"The Man Who Likes Mandates"
That's the title of Bill Kristol's latest over at the Weekly Standard.
"Why," Bill begins by asking, "is there still so much resistance among Republican primary voters to Mitt Romney, the likely but not inevitable GOP nominee?" Bill answers by quoting a an exchange four years ago among GOP primary candidates Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson and debate moderator Charlie Gibson:
Charlie Gibson: Governor Romney’s system has mandates in Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.
Mitt Romney: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.
Fred Thompson: I beg your pardon? I didn’t know you were going to admit that. You like mandates.
Romney: Let me—let me—oh, absolutely. Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred, which is this. If it weren’t . . .
Thompson: The ones you come up with.
(Laughter)....
Gibson: We have an expression in television: We get in the weeds. We’re in the weeds now on this. . . . Yes or no, in your national plan, would you mandate people to get insurance? . . .
Romney: I would not mandate at the federal level that every state do what we do. But what I would say at the federal level is, “We’ll keep giving you these special payments we make if you adopt plans that get everybody insured.” I want to get everybody insured.
Gibson: Okay.
"Romneycare," Bill Kristol then concludes,
was an understandable effort to fix the system over which Mitt Romney presided in Massachusetts. But the country has changed markedly in the last six years—without a corresponding change in Romney’s views. If our current problems lent themselves to technocratic and managerial fixes, Romney could be a reasonably compelling candidate. But they don’t....
If we are sick of being managed by liberal technocrats, we’re not going to be thrilled merely to replace their rule with that of moderately conservative technocrats.
Mitt Romney likes mandates. Conservatives—especially in light of Obamacare—don’t. Conservatives like liberty.
Well and truly said, Bill Kristol. Well and truly said.
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Comments:
May '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Yep, that pretty much says it all about where we are.
Sep '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
I agree that this is a good distillation of the uneasiness Republican primary voters have with Mitt. I have wondered often if Mitt will drive us towards the same destination as Barack. He'll just get there much slower. Unfortunately many voters would see my view as reactionary. Which technically I guess it may be.
Mar '12
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
I also would prefer Romney to distance himself more from RomneyCare, but it's unfair to the man to suggest his healthcare position hasn't changed in the four plus years since that debate. The reason that quote startles is because he hasn't expressed those views in the past 27 debates. His position is very clearly anti-ObamaCare with a strong federalist instinct to push it back to the states.
Feb '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
All of that is true. My question where is the real alternative to Romney? It is certainly not Rick Santorum. We have 9+ percent unemployment and he wants to lecture us on the dangers of porn. I dont see that playing too well in the general.
Oct '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
It also doesn't help that in 2009-yes, 2009- he defend Romneycare as a model for national healthcare reform on Meet The Press. I think this is why many don't buy his "federalism" excuse that he's using now. What buges me about Romney is that he seems sycophantic. He'll take whatever position he thinks is popular at the moment and that makes me think he doesn't really care because it won't matter to him.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/romney-supported-federal-individual-mandate-in-200
Edited on March 17, 2012 at 11:53pmMay '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Reading anti-Romney stuff on Ricochet these days is like reading anti-Federalist screeds from 1788. You may be right...Romney/The Constitution may not be perfect...but right now, we don't have an alternative. And think of a Republican congress as the "amendment process."
And Peter...and what point would your old boss question whether you are in violation of the 11th Commandment?
Mar '12
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
The trouble here is that the GOP farm system is strong and growing, but the starters a still a bit weak. Our Presidential nomination process just now is like our judicial nominations in the 1980s and 1990s. There were relatively few solidly conservative people with the proper credentials back then--and it was harder to sell true conservatives. Hence O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, etc. Thanks to 30 plus years of the Federalist Society, and thanks to an end of the Left's press monopoly, among other things, the Left has lost its near-monopoly on training lawyers, and its dominance of America's legal discussion has been reduced. The GOP has not nominated a movement conservative since Reagan. There's a reason why that's the case. There is also reason to hope that Romney will be the last of his kind to head the GOP ticket.
Mar '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
The obvious (to me) problem with Romney's federalism argument is that it misses the point. The point being that such mandates at any level of government is an affront to individual liberty. It wasn't a big deal in 2008 because the conservative electorate wasn't as well educated in first principles; the election of Obama, bailouts, Obamacare, and the rise of the Tea Party changed all that.
The conservative electorate of 2012 is not the same as it was in 2008. We are essentially the same people as we were then, but as individuals we have distilled our conservatism into something more Constitutional and more potent. Does Romney understand this? If so he needs to do a better job convincing us and he needs to do it in a hurry.
