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Monday, September 17, 2012

Romney's 'cling to their guns' moment

By Megan Crepeau

Whoa boy. Someone videotaped a private Romney fundraiser from earlier this year and gave the footage to Mother Jones.




This isn't terribly new from the right wing. It's just that Romney, ever careful, has never put it quite so insensitively. The same goes for most of the "big reveals" in the video clips, actually - these are standard Republican talking points on steroids. It's Romney with the gloves off, and I doubt it'll do him many favors. See the video clips and more transcripts at Mother Jones.



@ Boris

I read the Moynihan report when I was in college and that was a looooooong time ago. And to call it "research" is, while not wrong, at least misleading. Yes, he looked at data and statistics and then he, well, he riffed on those findings. You can't quite call it a literature review, either, but it's closer to that. There're all sorts of causation/correlation problems there along with a host of other, um, problematic conclusions.

How about this though: "Moynihan supported Richard Nixon's idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI)." (wikipedia)

Heh. Remember the era in which all that was happening.

Will any program or service, government or otherwise, ever be perfect and not in need of change? Nope, the company that doesn't change, that doesn't see new needs and meet them, or recognize when a previously useful product or service is causing problems rather than solving them won't last long.

There will never be the perfectly fair, perfectly incentivized, and ongoingly perfect answer to any of these questions. And I'm talking about both ends of the scale -- there are at least as many or more in dollar term "handouts" to the wealthy and the upper middle class. Heck, look at how much federal money went to "Romney's" Olympics.

PS to Boris' PS --

Did you read that whole article? I didn't, but I skimmed through it and then read the conclusions.

I don't believe that article says what you think it said.


I am for GAI or similar forms of income support (as a replacement for all other government income transfer programs). It's not a panacea, and I am sure there is plenty of room to argue about the size, but it is structurally the most sensible, the least damaging form of welfare, with a potential of social cohesion costs being worth the negatives.

And I am against pandering to any group and strongly against crony-capitalism (corporate welfare).

With that out of the way, are you going to address the questions I posed around various "someone has to provide me with" rights?

I meant to say "social cohesion benefits..."

@Boris. No, I actually read them. They are a freaking joke. The 1st link to the 86% stuff lead to an add for Fidelity Mutual. the second was to a paid link to a New York times book review. They paid to run an add, but it does say New York Times. Google the author and nothing but hack stuff comes up worth reading for more than 10 seconds. But I'm sure you have cool kitchen knives.

@ Boris


I'm not sure there was a real question there. I believe that there should be a safety net in this country, mainly pointed at children and the disabled. Those are the segments of the population that may require years or even a lifetime of help.

Then there are people in what should be shorter-term crises. Current welfare standards are, I believe, as strict as they have ever been. But, I would prefer to provide MINIMAL shelter and basic food to anyone who needs it, yes. I have no problem with putting a monetary value on that aid and requiring service of recipients to receive that aid.

I also think that most benefits should be aimed solely at getting people off of them -- so that getting a job actually means having more money in your pocket rather than less. I think that in the last 10-12 years we've actually done a horrible disservice to millions of kids with the push for "everyone must go to college" too. Teaching a trade, teaching how to run a small business, explaining credit, mortgages, loans, and basic bookkeeping practices would have been far more valuable to many kids than the watered down crap many urban districts now offer as "college prep."

So you tell me -- does a desire not to have people sleeping and starving in our streets mean I believe in " 'someone has to provide me with' rights"? I don't think so, but I'm guessing you may.

John K,

I are sure of a lot of things you know nothing about. But that's your problem, not mine. You seem to have difficulty with the fact of life that if someone publishes a book to popularize research results, it will be advertised. Likewise, you seem to think that a financial institution that by its nature deals with people who have considerable savings and has a lot of data on them as well as a lot of business reasons to understand who their clients are, is not in a position to research that. You don't even deserve contempt, you deserve to be ignored, for if you ever had a brain, you did something to kill it.

@Boris. The 1st link you provided lead me to an add from Fidelity. The 2nd was a link to the NY Times. With no date, no bylines etc. What exactly was it? It seems to me like it was an add for the book.

