. Exhibit A: George W Bush.
Re: Was our debt ever at 100% of GDP in the past? If so, what happened?
Yes, at the end of WWII. What happened is that we paid it down quite a bit, mainly with high taxes that somehow did not ruin the country or sink the economy. And during that era we spent a lot too: interstate highways, the Cold War, the Marshall Plan, the beginnings of the space program, and the childhood expenses the baby boomers.
Re: Had they been easy, Reagan and the younger Bush would have done so.
Reagan I will grant you: he seemed sincere enough about wanting less spneding. But George W? Come on, the guy was a spendaholic first class! You might do better to cite his father in this regard, who at least realized that deficit spending was a problem and tried to correct it, at the possible cost of his presidency.
Re: But if Medicare were abolished, it would significantly reduce the deficit and also provide a realistic test of how committed conservative voters are to do-it-yourself principles.
And also result in large numbers of people dying in misery and poverty, and their families being financially ruined. Classic case of a cure being worse than a disease.
Re: he seems friendly even though their current versions of the public option include abortion coverage.
Please document this with reliable sources. Everything solid I have found on the issue states flat out that the Public Option will not include coverage for elective abortions, nor will elective abortion be a mandated benefits in other insurance plans. There's a huge amount of disinformation being floated out there about this by clever and sinister special interests seeking to mislead people.
In response to Jon's question about my sources re public option and abortion, here's something from the National Right to Life Committee:
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/TalkingPointsAbortionHealthCare.pdf
(which I do not regard as a "sinister" special interest). I previously linked to something by pro-life Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak. I believe you are simply misinformed as to the facts of this matter.
The RightToLife document simply states what you state, but not support its assertion with actual language from the bill. So no, I do not regard this as a valid source. Facts please-- not opinions.
Also, some (many?) healthcare plansd already cover elective abortion, and this is also subsidized via the tax code. So in this respect there is no radical departure from existing circumstances.
I also think we should consider that right now women without insurance coverage have a strong incentive to have an abortion since abortions cost only a few hundred dollars while bringing a birth to term will cost thousands without insurance. Universal healthcare will eliminate that factor. Pro-life people need to weigh this fact.
And it certainly is possible to support universal healthcare while opposing abortion coverage. You do not have throw out the proverbial baby (yes, there's an unpleasant pun there) with the bath water. To use an analogy, the fact that I have been opposed to the Iraq War since its inception does not mean that I think we should eliminate the entire US defense program and budget.
Here's some more evidence cited by the Right to Life Committee:
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), referred specifically to language on page 110 of the new bill (H.R. 3962) which explicitly authorizes the "public health insurance option" to pay for all elective abortions.
The "public health insurance option" or "public plan" would be a health insurance program operated directly by the federal government, through the Department of Health and Human Services.
"The public plan will be a federal agency program, and all funds spent by the agency are federal funds," Johnson said. "The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), in an October 9 memo obtained by NRLC, confirmed that all funds spent by the bill's public plan will be federal funds. Prominent Democrats who have claimed that the federal government could pay for abortion with 'private' funds have been engaged in a big snow job -- and in swallowing such a contrived, implausible claim, many journalists have been all too gullible."
Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mi.) has proposed an amendment that would prohibit the federal government plan from paying for abortion (except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest). But Speaker Pelosi intends to try to force the House to pass the 1990-page bill under a "closed rule" (a procedure that allows no amendments to be considered), reportedly because she fears that the House would adopt the Stupak Amendment if a vote were allowed.
NRLC and other pro-life groups are urging House members to vote against imposition of the closed rule. The showdown could occur on the House floor as soon as November 5 or 6.
"Anyone voting to forbid amendments to this bill is in effect voting to set up a federal government program that will directly fund abortion on demand, with federal funds," Johnson said.
While running for President, Barack Obama promised Planned Parenthood that his health care legislation would create a public plan that would cover abortions. "Obama has never recanted his promise that the federal government plan will cover elective abortion -- he just wants to pretend that a federal agency could spend 'private' funds, an untenable claim," Johnson said. "The White House and top Democratic congressional leaders are trying to smuggle federal government funding of abortion into law, behind smokescreens of misleading, contrived language."
The bill also has a second objectionable provision relating to abortion -- it would allow federal subsidies to help pay for the cost of private health plans that cover elective abortion, a departure from longstanding federal policy. Stupak's amendment would correct this problem, as well.
Re: it would allow federal subsidies to help pay for the cost of private health plans that cover elective abortion
This is already true. People with employer-provided health insurance that covers abortion receive a tax subsidy for that coverage.
But my final word in this is so: Oppose the abortion provisions (if they do exist and I am not convinced asI have seen only opinions not facst), but support the reform as a whole. Even if it passes now withabortion provisions soner or later there will be a pro-Life majority in Ciongress again, and abortion can (and almost certainly will) be taken out then just as mioney for Planned Parenthood is stricken from the budget when pro-Life rtepresentatives hold the a majority in Congress.
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