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No Risk, No Reward Part II : 5 More GOP Policy Changes

Submitted by Max Borders on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 10:48
in

In my last installment of “No Risk, No Reward,” I suggested 5 risky policy changes for the GOP. Remember, you’re not selling plausibility of passage in Congress. You’re selling bold ideas and, by contrast, setting up the party-in-power as sclerotic, bloated, elitist and bureaucratic (all of which is true). Perhaps one of these reforms, like entitlement reform in the 1990s, will even take. Here are 5 more, as promised.

6. Healthcare “1,2,3”

1-Medical savings accounts for every American –  Give every American the option to divert part or all of their Medicare portion of payroll taxes to a medical savings account (aka HSA). These interest-gaining accounts can be used for out-of-pocket medical care and high deductibles. Mitigates the expense account effect running up the costs of healthcare and pulls us back from the cliff (See Singapore).

2-Refundable Tax Credits for the poor (straight into your MSA). Perhaps we can “afford” to help the poor, but not the way we’re doing it. Means-test people and give poor folks refundable tax credits on a sliding scale. They put these resources into their HSAs and choose where their healthcare dollars go.

3-Kill State Monopolies - Let people buy less expensive insurance across state lines. If I can cut my insurance premium in half by buying in Idaho, I should be able to. The only thing that prevents me from doing so is government. Let’s end that bullshit.

7. Dollar-for-Dollar Schools – Create the conditions for the emergence of creative new private, non-profit schools by allowing people to deduct a portion of the tuition to place their kids in these innovative schools. (Then, perhaps this will happen.)  If you’re taking a full pupil out of the DMV-style school but leaving a large portion of the tax money for said pupil, no one can credibly argue that it “takes resources from the public schools.”  Add refundable tax credits for the very poor and you’ve got a viable alternative to the mediocre-at-best public schools system. Universal primary school is maintained. Competition and iterative innovation radically improves our kids’ education. Everybody’s happy (except the teachers’ cartel, uh, union).

8. Congressional Crowdsourcing - Public solutions for public problems means big-dollar contests and public suggestion-box-type efforts can get the best ideas out of the American people. Bureaucrats have terrible incentives. And seriously, there are no Steve Jobs(s) in Congress. Congresspeople and their staffers should find ways to let the "wisdom of crowds" – even ideas futures markets - solve genuine public problems. Who ever heard of an innovative populist meritocracy? Well, now you have.

9. 1% Rule – For every dollar a federal department saves taxpayers relative to a reasonable budget baseline, those employees get 1 percent of that savings directly in their paychecks (according to pay grade). This would encourage bottom-up departmental efforts to tighten up. To prevent artificially bloating budgets the following years in order falsely to reward these functionaries, you’d have to set up the baseline to avoid political gaming of the system. Such may only be possible with a TABOR-like provision. I agree that the devil would be in the details. Just tossin' it out there.

10. Toleration – I have written elsewhere that the GOP should replace the social conservative policy leg of their tripod with a leg of toleration. Toleration is the cultural institution that means conservatives have their own private social conservatism and let others have their own lifestyles, religious beliefs, or whatever as they see fit. The kids today are much more tolerant and you won’t get anywhere with them unless you let go of all the stuff that smacks of theocracy or social engineering a la Falwell. Persuasion and privacy on social issues is preferable to power.(Here are 1-5)

(Note re: this post by Yglesias. Technology contests for CO2 sequestration would cost Americans this much-$. Carbon taxes would cost this much--$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Yes, subsidizing carbon sequestration technologies requires tax money. But there are differences of degree and differences of kind. I’m afraid Yglesias's criticism conflates the two. Spending this much ($) versus orders of magnitude more means throwing alarmists a bone, while not continuing to bankrupt the country. Clearly, the case of anthropogenic climate change is losing ground rapidly. But even if it weren't, not one person yet has made the case that these taxes, subsidies and green boondoggles would have any appreciable effect on emissions (or mitigation). Though they are clearly corporate welfare opportunities, which the Obama Administration looooooves.)