Jen, re P.S.(New Z)

The relevant part is their overview that cites prior research:
"A substantial body of empirical evidence now suggests that
ongoing reliance on welfare support can have a potentially
corrosive impact on childhood and family outcomes and, further,
that it is associated with the limiting of opportunities across
the life span (Serbin and Karp, 2004). Just as concerning is the
evidence for a link between the intergenerational transmission
of welfare dependency (Antel, 1992) and the development of
structural or concentrated poverty (Putallaz, Costanzo, Grimes
and Sherman, 1998)"

Boris, of course I think it's useful to know how the mind works. But Haidt isn't just purporting to say how the mind works. He's *approving* of how the conservative voter's mind supposedly works, and chastising Democrats for not approving of those conclusions, under the guise of saying that Democrats don't understand. I think liberals do understand; they just disagree. Social science and neuroscience is frequently trotted out in a faddish way in order to say more than it says. Haidt's moral flavors analogy is cute, but doesn't even begin to make a coherent argument for why conservatives are *right* to, for example, oppose gay marriage or Obamacare, any more than that analogy helps us appreciate the morality of Nazism or other ideologies that might be heavily spiced with this or that moral flavor. My point with the Nazi comparison wasn't to say that conservatives are like Nazis, but simply to point out that any ideology, no matter how evil, could be dressed up in Haidt's delightfully non-judgmental terminology. Islamists, for example, are big on sanctity. Too much so, we might agree. So, the whole thing just begs the question -- how much of this or that moral flavor do we want? And, you know, even that's not a very useful question, because it all comes down to the specific issue. The whole thing is specious. We can agree that loyalty and respect for authority are good in some cases and not in others, and that nobody, liberals included, reject them completely. Haidt says that liberals' cuisine doesn't include these flavors in abundance. But what does that mean? Less than conservatives'? Why isn't it possible that liberals have just the right amount of loyalty or respect for authority in their moral and political dish? Haidt gives us no way to judge, because he doesn't address any issue substantively, so, as a defense of conservatism, it's hollow.


I don't think you are getting the point. Haidt doesn't defend conservatism, but aims to explain it and if he as any non-academic purposes, given that he is a centrist-to-liberal (apparently unconditionally liberal prior to his research), it is using the knowledge to promote moderate liberalism more effectively.

But Boris, that's the lit review -- their actual research seemed to show something very different -- that it was the effect of "These 'environmental insults' which might include adverse child experiences and stressful life events can have an accumulative effect and influence vulnerability dispositions as well as healthy development and functioning."

They specifically note the things that earlier research didn't look at or measure, noting: "results of these analyses showed that Maori cohort members had increased rates of exposure to a range of adverse circumstances in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, which were in turn associated with higher levels of welfare benefit receipt."

In other words, many people looking at this research would conclude that MORE programs and benefits targeted directly at the children of the poor would be the best way out of this problem.


I interpreted it differently, as the "insults" they identify, based on prior research at least to some extent come from "corrosive impact [of welfare] on childhood and family outcomes".

I am still waiting for you to address the current mass pursuit of "positive rights", and demonstrate that it either doesn't exist or doesn't constitute a growing culture of entitlement.

No, Boris, I understand where he's coming from. I get that he was a liberal and I guess he's still left of center though he's coy about that, but his point is that he was taken with conservative "cuisine" when he tried it, and he wants to spread the word to his liberal friends. He's trying to say, conservatives have a point, and you liberals aren't listening, and he proceeds to describe conservative thinking in flattering terms. So, actually, I think you're missing the point. There's a reason that you liked that column and linked to it. It supports your viewpoint. But it doesn't actually support a liberal viewpoint, moderate or otherwise. If we take it as advice for liberals, as you suggest, then what do you think liberals should do based on his advice? All I can gather from it is, don't take liberal positions. Anyway, the fact is, liberals' home, the Democratic Party, has *already* moderated, such that the big liberal bogeyman -- Obamacare -- is essentially a conservative policy. Conservatives were for it before they were against it. What other positions should liberals moderate? Support for gay marriage? Abortion rights? Should they have opposed the Dream Act? What does moderate liberalism look like for him? See what I mean? What does our new found appreciation for these conservative moral flavors tell us to do, exactly? He doesn't say.

