Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (19163)	12/9/2003 6:53:50 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793670

Dems in disarray over Medicare Matthew Miller is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Philidelphia Inquirer In ways not fully appreciated, the Republican triumph in enacting a prescription drug benefit for Medicare is one of those watershed events that will shape American politics for years. Among the central lessons: Republicans are stunningly effective. The White House has always known that adding a drug benefit to Medicare would co-opt an issue long thought to be owned by Democrats - and thereby seal Bush's image as a "compassionate conservative," making reelection more likely. And think how strategic Republicans have been. The moment Trent Lott faltered over his nostalgia for Strom Thurmond, Karl Rove wielded the stiletto to depose Lott and replace him with Doctor Bill Frist - the ideal face for a party out to persuade voters that the GOP cares about health care. Then the GOP shrewdly courted AARP to win its endorsement for the bill, providing crucial momentum for its passage - and separating the powerful seniors group from its seemingly natural Democratic leanings. Democrats are stunningly incoherent.Democrats never seemed to realize that the political stakes of the prescription drug debate were as high as they were during the fight over the Clinton health plan a decade ago. Back then, the GOP judged that allowing any coverage expansion to pass that Bill Clinton could claim as a "victory" was a mortal threat to their party's political standing. So they demagogued "Clintoncare" and killed it. Democrats couldn't get their act together to do the same. First, Ted Kennedy played footsie all year with the GOP to get a bipartisan bill - only to find he couldn't support the final product. But by then the chance to craft a full-year strategy to deny a seminal GOP victory had been squandered. Yet even then, the final bill passed by a vote of only 54 to 44 - meaning that the more than 40 votes needed to sustain a Democratic filibuster should have been achievable. So why wasn't a filibuster sustained? Ask the 11 Democratic senators who voted against the final bill after voting in favor of closing debate on it: Joe Biden, Jon Corzine, Tom Daschle, Mark Dayton, Tim Johnson, Herb Kohl, Barbara Mikulski, Patty Murray, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor and Harry Reid. If there was a good reason to vote against the final bill but not to actually kill it, it eludes me. Rather than blasting AARP for supporting an imperfect bill, Democrats would be better off asking themselves the tougher question: Who lost AARP? The missing voice. At this crucial juncture, there is simply no voice for generational equity and fiscal sanity in American politics. The bill's $400 billion over 10 years - which all sides know is just a down payment on seniors' drug costs - is all being borrowed from our children. Who says younger taxpayers should be footing most of the bill for non-poor seniors when there are already $25 trillion in unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare today? Not to mention 44 million uninsured, and a host of other unmet needs for Americans who happen not to be senior citizens. Put another way, what will non-poor seniors' food bills be over the next decade? Or clothing bills? Should younger workers be expected to fund most of those as well? In a few years, the inexorable budget math of the boomers' retirement will place such questions at the heart of public debate. Yet today the constituency for these arguments - and the leaders who will make them - are nowhere in sight. philly.com