What Romney means when he says Obama "attacks success"

I've always thought that Romney's claim that Obama "denigrates" (blackens) small business owners and "denigrates" success was just one more calculated lie, of a class with "apologizes for America" or "threw Israel under the bus." Tonight, during Romney's nomination speech, I understood it's personal.  After a roll call of allegedly flourishing Bain investments came this:

These are American success stories. And yet the centerpiece of the President’s entire re-election campaign is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression? In America, we celebrate success, we don't apologize for it.

We weren’t always successful at Bain. But no one ever is in the real world of business.

That’s what this President doesn’t seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving.

 Yes, the risk-taking small businessman Obama is guilty of blackening is Romney:

Obama corrects an expired talking point

As Republicans have doubled and trebled down on their post-truth campaign -- asserting falsely that Obama is gutting welfare reform, gutting Medicare benefits, denigrating business owners, etc. -- Obama has persisted in one misleading talking point: that Paul Ryan proposes a Medicare voucher system that, according to a CBO estimate, could raise seniors' healthcare costs by an average of over $6000 by 2030.

Some quick politicized thoughts at the checkout counter

At a Duane Reade checkout counter this morning, the young Asian woman behind the register asked me in halting English if I'd like to donate a dollar for cancer, gesturing with her eyes to a flier. I saw a familiar blaze of pink, then the Komen Foundation logo, and said "no." As my receipt ticked out, I thought of saying something about abortion and quickly nixed that, thinking that my co-transactor might very well be against abortion herself. What came out was, "that group defunded Planned Parenthood." The woman made a vague noise of probably-feigned comprehension, and that was that.

The keynote in Charlotte

The entire Republican convention was built around the lie that Obama asserted that business owners didn't build their own businesses.

Maybe the Democrats should double down and focus their convention on Obama's actual message in that maladroit riff.

Elizabeth Warren, who created the prototype "you didn't build it alone" speechlet, sent an email to supporters late last night that could be the keynote in Charlotte.  Subject line:  We built it together:

A plea to Warren Buffett and his ilk

There's nothing new here, but it kills me to read comments like this* from Obamaite billionaires:

Warren Buffett, America’s second-richest man, is one of Obama’s most high-profile supporters, but he has declared that he will not support Super PACs, saying, “I don’t want to see democracy go in that direction.”

In which Romney confuses two strongmen

Mitt Romney, the man who can't speak his own name without misrepresentation, now seems a bit confused about his chosen personal avatar:

Mitt Romney conceded President Barack Obama has succeeded in making him a less likable person, but he offered a defiant retort to those hoping he will open up this week: “I am who I am.”

Romney quoted that Popeye line three times in a 30-minute interview with POLITICO about his leadership style and philosophy... (Politico interview, 8/27).

That ain't Popeye, Mitt. It's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
 
What marketing genius has decided that Romney should implant the notion of his absolute, intrinsic authority in the body politic?  Will we soon see "I am who I am" ads?  Will Mitt promise to smite the Persians? Or bring prosperity to the land that accepts his authority and turneth not to false Democratic gods?
 
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P.S. Popeye's variant  is "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam."  I will spare myself  any deep rumination on why this semiverbal superman was made to echo the master of the universe.

What the battle for the undecideds boils down to

Canvassing for Obama on the suburban fringe of Allentown, PA today, I had two unusually long conversations with undecideds. Both were mistrustful of Romney. Both, however, felt that Obama had ballooned the debt and showered too much largess on the poor -- food stamps, Medicaid, welfare.

Just now, starting out for a walk, I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks and sent me back to the computer. It's really simple. Many undecideds are caught between a feeling that Romney will feed their lunch to the rich -- and that Obama will feed it to the poor. They're not sure which is worse.

Update, 8/30: Ron Fournier at National Journal probes the evidence that Romney is playing the race card and that it's working among working class whites.

Previous:
Obama flashes his debate strategy
Fallows builds up Romney the debater
GOP Demonization Index soars again 

Obama flashes his debate strategy

Early this year, when the media aired a strategic debate as to whether the Obama team should paint Romney as a flip-flopper or as a conservative extremist, I suggested that the two charges are complementary -- he is a flip-flopper who's flipped his last flop:

There is opportunist Romney, who will say anything and adopt any position to get elected, and there is committed Romney, whose current policy positions have been set in concrete by his extremist party. He is not an Etch-A-Sketch, who can shake himself at will, but a Ouija Board, to be played by the GOP base. itself.  He has no core, but he's been cast in a mold that won't be broken until the GOP transforms itself.. That is, until hell freezes over.

That's pretty much the approach that Obama takes in a lengthy interview with the AP:

Fallows builds up Romney the debater

Positing that in an election this close, debates are likely to be decisive, James Fallows has done the Obama team the service of seeking to spark in them a salutary fear of Romney's debate prowess -- while also highlighting the structural hurdles that any sitting president faces in debate, especially when defending a poor economy.