P.S. to Jen

I would also add that programs for children, if it is really for the children rather than for the adults to take advantage of, is not what is being discussed by any stretch of imagination. Even Romney wasn't talking about children, as they do not vote. Everything I said is aimed at welfare for adults.


It is risky to think you know other people's reasons and motivations without actually knowing much about them. You see, I am a libertarian (pro gay marriage, pro abortion rights, pro ordered but in principle unrestricted immigration), and hardly hold the conservative values such as authority and purity dear. I do find it very useful to understand where they are coming from. For example, it is probably ultimately more productive to talk to MCN (or anyone anti-abortion) about abortion when you acknowledge that he it stirs up in him the same feelings as killing a baby. Or that Greg J.'s anti-immigration stand is likely rooted in the sense of how critical it is to maintain societal order and a common culture. Or on the subject of gay marriage, to lay out a path that more gradually introduces acceptance into the society, so that those who feel chaos will ensue have a chance to see that nothing bad happens. So in some cases it may require a compromise in the outcome, in other cases a compromise in the speed and manner of progress to the desired outcome, and sometimes perhaps nothing more than more acceptable packaging. Or you can chose to bitch and moan about the stupidity or maliciousness of those who don't share your views. It is worth noting that in economic matters neither conservatives not libertarians tend to ascribe bad motives to liberals. Rather, they tend to talk about bad results coming from good intentions mixed with a misconception or denial of human nature.

Boris, yes, I know you're a libertarian. I shouldn't have said that Haidt or his big-tongued working-class conservatives reflect your viewpoint, but I think he offers sympathy with the conservative side of American politics, if you will, and it's fair to say that you're on that side, even if you're not a thorough-going joiner. (Neither am I, when it comes to my side.) I think gay rights *has* been rolled out gradually, and its time has come. The time never comes unless it's on the agenda, and, at a certain point, you want to tell real-life people that they don't have to wait any longer. There will always be some dissenters. Further, I think it's a political plus, contra Haidt. I obviously understand the feelings that pro-life people have. They're not shy about expressing them. I don't think Democratic packaging has been too bad lately. The problem is Republican packaging of Democrats, much of which is disingenuous and calculated to mislead its audience and play into the sort of erroneous caricatures about liberals that Haidt himself indulges in and to which Obama, appearing as he does to be a nice decent fellow, proves resistant. Ryan's welfare-to-work business is a perfect example. Haidt's logic could be used to explain why Ryan's lie has appeal among some voters. But, you know, we already knew why it would have appeal, and the issue there isn't Democratic obtuseness but rather Republican b.s. Haidt doesn't add anything there. His thesis is beside the point, as it so often seems to be.

And that's really been my point about Haidt. He doesn't say anything new or interesting or non-obvious. His only achievement is to, as I said, put nice non-judgmental labels on conservative positions or reactions, back them up with some just-so research, implicitly praise conservatives for tasting more moral flavors, and explicitly criticize liberals for not adequately appreciating those flavors. I think it's in the category of condescending reverse-snobbery, as though he's uniquely open-minded, and as though Bill Maher's views or his liberal friends' views on religion, say, are those of Barack Obama.

To which you say that my caricature of Republicans is equally untrue. Well, I'd like to think so, but actual conservative politicians -- not libertarians sitting at home in front of a computer advocating income supports that exactly zero conservative politicians support -- keep proving you wrong. The Romney video is like a Mr. Burns parody come to life! So, sorry, but your side is letting you down. If you want to have an all-things-on-the-table honest debate about social policy like we're in college or something, I'm down with that, but all I see from today's Republicans is a laser-like focus on denying people health care, reducing rich people's taxes, and demonizing Obama.

Besides, for what it's worth, I think Haidt's focus on so-called values voters is not timely. He's explaining Reagan Democrats, but this is now 20 years later, and the situation is different. Are Republicans out there trying to win the values vote? No, they're trying to run on the economy, which is a smart strategy, because they lose on the values stuff.

Re Reagan Democrats, I should have said "30 years later." I'm getting old, I guess -- the decades are becoming indistinct.

P(PP)S to Boris:


My point is that the article you linked to seems to suggest that removing as many "environmental insults" as possible from poor children might well lead to less need for welfare as adults.