May '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
There were quite a number of state mandates enacted as soon as there were states. Like obligations to have arms and to erect fences. You may not like Romneycare, but quit pretending it's some kind of unAmerican leap into Euro-statism.
Mar '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
A bad idea is a bad idea whether it popped into a politician's head in 1789 or 2006 (Romney actually began investigating the idea in 2004, but signed it into law in 2006).
Mar '12
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Madison hoped that the federal veto on state law would allow the federal government to veto state laws that curtailed individual liberty. In that, and in many other cases, the federal constitution produced by the convention was not Madison's creation. But it did allow for rather more local diversity, and self-government, than would have been the case had there been a federal veto.
Feb '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
What can hospitals and states do if FEDERAL law mandates that they must care for everyone regardless of ability to pay? Are unfunded mandates unconstitutional? Shouldn't they be?
What are states to do? Should not the federal mandate for care be repealed first and then states and hospitals can make their own judgments on who they can serve?
If the federal mandate were funded by the federal government, what would people think if all the options were still of private insurance, involving competition and individual choices?
Questions.
Dec '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
To a managerial type, the mandate is just another logical step along the path set up when congress passed and Reagan signed the EMTALA. Medicine has already logically reacted by closing hospitals and emergency rooms, so the taxpayers are left without any other seat in this game of musical chairs. Nothing will change, as only the responsible will be responsible for their own medical care and the free-riders will continue to skate.
All the mandate does is wash the costs for the freeloaders through the government, first, before the taxpayers/responsible people pay the tab, probably adding a comfortable 30% to the costs for the same services that were already being provided to the freeloaders in 1985.
May '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
This liberty-loving conservative would like to be free of health insurance mandates and free of the mandate to pay the bills of the irresponsible schlubs who don't have the decency to buy minimal, catastrophic-care health insurance. Aye, there's the rub.
Edited on March 18, 2012 at 12:14amMar '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Romneycare was attempting to improve what is still basically a private health insurance system for the majority.
Obamacare is a step towards Federal Government health insurance for all - aka Socialism.
I don't think Mr Romney does a good job of explaining the difference.
Edited on March 18, 2012 at 12:16amFeb '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Is Reagan's well intentioned mistake (?) at the root of today's dilemma?. Romney was dealing with a real problem. How can hospitals (and states, to which hospitals appeal) handle the "freeloaders"? Chronic gaming of the system gets expensive for all. Add the bureaucratic cost imposed by the Leviathan and we all choke.
May '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
I have been fine with the high level of scrutiny up to this point. We can't rely on Democrats to vet our candidates for us. We don't care about the same things Democrats care about, so internal scrutiny is healthy for the Republican Party.
But our candidates have now had months to point out each other's weaknesses. We know what their weaknesses are. It's time to focus on strengths.
The competition between Republican candidates is not over yet. But it's time that competition took the form of demonstrating how Obama and Democrats will be defeated.
Nov '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
I often hang out with a lot of rednecks & such and I rarely hear offensive language. Just guessing, but I'll bet the majority of foul language comes from the Left, esp. the college-educated Left. My anecdotal evidence tells me so.
Oct '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Scott Reusser: This liberty-loving conservative would like to be free of health insurance mandates and free of the mandate to pay the bills of the irresponsible schlubs who don't have the decency to buy minimal, catastrophic-care health insurance. Aye, there's the rub. · 19 minutes ago
Edited 17 minutes ago
It seems to me that by having to pay the cost in higher insurance premiums for the irresponsible schlubs who don't buy health insurance we have a very real loss of liberty. Without a mandate on the individual to pay his or her own way it is left to the rest of us to labor for schlubs welfare.
May '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Tom Wilson
It seems to me that by having to pay the cost in higher insurance premiums for the irresponsible schlubs who don't buy health insurance we have a very real loss of liberty. [...]
Yes, that's the fix we're in. Add to that the fact that Americans, Dems and Republicans alike, overwhelmingly favor insurance companies' being forced to cover pre-existing conditions and we're really in a tough spot w/o some sort of minimal catastrophic-care insurance mandate (otherwise, of course, you just buy insurance once you're sick).
If ever Bill Kristol (or anybody) marshals his vast pundit skills to propose a detailed, workable, perfectly liberty-preserving solution to such problems, then I, too, will say "Well and truly said." Till then, I say Kristol is writing essentially the same very easy column over and over and over.