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Comments

#6-#10

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 11:20.

#6 - YES!

#7 - I LOVE IT!

#8 - Meh, I'm not so hot on this one.  Maybe because I'm an academic myself.  Monetized prediction markets?  That is just one gigantic minefield of problems and unintended consequences.

#9 - I agree the devil is in the details but it's still a good idea.

#10 - Yes, to an extent.  Toleration is great.  I think even among social conservatives that the desire to "live and let live" is a lot stronger than the desire to preach damnation to the wicked.  But, we shouldn't forget the words of Burke.  When the French revolutionaries at the time wanted to treat society as some sort of object that could be molded and shaped towards a particular outcome, Burke stood athwart those efforts and instead regarded society as a fragile web, built upon the traditions of the past, and to meddle with it is perilous.  Toleration is great, but if toleration comes in the form of social engineering experiments, then we conservatives, as the heirs to Burke, should stand against it.

Come now

Submitted by thirdeblue on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 12:38.

In what possible way could you hope to argue that society is NOT some moldable object.  Society is, was and forever shall be the same, in perpuity, no takebacks?  Really....  That's not to say that the French "Church of the Divine Consciousness" or whatever nonsense Robespierre came up with was a good idea.  Social engineering as a force to shape the direction we want to society to go, may or may not be successful, but governments and laws will always have to adapt to changing social mores and customs; changes that happened organically.

society

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 15:03.

I guess I should have been more clear - Society is not moldable by conscious will.  Society simply exists.  It evolves and changes with time - generally for the better, but sometimes for the worse, and to think that government can purposefully shape its course in a free society is conceited and delusional.  But that doesn't stop people from trying.  Of course you can do it in an unfree society - just coerce everyone to obey the dictates of the state - and that ultimately what must happen if social engineers want to get serious.  Burke's point is that if you start meddling with society too much, in order to correct this or that flaw, you irrevocably disturb the delicate tangled web and you will end up with horrors a la the French Reign of Terror.

social engineering

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 15:51.

I guess I should have been more clear - Society is not moldable by conscious will.

well, actually it is moldable so long as you treat human beings as objects of your social experiment and ignore their humanity ... but the damage is enormous, as the history of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc. can attest.

Social engineering is invariably deliterious to libery.

Intriguing

Submitted by thirdeblue on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 11:38.

No opinions yet on most the ideas.  But I like the direction.  I'm glad somebody's got the stones to actually come up with ideas.

"Toleration"? Wha?? Which

Submitted by Nine-of-Diamonds on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 19:08.

"Toleration"? Wha?? Which Republican pols have suggested that we should limit freedom of religion? Or make homosexuality illegal? Funny to hear RINO-esque lectures on "toleration" at a time when even gays are embarrassed by the Sodomite mafia's jihad against Miss you-know who.

And tax Credits for the poor? Restructuring bureaucracies that vote knee-jerk dem 99% of the time? No go. Very few of "teh poor" pay taxes as it is. Not many lifetime desk jockeys in DC are going to cotton to "innovative" GOP ideas - they believe (correctly) that the best way to expand government agencies' power & influence is to vote for 0bamugabe and like-minded pols.

Those are ideas would only sell if efficiency and fiscal sustainability were on people's minds (they're not). As long as a pandering Kenyan interloper promises them pie in the sky, they're happy. Odinga's bastard can pander better than the fools in the GOP, and dem constituencies will remain locked up by him & his kind for a long time to come. Witness how Hispanics and Blacks rewarded the Bush/Cheney/Rove axis's moronic "pro-minority initiatives".  And no, Token Negro Steele and his "hip hop" outreach aren't going to produce a magical turnaround. Get used to Democratic dominance for the forseeable future.

I'll bet 9o'diamonds is an illegal immigrant basher in a hood?

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 19:35.