I did give you my best answer re "rights" -- take it for what you will!


I must have missed your reply regarding healthcare and housing rights. What's the time stamp on it?

And Jen,

Whatever the path to reducing dependency on welfare is, that's a separate topic from recognizing its corrosive effects, with the latter being an impetus for the former.


Republican politicians are hardly "my side". I side with the conservative economic thought way more often than the liberal one for the "good intentions..road to hell" low fidelity to human nature character of the latter. Perhaps I am biased by having lived in the world the liberal's ultimate unintended economic consequences (which are not just economically destructive, but politically corrosive), and seeing that we are about 40% there already with no natural stopping point in sight. And on that topic it is Steven Pinker more than Haidt who talks about liberals being [on average] more intelligent in IQ sense, but not as smart, in intuitive sense/perception of how the world of people works. Haidt's research on lower dimensionality of liberal perceptions tends to back that up.

As far as professional politicians go, the ones that are not crooks are power mongers and more dangerous than crooks. That's not an emotional, but an intellectual assessment, based on what personalities one would expect to self-select into that arena. That's one of the reasons I am pro-limited-government, or to be more precise, very limited power given to the government. Unconditional income supports as the only form of safety net fits into that, constant meddling with people's economic lives, management of the economy, doesn't.

Boris Gendelev wrote: "It is worth noting that in economic matters neither conservatives not libertarians tend to ascribe bad motives to liberals."

Bzzzt! Incorrect. You don't even have to check beyond this very blog to see accusations of laziness, unpatriotism, and all manner of "bad motives" ascribed to liberals/progressives or just anyone who disagrees with many conservatives, and perhaps some libertarians, when the subject is economic matters (or any other subject).


Did I or did I not say "in economic matters"? How does patriotism fit into this. Re: "laziness" , suggesting that liberal economic policies promote laziness is not the same thing as accusing their promoters of laziness. So what are 'all manner of "bad motives"', assuming you can keep separate assessment of motives from the assessment of their likely effects of policy?

And with under 50 days to go, Romney is out of time-outs and unable to stop the clock at this point. Obama now, stepping up under center. He steps back and takes a knee, and it looks like the White House may have to run one or two more plays but that'll be it. Romney's fumble deep in his own territory has really sealed this one.

And that GJO'L is a relatively good thing because instead of a high-risk Romney we'll have a constrained by Congress Obama and 4 years to find better choices.

Alright Boris, you haven't really addressed my criticisms of Haidt, but we can leave it at that.

I'm curious about the "human nature" business, though. In what respect does Obamacare, for example, deny or misunderstand human nature? How does a proposal to return upper-income tax rates to Clinton-era levels, for example, deny or misunderstand human nature?


On Haidt we simply have a different opinion.

I am all for higher taxes used to reduce the debt (not just the deficit) (You probably have seen me say that the Income Tax is fundamentally unfair as it largely doesn't differentiate between savers and spend-thrifts and corporate taxation is economically idiotic, unnecessary and unfair in its effects; hence I want to see a Consumption/Expenditure tax, in a steeply progressive form.) But let's not kid ourselves about what would happen with additional tax revenues in the hands of a President looking for shovel-ready projects to spend money, either under the recovery or social agenda pretexts.

The Comfortable Care act is a good example of not understanding the law of Unintended Consequences (which steps from Human Nature). The idea the government can guarantee positive rights, such as the "right" to healthcare and not end up bankrupt and/or destroying the quality, just spreading the misery more equally, is the underlying folly. Free or near free and guaranteed, removed from individual responsibility consequences means unlimited demand and the Tragedy of the Commons, which is what we already found out with Medicare. Go back and look at what the Medicare expenditure of projected to be by technocrats much like Obama and his ilk and then look at where it ended up just a decade later.

The problem is that health insurance is either too expensive or out of reach entirely for millions of Americans. How would you address that problem?


Largely as a consequence of Medicare (unlimited demand) driving the cost of healthcare sky high (there are other reasons, all having to do with government involvement that gives the wrong incentives to consumers and producers alike). If you are going to have a subsidy, it can not be a blank check, else you have the unintended consequences we got.

