but is this really the case? let’s take today’s #1 topical issue, the ever-exploding national debt and budget deficit.

in playing the historical blame game on how we got to where we are today, democrats routinely sight our current deficits as being the product of reagan-bush-bush tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy and drained significant monies from federal revenues needed to fund services and programs targeted at the middle-class and the poor. conversely, in making the historical explanation of how we arrived at today’s debt and deficit levels, republicans routinely sight insatiable and unfettered spending by washington legislators as the cause for today’s deficit and debt difficulties.

both explanations are technically correct but substantively wrong about the root cause of the problem. the root cause of the problem is actually the logical conclusion of a politician’s pursuit of bipartisanship and compromise. in politics, especially in washington, d.c. where the powers of government mandates are most concentrated and powerful, the most direct path to bipartisan compromise is a bipartisan “yes.” that is, to cite another old political adage, the quickest path to bipartisan compromise is to say “i’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” this is the classic faustian bargain.

in the bush II years, the theorem proof is found in the unfinanced spending for tax cuts, wars in iraq and afghanistan, and a prescription drug benefit that was unpaid for yet billions less in costs than the benefit program pushed at the time by congressional democrats. when you spend at the federal level without paying for it, you create deficits.

and in the obama year, a year equal in its deficit spending to all 8 years of bush II and then some, the theorem proof is found in virtually every piece of major legislation signed into law and/or pushed thus far, i.e. the 2009 budget, the stimulus bill, the proposed 2010 budget, and the health care reform bill now euphemistically known as “obamacare.” and before critics cry foul on the latter and cite cbo estimates asserting obamacare would trim the deficit over 10 years, no credible reading of the cbo analysis with all of its qualifications and caveats nor credible reading of the history of cbo consistent, persistent underestimating of the true cost of federal entitlement programs can conclude that obamacare would do anything but increase the federal deficit over whatever time period you choose to measure. as during the bush II years, when the federal government spends money without paying for the spending, deficits swell, and that’s certainly what we’ve seen to alarming degree in year 1 of the obama administration.

but how is it that d.c. legislators come to be so reckless and carefree regarding the people’s monies and the nation’s fiscal health? politicians of both parties have done so because the easiest most direct way to secure a policy initiative they desired was to grant the policy wishes of their counterpart across the aisle. these politicians, be they republicans during the bush II era, or democrats during the era of obama, quickly calculated that it was more politically expedient for them to strike the faustian bargain with their adversaries and to say “yes” to the adversaries’ spending requests in exchange for a “yes” for their own spending requests. the concept of paying for one’s spending fell out of the equation completely. bipartisanship compromise in full bloom, if you will.

so what is it i’m arguing for? a new era of partisan gridlock in washington, d.c.?

partisanship, yes, gridlock, no.

what i’m advocating is that d.c. politicians return to politics of conviction and abandon the politics of compromise. what i’m advocating is that the true art of politics isn’t the art of compromise but is the art of persuasion. the electorate is not an unthinking amorphous blob that simply reacts and responds to political pandering in some predictable pavlovian fashion. the explosion of modern-day political consulting wants political professionals to believe this because it’s easy money for them, and such consultants have bastardized modern-day campaigning in pursuit of this warped vision. but the reality is that the electorate is smart, it’s dynamic, it’s paying attention to washington, d.c. as well as its state and local governments, and it’s shouting “stop the madness” at the top of its collective lungs. the american electorate gave proxy to its elected representatives in expectation that they would govern the nation and do so responsibly and intelligently. seeing exploding deficits eroding the nation’s ability to increase the standard of living for future generations, eroding the nation’s ability to enhance the general welfare at home, and eroding the nation’s ability to project itself as a force for good in the world at large, the electorate is steadily and emphatically withdrawing its proxy and taking back control of the reins of government.

and this is a very good thing.

it’s invigorating to the democratic process in america, the trends for citizen participation in politics, political giving and voting all being on the rise and completely reversing downward trends that existed as recently as 2 national election cycles ago. it’s good for the nation’s fiscal health as it will force a renewed focus on national debt and deficits and force policy-making that will move those numbers downward instead of upward. and it’s ultimately good for politicians as the easiest thing for any politician to do is to be authentic and the electorate is saying we want our politicians to be authentic and to politic from conviction and not from compromise, and if they do so, we will reward them by voting them into office or back to office.

conviction politics in exchange for good governance: now that’s a faustian bargain worth striking.