He offers this gem of utter bigotry and racist spite: "Witness how Hispanics and Blacks rewarded the Bush/Cheney/Rove axis's moronic "pro-minority initiatives".  And no, Token Negro Steele and his "hip hop" outreach aren't going to produce a magical turnaround."

For the record, my white-sheeted friend, both Bushes and Prez Reagan worked hard to bring the hispanic vote into the GOP for 30+ yrs because they knew that it could represent a block of voters that would remain more loyal to the GOP than your white-sheeted friends burning crosses in the South.

Unfortunately, bigots like RushBlow & BillOReilly took the illegal immigration issues and dishonestly manipulated them into a whipping boy for unemployed, job-scared suburbanites looking for someone to scapegoat their economic shortfalls.

Yep, you and your pals left over from the JohnBirchSociety did a right-proud job of screwing the pooch that Bush 41, Bush 43 and Reagan 40 tried to build into part of the GOP majority.  In 2008, we lost the hispanic vote to Obama 2:1 --the first time in 30 yrs of outreach and deliberate GOP efforts to curry favor and win votes inside the community.  BTW, Bush 43 took the Hispanic vote 62-48% in 2004.

Way to go, 9 0'diamonds!  I think you can take off the white sheet now and crawl back under the rock from whence you came.  The GOP doesn't want you; it surely doesn't need you.

Right....

Submitted by StevefromMKE on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 22:30.

How are Rush and O'Reilly bigots?

That's a simple one... I think their parents raised them to be.

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 10:49.

However, that's probably not the answer you wanted.  You were probably asking for examples of RushBlow's and OReilly's patent racism and bigotry.

Take the standard shared practice of those two to highlight nearly every single instance where an illegal immigrant runs a red light, runs a stop sign, gets into a street brawl with white boys, kills someone, etc.  They share that unique preoccupation with "Illegals Run Amuck: Tune in for Blood at 11" with LouDobbs, another unannounced bigot faking his concern for "real Americans" while scapegoating illegals for everything from the economy, to your kids' not getting a job, to medical inflation, to failing schools, to the destruction of the American culture --even tho' these illegal immigrants share more values with our forebearers than OReilly, RushBlow and FatLou share with their fake hystronics and perpetual waving of the 21st C Bloody Red Shirt.

And if you don't know a bigot when you hear one... listen to RushBlow impersonate JesseJackson on his show sometime.  Or RevWright.  Granted, both men have more than enough on their policy plates to debate where they are wrong or out of step... but their race isn't one of them.

Or are you one of those types who thought Imus' reference of the Rutgers womens b-ball team as nappy headed hoes was appropos?

Tell me, Steve, when did you start thinking that RushBlow, OReilly, FatLou and Imus weren't bigots?

fake hystronics

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 11:20.

Wow, what a 'takes one to know one comment'! Man, you are in full meltdown, buddy. Take a chill pill. Stop engaging in the personal attacks on everyone to the right of Olympia Snowe ...

and As for ..

And if you don't know a bigot when you hear one... isten to RushBlow impersonate ..  RevWright.

The original Rev Wright is best exemplar of racist extremist ranting in the current political era.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc2FCJ7zWEQ&feature=related

 

You've got to be kidding...

Submitted by StevefromMKE on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 15:49.

And if you don't know a bigot when you hear one... listen to RushBlow impersonate JesseJackson on his show sometime

 

He's a bigot because he impersonates that race-hustler? Oh wait, is that being bigoted too Matt?

You know, just because they wish current law on ILLEGAL immigration to be followed through on does NOT make them evil or bigots Matt.

"RAY-CIST! RAY-CIST!" Saint

Submitted by Nine-of-Diamonds on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 02:50.

"RAY-CIST! RAY-CIST!"

Saint Paul's Epistle to the Concern Trolls, Chapter 3, verse 19. Please close your bibles and rise as our guest soloist from Michigan delivers a stirring rendition of his new hit single, Onward Moby soldiers.    :) 

Sweet! I was hoping for a progglodyte meltdown, but this is better than watching a 5-car wreck on the interstate! Kinda morbid, but you just can't look away when the walkin' talkin' Michigan abortion starts a spewin' spittle.