Going to the tape from 1994, 2002, and 2011-12, Fallows builds a well-supported portrait of Romney's strengths and weaknesses: he is intensely prepared, on message, willing to attack, and generally comfortable on stage -- but also weak on policy substance and often vulnerable when caught by surprise and forced to go off-script, at which moments he can be either weasely or tonally off-key (I"ll bet you ten thousand dollars"...).

I think Fallows missed an aspect of Romney's debating, however, in which I (as an Obama partisan) place great trust: his untrustworthiness, which I think is apparent to viewers of all political persuasions.  I therefore disagree somewhat with the overall assessment of Romney's 2011-12 primary debate performance that Fallows presents as both his own and that of experts:

GOP Demonization Index soars again

Speaking at a New York fundraiser heavy with basketball stars on Wednesday, Obama ventured a snapshot of how far the GOP has moved to the right during his presidency:

This is probably the most consequential election of my lifetime, and in a lot of ways, it’s more consequential than the one in 2008.... back in 2008, we were running against a Republican candidate who believed in some basic things that I believe in -- believed that money shouldn’t dominate politics; believed in immigration reform, that we should give every young person who’s here a chance to become an American and contribute to this country; somebody who believed in climate change and believed in science.

The Waiver President

Hey, Republicans, I've got a new attack ad for you. Obama wants to gut educational standards. He said so, in a Las Vegas high school this week:

we’ve worked with Democrats and Republicans to fix No Child Left Behind.

So here in Nevada, a waiver has been granted because we want high standards but we don’t want teachers teaching to the test.  (Applause.)  We told governors and their states that if you’re willing to set higher, more honest standards for our kids, we’re going to give you more flexibility to meet them -- because what works best in New York might not work as well in Nevada, and vice versa.

Yah, fix it like his HHS secretary "fixed" welfare:

HHS is encouraging states to consider new, more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.  Therefore, HHS is issuing this information memorandum to notify states of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.

Paul Ryan's Medicare/Medicaid shell game

Harold Pollack points out that Paul Ryan's plan to restructure Medicare can't be considered in isolation from his plans to block-grant and gut spending on Medicaid, which seniors also rely on. I would add that Ryan's Medicare plan places new burdens on Medicaid.

Pollack explains how Medicare and Medicaid tag-team to cover seniors' healthcare needs today:

And you shall teach them to your children

Of the assault by a mob of Israeli teenagers in Jerusalem of several Arab teens, one of whom was beaten unconscious, one Israeli educator had this to say onIsraeli TV (as reported by the Times' Isabel Kershner):

Nimrod Aloni, the head of the Institute for Educational Thought at a Tel Aviv teachers college, said, “this cannot just be an expression of something he has heard at home.”

“This is directly tied to national fundamentalism that is the same as the rhetoric of neo-Nazis, Taliban and K.K.K.,” Mr. Aloni said. “This comes from an entire culture that has been escalating toward an open and blunt language based on us being the chosen people who are allowed to do whatever we like.”

That sweeping indictment recalls this March 2010 news from the sociological front:

From Palin to Ryan: a short history of demonizing IPAB

The battle between the parties over Medicare reform is a battle about how best to control costs.  Ryan and Romney rely exclusively on the Competition Fairy, -- the notion that if private insurers are induced to compete for Medicare policyholders, they will find ways to hold down costs.  If that fails, Ryan/Romney would most likely shift costs to seniors, with some ostensible protections for low-income beneficiaries.  The Obama administration, via the Affordable Care Act, seeks to use the government's market clout to change the rules of the payment game for providers, creating new incentives to reduce unnecessary care and new rewards and penalties focused on patient outcomes.

Can the Competition Fairy control healthcare costs?

As I've explored in the last three posts, the Medicare reform plan in Ryan's 2013 budget blurs Democratic attack lines because it looks very much like an Affordable Care Act for seniors (who, er, already have affordable care) while staking an at least ostensibly credible claim to preserve the Medicare guarantee.

The simplest counterargument was just voiced by a Florida voter to Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The counterargument is that Medicare is broken insofar as its cost to taxpayers has wildly outrun inflation and threatens to bankrupt the federal government.  The debate boils down to the best means to control costs while preserving the Medicare guarantee.

One big happy future family: Romneycare, Obamacare, Ryancare

On a second read of the Medicare reform plan outlined in Paul Ryan's 2013 budget, I was whipsawed by crosscurrents of irony.

I was going to lambaste the plan for its touching faith in the Competition Fairy, believed to shower her low cost/high quality beneficence on private insurance plans competing in a government-run and -financed marketplace. Then it occurred to me that the ode I was reading was virtually identical to the praises sung by Democrats for the prospective healthcare exchanges to be established by the Affordable Care Act. Indeed, the ode may have been composed in large part by a Democrat -- Ron Wyden, who coauthored a proposal with Ryan in December 2011 that Ryan's more recent plan resembles more than it departs from (notwithstanding important differences).  Here's part of the opening movement  of Ryan's Song -- emphasis (and repetition) in the original:

How Ryan duped Wyden, cont.

