"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.
- Comment (54)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (0)
Comments:
Oct '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
John Marzan: I predict Romney, if he gets the nom, will flip on Romneycare and call it a failure after 6 years of observation/data to position himself against obama.
Won't disown it during the primaries, but will concede it's a failed statewide experiment in the general.
And thereby stigmatize himself as the flippiest flip-flopper of all time? It's hard to see how that's a winning strategy. It seems more likely he'll stay on message: great for my state, bad for my country.
Mar '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
The Anti-Federalists were terrified that the Federal government would grow fat, bloated, and basically act just like the royal government of George III. And in the long run, they were right. So they weren't "screeds" but warnings that maybe we should have taken a little more seriously. BTW, some of those people (we'll call them "screeders" to give them a modern insulting name) included America-hating villains like Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, George Mason, and James Monroe. Real whacko fringers, those. Saying that a more centralized government would try to continually grow itself beyond its mandate was, well, that's just crazy talk. Nevermind that prominent Federalists like Alexander Hamilton wanted a "President for Life". I mean, what could possibly go wrong there?
I think schools should thus require reading BOTH the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers now.
Aug '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Yes, the anti-federalists were right -- the federal government was to become too strong. Thanks to the Constitutional checks and balances, it took FDR and the New Deal to make their fears a reality.
It is because of the anti-federalists that we have the Bill of Rights. What we are seeing here is a seeming continuation of the progressive movement of the early 20th century. But it is not inevitable. It only feel that way at times.
Oct '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
cbc: Yes, the anti-federalists were right -- the federal government was to become too strong. ... it took FDR and the New Deal to make their fears a reality.
It is because of the anti-federalists that we have the Bill of Rights. What we are seeing here is a seeming continuation of the progressive movement of the early 20th century. But it is not inevitable. It only feel that way at times.
I'd only add that this is exactly what Progressives work so hard at achieving ... making it "feel" inevitable. They are very cleaver at it. It's embedded in the very name Progressive. You can't stop progress, right? That just sounds factual doesn't it? Trying to stop progress is like like trying to stop time! Besides, who could be against progress? Only a fool! You heard this in pitch perfect form from Barry O on Friday ... his speech was about how you must be a flat-earth idiot if you don't get behind him and his Big Govt cohorts as they use their genius to pick alternative energy winners and losers. That's Alinsky tripe through and through: identify an enemy - isolate him - ridicule him.
May '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Gus Marvinson: The alternative to mandates is, you know, the free market. We need tort reform. We need to abandon the silly "employer pays" concept. We need to allow interstate health insurance purchases. Are we so far removed from pre-FDR America that these concepts seem foreign to conservatives?
Mandates are an affront to liberty, no matter how much one might be conditioned to believe otherwise. · 10 hours ago
If you want to fantasize, what we need to give up is the silly idea that health insurance is actually "insurance." But Americans have gotten used to the idea that health care should be "free" from the first dollar. "Free," in this context, means the costs are hidden. Markets with hidden costs and ignorant consumers are not free markets in any meaningful sense.
It would be terrific if there were actually a market for consumers to purchase health care services, instead of a market for insurance companies to find healthy premium-payers and exclude anyone who is sick or might get sick. But I don't see any way to get there from here. The best argument against democracy is five minutes spent talking to the average voter.
Apr '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
HVTs
James Of England
Check Romney's chief flyer for the campaign (both linked pages), or check his supporter's and Kennedy's. There was no ambiguity about who was on the right.
Calling Romney a liberal does no harm. Spending money persuading voters he is dishonest does harm.
I think you are drawing out the point so many are making.
Those flyers are from nearly 20 years ago, from Romney's Senate race against Kennedy. He lost, but learned a valuable lesson. A decade later he ran for Governor as a self-described Progressive.
Name a policy stance he took where he distinguished himself from his opponent by taking a Progressive stance. There isn't one. You're taking his denial of being homophobic and pretending that it refers to a belief in policies that he clearly didn't hold. The whole platform was about cutting government.
I honestly don't think that in 5 years of talking to people about Romney I've heard the claim that he tacked significantly to the left between facing Kennedy and O'Brien. "To the left of Kennedy" is, unsurprisingly, generally a reference to the race against Kennedy.