Sniveling about the KKK - check.

Comparing political opponents to terrorists - check.

Failure to address said opponents' main points - check.

Over all, a solid 7/10. I'm deducting points for failure to screech loudly enough about "G-Dumbya hatin' mah-nory-tays", excessive reference to his favorite dress-up robes, and failure to praise the all powerful Teleprompter Jeebus.  Further deductions for Reagan worship that is decidedly lacking in credibility. And it couldn't hurt to lose the psuedo-intellectual tone. "He offers this Gem?" Come on!

In short, the Michigan Moron Meltdown was most entertaining, although a bit sloppy on form.  Let's hope he checks out the trolls on Protein Wisdom for tips on how to tighten up his comedy routine.

G'night, everybody - hope y'all had fun! Do be polite and thank our resident monkey for the Lulz. Tune in Saturday evening, when I poke him with a stick again & he provides us with more pearls of fundie-proggie wisdom!  Until then, here's a fun activity for all you boys and girls. Compare the number of blacks killed in a single year by their fellow bruthas 'n sistahs with the total number lynched by the KKK since its founding. Pretty interesting results, even taking into account population increases, etc.

 

 

I see 9'o'diamonds is now a Saul Alinsky devotee...

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 10:59.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Ayres would be proud of the way you employ noted Chicago-radical Saul Alinsky's Rule for Ridicule to defeat an opponent's better argument.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/defeating_political_ridicule.html

9 'o'diamonds the bigot is now a Saul Alinsky devotee?  In the same club as Bill Ayres, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Rod Blagojevich?

Seems so. Maybe you're so intent on upending yourself, 9 'o'Diamonds, in order to get that pstrich head of yours deeper into the sand?  It's always better for you guys to hide than ditch the sheets and walk in the light, no?

Ridicule is good, 9, but only when the other side gets upset according to your hero, Saul Alinsky.  I didn't.  I don't. I dismiss your ridicule as a junior attempt at witless monologue.

Concerned RINOs

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 11:38.

"9 'o'diamonds the bigot is now a Saul Alinsky devotee?'

It's always wise to know the tactics of one's enemy. But with your rabid personal and characer attacks, also Alinsky tactics btw, whose side are YOU on?

You do nothing but attack other voices on the right. Are you a Concern Troll or just a really really really arrogant spiteful RINOish conservative-hater who likes to spew venom and hate all the time?

I hope the first, because if you are the second ... man, I really feel sorry for your mental state.

Freedom, my side didn't abandon the GOP and elect Obama

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Mon, 05/18/2009 - 10:27.

Let's keep it real and not let the farRight or farRight bigots keep defining the GOP, Freedom.  Thats' the problem with RushBlow... and his dittoheads.  They're called dittoheads because they don't think --they just parrot and repeat what RushBlow tells 'em.

My side showed up on ElectionDay and voted for the GOP team.  Your side stayed home in a spiteful snit of purity politics and helped elect Obama, ushering in the farLeft into DC.

And you have the gall to suggest it's not right to work to silence the idiots who put Obama into office, who took the Party in a never-ending spiral toward political implosion with TommieDelay and DukeCunningham at the lead?

Yeah, you go with that.  I'm a moderate GOPer.  It's our Party once again and all the whining, cryin' Club4Greeders soc-cons ain't taking it further to the Right... futher into the political wilderness.  You guys ruined the LibertarianParty and turned it into a marginalized, unimportant, nonconsequential social club.

It isn't happening again.  Not to the GOP.  I know which side is right in this battle for the hearts and minds of the GOP --it isn't farRight radicals intent on taking the Party further Right into LibbieLand.

Monkey see, monkey hear, monkey do...

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 19:24.

but please don't labor these "ideas" onto the shoulders of the GOP... take 'em to the place where they belong: the Libertarian Party or on a chart in Ross Perot's bedroom.