now, i don’t mean to sound boastful, but i’ve got about a 98% success rate in solving murder mysteries while 65% or more of the possibles have yet to be eliminated by the film’s protagonist. in fact, nailing the murderer within the 1st 30 minutes of the film is not at all an uncommon experience, much to the chagrin of my viewing companions.

so, what’s my secret?

well, it just so happens that i’m very adept at viewing muted backdrops against full-frontal foregrounds, like those optical illusion white on black pictures of what, in 1 view, looks like 2 faces in black staring at each other, and in another view, looks like a flower vase in white. it’s what the eye focuses on that makes the difference, and while most eyes focus on the bold foreground images, more discerning eyes will catch those images in the background that others do not see.

so what does any of this have to do with either m&m’s or health care reform?

rather than look at the health care reform as a policy debate, i look at it through the paradigm of a m&m, seeking to discern where the directors of this m&m are attempting to distract us with pronounced foreground activities while they try to mask and shelter the true villain in a seemingly innocuous and bland backdrop. what the directors of this health care m&m film are directing us toward in the distracting foreground is (1) health care expenditures are rising far in excess of annual increases in inflation, and (2) are on an unsustainable trajectory that will bankrupt family budgets and national budgets. solution: “bend the cost curve” via proposed health care reform. toss in a some good rhetoric about prohibiting denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions, mandating community rates for premiums, and caping out of pocket expenses, and viewers of this health care m&m are cleverly led to believe that the murder villains in this film are health care insurers and the other profit hording bandits of the health care industry — big pharma and big medical device makers.

but if we keep our focus not on the foreground but on the background, the 2 questions that are begged and that will direct us eventually to the real murderous villain in this film: how does proposed reform “bend the cost curve” and to what end?

when i think of “bending the cost curve,” i immediately think of something that will: (1) take something on an upward cost trajectory and bend it downward; (2) do so with an arc equal to or in excess of the upward trajectory arc; and (3) once begun on the cost-bending downward trajectory, will stay on such trajectory until such time as cost have become 0 or the equivalent, which in the case of health care costs, would equate to annual increases in line with inflation. the funny thing about the backdrop of proposed health care reform is that the purported cost-bending downward trajectory is temporary, and in practical terms, essentially negligible, and after a decade, the rate of increase in health care cost is as fast, if not faster, than it is right now. so, after spending in excess of $1 trillion dollars over 10 years (a conservative estimate if ever there was one) and completely uprooting the current health care delivery system, what we get 10 years out as individuals and as a nation are health care costs that grow faster than they are right now! so much for “bending the curve.”

how can this possibly be? what kind of fool-hearty leadership would ever propose such a ridiculous and fiscally unsound “reform?”

the kind of fool-hearty leadership already in the hole for trillions resulting from previous forays into medical insurance and pensions via medicare, medicaid and social security, and which is now in desperate need of a way to try and paper over those loses by recharacterizing them as “front-side downpayments” in this new bet — “the real bet” — that will deliver “the real payoff” and ultimately turn red figures into black. or to put it another way: a set of leaders who’ve lost the house at 1 black jack table, are looking to go to the atm and draw down funds from their overdraft protection (the u.s. taxpayer), and place the same losing bet at a new black jack table in hopes that, this time, they’ll buck the odds, turn a loser bet into a winner, and amass a set of winnings at table 2 sufficient to balance out losses suffered at table 1. the classic m&m “look thataway!” trick to make viewers think the villain is one party when it’s really the party saying look the other way.

so, another m&m is solved. on a 5 star grid, i’d rate it maybe a half star. unfortunately, in movies as in life, sometimes you simply get what you pay for.

they tried to pawn him off in nyc as the 2nd coming of broadway joe,
but there’s something about fav-ruh that they don’t know.

fav-ruh, there’s just something about fav-ruh.”

last week, i, like millions of other american men, was going through my sunday morning ritual of watching espn’s “sunday nfl countdown” hosted by chris berman and tom jackson, former pro bowl linebacker with the denver bronco’s “orange crush” defense. when the show turned its focus on the day’s rematch between the minnesota vikings and green bay packers, i heard tom jackson repeat an argument he’s made many times before on the show: the green bay packers ultimately moved on from brett favre not because they no longer wanted him as their starting quarterback, but because they could no longer enter each season uncertain whether brett would decide to retire or not and perhaps take up the entire offseason and training camp making his decision. such uncertainty — according to green bay packers evp, gm and president of football operations, ted thompson, and head coach, mike mccarthy — prevented fluid and effective offseason planning and team building, and was ultimately a detriment to the team. so goes the argument made by the packers’ top brass and repeatedly verbalized by tom jackson in his defense of the packers moving on from brett favre and advancing aaron rodgers as the quarterback of the future and present.