Apr '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
HVTs
There remain serious and legitimate questions about his commitments regarding national healthcare in 2012 and beyond. In short, I don't trust him to repeal Obamacare and I'm not sure with what he'd replace it if he does. His instinct will be to find a 'sensible', managerial progressive solution. And that's what worries me. In the end, managerial progressives are compelled to implement solutions. Conservatives have learned that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease and doing nothing is the best 'action' you can take. · 7 hours ago
He's repeatedly explained how he'd repeal it at the beginning of his term; reconciliation for the mandate and most of the rest of it, reform bills for the portion that needs it. The solutions range from Ryan-Wyden to the Ryan Plan to the policies you'll find here and here. All of these partial cures are better than the diseases they address.
Apr '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
HVTs
I'd only add that this is exactly what Progressives work so hard at achieving ... making it "feel" inevitable. They are very cleaver at it. It's embedded in the very name Progressive. You can't stop progress, right? That just sounds factual doesn't it? Trying to stop progress is like like trying to stop time! Besides, who could beagainstprogress? Only a fool! You heard this in pitch perfect form from Barry O on Friday ... his speech was about how you must be a flat-earth idiot if you don't get behind him and his Big Govt cohorts as they use their genius to pick alternative energy winners and losers. That's Alinsky tripe through and through: identify an enemy - isolate him - ridicule him. ·
This is why returning Medicaid to the states and raising retirement ages are such a big deal. As with Welfare Reform, the ratchet does not always have to be one way. The more we shift momentum to rolling back the New Deal and Great Society, the weaker the position of every government program becomes. Not just reforms that cut spending, but reforms that enable further cuts. Neutering unions helps, too.
Aug '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
For us to accept their claim of inevitability is to accept defeat. The so-called inevitability of history has been one of the two fundamental presuppositions of Marxism and Fascism. In this respect Marx claimed to be "scientific" rather than "utopian."
There is no evidence that history is inevitable in this sense. America is not in a state of "arrested development" brought on by our simplistic faith in individual liberty and John Locke. It has followed a different path from Europe and if the government wants to turn aside and serve other gods, we must haul the government back onto the path of liberty.
We've done it before. We can do it again.
Oct '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Obama needs to go, so who do you think can beat him? Romney or Santorum? That's the most important metric.
Mar '11
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
The question isn't "who can beat him". The question is "will the economy be good or bad at election time". If the economy gets better, no one can beat him. He's still too likable. If the economy is still bad, then anyone could beat him. Romney, Santorum, Paul, you name it. So vote for who YOU want, not some false metric like "well, other people would probably vote for this guy so I will too".
May '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
I am so sick and tired of Kristol's- and Jeffrey Anderson's- monomaniacal drumbeat on Romney that I am ready to cancel my subscription to The Weekly Standard. Kristol writes now with no perspective whatever, and Anderson is almost faking data in some of his blog posts.
Paul Ryan isn't running. Santorum would lose 40 states. Newt is gone. Romney isn't RR. No one else is either. This is who you have this year.
Get over it.
Oct '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
Duane Oyen: This is who you have this year.
Get over it.
You're probably right. We should subscribe to fatalism because clearly we just don't “get it.” The bench harkens; why not set ourselves on the sidelines and watch the pantomime?
Appeals to “get over it” were heard with McCain, Dole, Bush 41, and when Bush 43 turned bailout artist and deficit spender. We’re now $15T+ in debt, 2/3rds of it accumulated this century under a “get over it” Republican and a left wing loon Democrat. The Republican “it’s my turn” guy can down shift to 3rd and drive us over the cliff a bit more slowly.
The same fatalism can be reached from the opposite direction. Let's accept four more years of the loony tunes Alinskite. We know exactly what we are buying with jug ears and either way we get Obamney Care ... it's what “the people” want. We may go down the European socialist sewer drain, but life goes on. As Romney said, "it's not worth getting mad about."
May '10
Re: "The Man Who Likes Mandates"
So, HVT, the world sucks, shoot the messenger. Your solution is what? Recycle Goldwater's 1964 platform and go down to disaster in a "principled" manner? Last time, that got us MediCare, an eternally renewed VRA and a pile of other disasters.
Call me a "managerial progressive", I guess. When things are lousy, I tend to believe that the best approach is not to sit and watch them get worse. Not doing anything is a great response to something that is not a self-perpetuating and metastasizing monster like ObamaCare or defined benefit entitlements. If the train has left, you stop it by any means, even if you'd rather use a different weapon than the one you have available.
I don't see any benefit today from having let Obama take power with a virtual supermajority in Congress just because conservatives were mad a George Bush.