In my last post, I noted that

1. Senator Ron Wyden, by partnering with Paul Ryan last December in a proposal to convert Medicare to a premium-support program, seriously blurred Democrats' line of attack on Ryan/Romney Medicare reform proposals.
2. Wyden himself is having difficulty articulating the differences between that joint proposal and the Medicare reform plan included in Ryan's 2013 budget ("Ryan 2013").
3. Those differences are real, pertaining to the ways in which costs are controlled and the degree to which increased costs are passed on to seniors.

The key differences are that 1) Wyden-Ryan caps overall Medicare cost growth at GDP +1%, vs. GDP +.5% under Ryan 2013; 2) Wyden-Ryan does not abolish the ACA's Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is mandated to furnish Congress with proposals to keep costs under the cap, mainly by reducing payments to providers in various ways; and 3) Wyden-Ryan caps seniors' yearly  out-of-pocket costs while Ryan 2013 does not.

That comparison was based on a report by Kaiser Family Foundation.  I have since compared the texts of the Wyden-Ryan proposal and the Medicare reform section of Ryan's 2013 budget.  The latter comparison shows that while the differences inferred by Kaiser are real, the earlier report -- surely at Ryan's impetus -- fudges the key distinction, which is whether cost increases in excess of yearly targets can be passed on to seniors. In fact, while Wyden-Ryan emphasizes controls on payments to providers as a means to keep costs below its GDP +1% cap, it leaves the door open to increases in premiums for higher income seniors as a way to cover cost increases in excess of the cap.  Moreover, while Wyden-Ryan does not demonize the Independent Payment Advisory Board (as Ryan 2013 does at length), it does not mention IPAB at all -- and dances around IPAB's function when laying out the means of keeping costs under the cap. Wyden-Ryan also takes one Ryanesque slap at IPAB-in-absence, listing as one the authors' principles,  "Build a strengthened program around the needs of patients, not bureaucrats" (p.8 )

How Wyden muddled the Democrats' attack on RyanCare

Senator Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, is upset that people are casting the Medicare reform plan he put forward with Paul Ryan last December with the Medicare reform plan incorporated in Ryan's 2013 budget:

Flashing an anger and a willingness to counterpunch that’s rarely seen, Sen. Ron Wyden on Monday denounced suggestions that his ideas for reforming Medicare mirror those of Republican Mitt Romney and his new running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.

His protestation below strikes me, however, as a self-cancelling statement:

Misrepresentation of the ACA in the Supreme Court: a postscript

In April and May,  during the countdown to the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, I did everything I could to highlight the material misrepresentation of the individual mandate in oral argument by Michael Carvin, counsel to the law's opponents.  To serve his argument that the ACA forces young and healthy individuals to buy insurance far in excess of their needs, Carvin  asserted, "Congress prohibits anyone over 30 from buying any kind of catastrophic health insurance" (p. 105). That was wrong on two counts: 1) the ACA allows not only adults under 30, but older adults who can show financial hardship, to buy bare-bones catastrophic coverage offered outside the ACA's insurance exchanges; and 2) the cheapest plans on offer in the exchanges provide coverage of an actuarial value low enough to be considered "catastrophic coverage" by most experts, including the Kaiser Family Foundation.


Via Don Taylor, I learned just last week that the plaintiffs' broader claim that the ACA forced people to buy insurance in excess of their needs was misleading on yet another count. The ACA contains a little-known option for states that want to provide affordable to those ineligible for Medicaid yet poor enough that the cheapest option within the insurance exchanges may prove a financial hardship. States may opt to establish a federally-funded Basic Health Plan (BHP). A March 2011 McKinsey report summarizes:

Two feelings about Slaughterhouse-Five

As I've mentioned before, as a teenager I was a serial reader of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.  When I read this little frame-up from a long essay on Vonnegut on the Dish, it was an absolute eureka:

William Deresiewicz argues Slaughterhouse-Five is "not about time travel and flying saucers, it’s about PTSD":

The novel is framed by Vonnegut’s account of trying to write about Dresden—of trying to remember Dresden. But a different kind of memory became the novel’s very fabric. "He tried to remember how old he was, couldn’t." This is Billy the optometrist. "He tried to remember what year it was. He couldn’t remember that, either." For the traumatized soldier, the war is always present, and the present is always the war.

He is unstuck in time in the sense that he is stuck in time. His life is not linear, but radiates instead from a single event like the spokes of a wheel. Everything feels like a dream: a very bad dream. The novel is framed the way it is because Vonnegut, too, was traveling in time. He needed to make himself a part of the story because he already was a part of the story.