and you know what? aaron rodgers is pretty darn good as the future and present starting qb for the green bay packers. he’s mobile, heady, has a cannon for an arm but knows how to throw the touch pass, too. he’s a stand up and accountable guy who clearly takes his craft seriously and does all the little things — like studying the playbook extra hard, and putting extra hours in on film study, and working with the receivers on route timing and audibles before and after practice — that you want your starting qb to do. a person can see why ted thompson and mike mccarthy wanted to go with him as the future and present starting qb for the green bay packers.

but in the nfl, coaches, gms and players often talk about the “it” factor, this unquantifiable and not easily summarized thing that makes certain players in the league exceptional and special and hall of famers. some players have “it,” some players don’t, and knowing a priori which players do and which players don’t is nearly impossible. but when a nfl organization comes across an “it” player, it’s like finding precious gold. and the general rule of thumb with such finds is that the organization does whatever it takes to hold onto that hunk of gold because they don’t find them that often.

and this is why the argument tom jackson attempted to make anew last sunday and which ted thompson and mike mccarthy will no doubt continue making until they’re both dead and buried — that waiting on favre to decide what he wanted to do was disruptive and detrimental to the team — is laughable. brett favre is a living, active hall of famer with a super bowl ring, multiple super bowl and playoff appearances, and every passing record in the record books. brett favre has “it.” brett favre is gold. if you have to wait until 2 seconds before the opening kick off of the regular season to get him, you wait.

the fans of green bay knew this. and much to their chagrin, brad childress and the minnesota vikings knew this.

“chilli,” as he’s dubbed in minnesota, had no problem being a 1…2…even 3 time offseason jilted lover in his pursuits of brett favre because “chilli” knew what brett favre could do since he coached him in green bay as favre’s legacy was being built. “chilli” and the vikings knew that brett knew this modified west coast offense like the back of his hand and didn’t need offseason training camp to learn it and run it. and most importantly, “chilli” and the vikings knew that brett favre had “it” and was merely looking for an organization to demonstrate that they still believed in “it” and wanted “it” to lead their team.

“chilli” and the vikings made that demonstration and the vikings are 7-1, atop the division, and have 2 convincing victories over the packers, while the packers are 4-3 and having to reboot their season yet again to right the ship and try to make a push for the playoffs.

who’s holding the gold now, green bay?

“well, ownership would say he’s dreaming
and living in the past,
but they’ve never fallen in love,
so ownership need not be asked.

commentators would say be reasonable,
commentators would say just let go,
but there’s something about fav-ruh that they don’t know.

fav-ruh, there’s just something about fav-ruh.”

oh, yes there is indeed.

working through the opinion section i came upon peggy noonan’s latest submission, “we’re governed by callous children.” the thrust of the opinion piece: a 3.5% gdp bump under-girded by bloated and subsidized federal largesse is nothing anyone in business or main street america trust nor should they; that american business and citizenry are losing faith in the ability of their government at all levels to solve the problems of the day, instead being spoon fed the same old tax more, spend more, regulate more solutions that an insatiable government always offers up; that the reason today’s politicians can’t see the unsustainable fiscal errors of their ways is because they’ve never had to, that is, they’ve never suffered through a real collapse of american economic solvency a la the great depression, and consequently, are cavalier in their willingness to spend the nation into bankruptcy in pursuit of their vision of a “more perfect union.”

here’s the thing, though: peggy’s conclusion that their fiscal callousness grows benignly from a collective lack of experience and understanding of the error of their ways is sweet and endearing and reflects her continuing efforts to cling to some belief that, if presented with the facts of what their profligate spending is really doing to the fabric of the nation’s fiscal health, that leaders in government would be aghast like us at the misguidedness of their ways and reverse course instantaneously.

ah, were it so.

the reality, however, is that the current leaders in government (or let me say the governing majorities in D.C. and most state houses = dems), know precisely what their doing with each of their spending decisions and do so with knowing purpose. i know this because i’m a lifelong democrat disaffected by the cynical turn my party took during the 2008 primaries and have put into overdrive during the 1st 9 months of unilateral control of the house, senate and the white house. the cynical leveraged bet that the democratic party made during the primaries was to go with the most inexperienced presidential candidate in their ranks and arguably in the ranks of modern history because (1) he seemed to be a cash cow of proportions the party has never before seen who could, literally, single-handedly fund the party’s election efforts across the nation for decades; (2) he seemed to ignite a fire in the population always desired by the party but which the party could never rely upon to vote in numbers and with the regularity reflective of their collective strength, the poor, a population that is predominantly black and brown (like me) and which found some kinship in the african-american candidate who looked like them and who’s story sounded like theirs; and the lynchpin, (3) that all demographic studies conclude that this currently minority population of black and brown people will be the majority population in america in the very, very near future, and if the dems could secure this voting block in the blue column, they could have the congress and white house for decades to come.

