A Party Of One
Tom Friedman suggests: "We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform, without worrying about offending unions; financial reform, without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs, without worrying about offending the far left; energy and climate reform, without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats; and proper health care reform, without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies."
Do you know anyone who subscribes to a majority of these views, and is willing to bite the bullet on the rest? I don't.
posted by QueensGuy @ 9:10 AM
7 Comments:
Friedman's specialty is foreign affairs. He falls apart when he talks about domestic issues.
As far as his programs, which seem to cut left and right, though mostly left, they won't fly. As long as people get to vote (something Friedman's had trouble with, by the way), they will vote out of self-interest. Telling them in detail about the sacrifices they'll have to make, especially when times are tough, is a guaranteed loser.
This is even assuming Friedman's programs would work, which I doubt.
Anon above is to0 busy trying to view the programs through the left-right prism to consider the question.
I subscribe to all of those views but I don't think I would necessarily agree with Friedman or Anon on the programs to implement them.
Good point, anon 2. E.g. everyone agrees that primary education in the US needs to be improved, but it's how that is the issue. Too bad we don't have good science on which to base our policies for the vast majority (if not all) of these issues.
Anon 1 here. I know Friedman's politics and they're generally left. The list he gives here he tries to be even-handed, but even then, I count three left and two right, and the rights aren't nearly as far right as the lefts are far left.
The list is meaningless. He has five items. One is reducing corporate taxes--a questionable strategy regardless of politics. The other four are simply "reform." Everyone wants reform, the question is what kind.
How is reducing corporate taxes questionable? It's pretty basic. At the state level, at least, what they nominally pay is negligible, especially in relation to the income taxes collected from employees. And as any economist can tell you, corporations don't pay taxes. At best, they collect them, and in reality they can't do that, either.
And I'll be a party of one about "everyone agrees that primary education in the US needs to be improved." I think we've done enough improving. We'd be better off it we set a goal of making it worse.
I think there could be a market for a Center Party in the United States. But the only way it would work is if it were created by pollsters who ruthlessly chose the "middle position" on every major issue. Otherwise, it will be created by disaffected ex-liberals and/or disaffected ex-conservatives, who think of themselves as the "center".
For example, it seems to be conventional wisdom that a Republican is "moderate" if they are conservative on economic issues and liberal on social issues. Yet in actual fact, polls make it clear that more Americans agree with the conservative position on abortion than on tax cuts for the wealthy.
Friedman's idea of "offending" is also silly. A majority of Americans dislike Obamacare, but not a single one of them dislikes it because they "worry about offending insurers and drug companies". A real moderate who wants national healthcare would be concerned about the features of Obamacare that are ultimately self-destructive (e.g., it can't work without thriving private insurance companies, and yet it regulates them to death), and would want those aspects of it fixed. "Offending" has nothing to do with it.
QG hopes for a scientific plan. How about using states as test cases? Abolish all federal education rules. Detroit can try vouchers while San Francisco doesn't. Five years later, we'll have useful data.
I think the only way to fix our political system would be to decouple all these issues. Somehow, we need to let voters make a choice on national health care, and make a separate choice on the war in Afghanistan, and a separate choice on economic policy. Until that happens, voters will continue to be faced with absurd choices.
Post a Comment
<< Home