If you however think that unlimited best quality health care at someone else's expense is a right, it will prove my point about the culture of entitlement, but will definitely kill chances of a productive discussion.

Boris Gendelev, please take the initiative and do a little research for yourself. Liberals/progressives get accused of being anti-American (which is claiming they are unpatriotic) because of their economic policy choices.


So, what's your answer -- not address the problem I mentioned? It's not a problem? What?


If you are so sure of that, you must have already found it, why don't you point me to this research. Otherwise it's just your usual meaningless empty blubber. And you didn't even try answer how "laziness" was a motive, let alone how it was a motive conservatives ascribe to liberals in economic matters. Nor did you back up your "'all manner of" with anything.


As I said, put perhaps not clearly enough. The first thing is to get the "healthcare as a right" out of the way. If you believe in such a right, there is no point discussing solutions with you because the real solutions can not be such that anyone can get any amount of top quality health care anytime they want to.

I also find it difficult to believe that you already do not know, after I pointed out to what the major cause of the problem is, what the principles of the solution must be: government (on all levels, down to state level control of insurance, building hospitals, licensing, etc.;) get out of the healthcare market place and deal specifically just with low income, by providing income support. If you say it's not easy to say the least to do from where we are now, I would agree, but say that there is little real choice.

The drivers of healthcare costs also include the high number of uninsured people who show up at hospitals in the ER for something that could have been treated by a visit to the Dr, and those who are injured or get seriously ill and are hospitalized & don't have insurance. Medicare is actually a very efficient way of delivering health care; the admin costs are very low in relation to the cost of care. It is true that too many seniors are given too many tests, etc, (which is dealt with in ACA) but that has a lot to do with our Drs having to pay their bills by getting reimbursed, plus our tendency in this country to want the best care at any costs (but that happens with younger people who have insurance are not covered by Medicare, too). But hospitals are going broke trying to pay for all these uninsureds (I read that the cost for only part of this year was something like $56 billion), so they charge all the rest of us more to make up the difference, and then our insurance pays most of that. So maybe the reason for high health costs is that we have insurance that will pay part of our bills?


Yes to "so maybe the reason for high health costs is that we have insurance that will pay part of our bills?" , but only in a sense that we have government induced insanity in the Medicare and private insurance.

Medicare admin cost per claim is much higher the for private insurance companies. Medicare's admin cost as percentage of Medicare spending is lower, but that's only because Medicare claims are on average for much bigger $ amounts, since the elderly have more expensive procedures. But insurance admin costs have little to do with the $ value of a claim, so the proper measure is per claim. But higher admin costs in Medicare are not the issue I am pointing out. The issue is that the Medicare creates, as you recognized, a virtually unlimited demand and when that happens, prices skyrocket and service efficiency goes to hell. Which is precisely what happened (as I suggested look up initial projections vs reality of Medicare 10 years after it passed). Moreover, if you remove, not even the whole Medicare, but just the last few months of person's life expenditures Medicare pays, the U.S. healthcare expenditures as % of GDP will be pretty much the same as in the rest of the industrialized world, while the amount of service provided would still remain larger. The lesson there: if you are going to subsidize, subsidize on those who do not have private means, and do not subsidize in an unlimited fashion.

And yes, the second issue contributing to the unchecked demand is the structure of who pays for private insurance and what those plans tend to be - health maintenance plans rather then true insurance. These are the results of government regulation and tax incentives. These structural features separate the user of medical services from the act of paying for it (someone else pays and/or it is pre-paid). I am sure you know the typical story: one would get as many medical procedures and test as one can think of and doctors can possibly justify (they will oblige, they get paid) before the end of the year if the deductible is already used up.

The cost of services provided via emergency rooms pales in comparison with the main issue - unlimited Medicare driven demand and the structural insurance issues. But there too government insanity contributes, as emergency rooms are not allowed to turn anyone away, even to send them to the urgent care facility across the street.

You think the uninsured drive up the cost? If you give free or heavily subsidies insurance to the uninsured, if that insurance is really a health maintenance plan, and if their are no limits on the care they can obtain, you will see another escalation in costs. Now, the government will try to hide that by mandating limited price increases, but that just means the service will go down. No free lunches, no matter how hard you wish.

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