and with a cynical and almost audible “eureka!” epiphany during the primaries, the super delegates that had been solidly behind obama’s challenger switched over 1 by 1 to obama, visions of future campaign contributions from the atm machine that is the obama fundraising effort and visions of legions of black and brown voters blithely sweeping them into election victory after victory dancing in their heads. feed the narrative that many in this community are comparatively disadvantaged economically because the well-to-do are getting sweet deals from the government at the expense of the poor. supplement that with direct and implied promises from the dems that they will push new policies to “shift” resource allocations from the well-to-do to the less well-to-do, and dems have made the heavily leveraged bet that using the federal government as a transfer of wealth engine, they will secure democratic majorities in the congress and a democrat in the white house for the next generation.

talk about a halloween scare!

ah, but like a good shakespearean play, the greed for power that led to the leveraged bet also clouded democratic politicians to 1 very fundamental truth about the american culture: american’s like to do for themselves and don’t begrudge others who do for themselves doing well. what do i mean? i mean that even though you, oh mighty and generous and all-knowing federal government offer up free and generous monies and benefits, to the extent i discern i benefit only because my fellow citizens (or nation as a whole) get penalized, i’m not so much into the freebie benefits and government largesse. i mean that if getting a freebie and generous transfer of wealth benefit now means that my kids and grandkids and their grandkids are strapped with national debt and inflation and zero job growth in the future…well, again, i’m no so much into the freebie government largesse.

if the financial crisis has taught us anything it is that overleveraged bets are a bad play that eventually blow up in the bettor’s face. whatever gains dems might be making with the majority populations of the future are being nullified and then some by massive defections of independents and cross-over republicans and business community independents, republicans and dems who voted for obama and the underticket dems riding his coattails, and who have become quickly and irreversibly disaffected with a dem policy agenda wildly divergent from the agenda they thought they had voted for. and i predict that the fiscal house has been put in such dire straits by the dems’ 9 month agenda that, starting with this tuesday’s elections in virginia and new jersey, the seeds of a democratic agenda rebuke will begin with the election of republican governors over sitting democrats. and i further predict that the seed will grow into a “toss the bums out!” movement in 2010 that flips control of the senate and likely the house to republicans.

what would our friend willy shakespeare say about our overleveraged democratic friends and their cynical strategy for perpetual power? “hoisted upon their own petards.”

indeed.

so what does all this have to do with obamacare opposition? well, in watching cable news over the past few weeks and seeing the all too familiar faces on the right reaching into their “oldies but goodies” grab bag of counter attacks, i couldn’t help but be struck by a strong sense of deja vu all over again. john boehner mouthing off about “taking away americans sacred freedom of choice” and obamacare ushering in a “government takeover of health care”…blah, blah, blah. all so stale, all so last century, literally. now, don’t get me wrong. i 100% agree with the boehner contentions, but the problem is that it is an old message delivered by an old messenger and the message itself is far too complex and convoluted for this era. for this era, the opposition to obamacare needs to develop a message that is novel, concise and direct. novel: don’t oppose obamacare specifically but fiscal affordability generally. make the discussion not about whether we pass obamacare or not, but about what components of the social safety net we choose to fund and which we choose to forgo. if the collective decision of the congress is to fund obamacare because it’s deemed a national priority, that’s fine. but to fund obamacare + medicare + medicaid + social security (all 3 of which are unfunded liabilities in the trillions of dollars) + war in iraq + war in afghanistan + TARP + stimulus, so on and so forth, is not acceptable.

this is 100% where the american public is. americans are a generous people in the main, but generosity understandibly must end when being generous forces the generous benefactor into his/her own fiscal insolvency. this message is simple because what i just said, about the limits of generosity, is something understood by the individual who faces such decisions regularly when deciding what charitiable contributions each can or cannot afford to make. and finally, the messager should be a freshman congressional republican or blue dog, or perhaps a republican or blue dog governor who will drive home the simple point that even a generous nation is bound by the limits of fiscal affordability.

that’s today’s rumination. tell me what you think. ciao, ciao.