I've never read a shorter list of more stupid ideas for the GOP in my lifetime.

The GOP doesn't need this kind of "re-engineering" by new media think-nauts.  It needs to stay focused on conventional GOP-brand principles like smaller govt, equality of opportunity, conservation of the enviromental resources, lower taxes, strong natl defense, exporting democracy and patriotism as a family value --not the rubbish presented in this post.

Honestly, I guess after making doobies & crack legal (Idea #1), the balance of the list sounds reasonable... but only if you're stoned.  Oh wait, that's so that all this is relevant to some college-aged Libbie dopeheads in the dorms pondering Ayn Rand at 2 AM?  Got ya.  Now it makes perfect sense.

It is for the Monkey see, Monkey hear, Monkey do crowd in the dorms.

libertarianism

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 19:45.

Well yes, Max is a libertarian guy, and he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't approve of the social conservative wing of the party (even though it is the one that is the most activist and has the most reliable GOP voters, by the way).  But I do think that one lesson we ought to learn, especially from the 2006 election, is that we do need ideas to run on.  We won't win by just telling people how scary the Dems are, no matter how scary they really are!  So yeah I don't think the drug legalization one is a good one either, but some of the more fiscally libertarian approaches IMO should not be discarded immediately.  I think Idea #6 is definitely one that can be touted, especially now, as an alternative to socialized medicine; hell the GOP is almost there already with its sponsorship of HSA's in 2003.

So while I know it's fun to make jokes at the expense of Rand-heads, they are a lot closer to our ideas than the David Frum GOP wannabe's.

Jokes about the AnnLanders types is never a joke.

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 11:14.

Sorry to say, the lessons of 2006 and 2008 aren't that the GOP needs to abandon its core principles and embrace silly AnnLanders Ayn Randers Libbie Types, chemjeff.  Remaking ourselves at this point into something the majority of GOPers clearly are NOT is a recipe for fracture and impotence as a political party.

Like I said, the answer lies in listening to real political party activists inside the GOP at local, state and federal levels, reframing our message to fit the core principles, getting aggressive on defending and advancing those principles and the policies that get us there... the Dems will give voters more than enough reasons to vote themselves out of office.

We need to act like GOPers again -not liek TomDelay soc-cons dressed up like GOPers or RonPaulists in drag.  We need to expand the base.  We need to be strong and passionate in our advocacy of America.  We need to make certain that no Democrat success goes unchallenged --like the current nonsense that Barack's first 100 days were a success and not an utter failure and record of broken promises.

Take a look at what the RNC's New Media shop just created to point out one big failure with some wit and PR-grace:

http://www.youtube.com/rnc

I can just imagine the DNC doing the same if the GOP adopted anyone of Max's silly 10 policies that have already failed the Libbies.  Good God, do you not understand the folly of playing into your opponents' hands?  It's like the other Libbie nonsense here like learning from our enemies and letting them define the GOP.  Stupid.

Thanks, but we don't need to follow the LibbieParty into political oblivion... afterall, it's why the Libbies like Max are trying to remake the GOP into something THEY like... because they no longer feel at home in a LibbieParty stuck on "FAILED".

GOP future wont be paved with personal attacks

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 11:46.

Like I said, the answer lies in listening to real political party activists inside the GOP at local, state and federal levels, reframing our message to fit the core principles, getting aggressive on defending and advancing those principles and the policies that get us there... the Dems will give voters more than enough reasons to vote themselves out of office.

I agree 100%.

That's why I asked you to share your core principles. You obviously have a different view from the libertarian-ish guy who posted this, and different from my Reaganesque-conservative viewpoint. I'd welcome the constructive contribution of where you come down on issue.

Now if you could stick to this and stop your stupid unfair and unwise attacks on other voices and opinions on the right as "bigots"  and "dopers" etc. we could make progress. The GOP future wont be paved with personal attacks, so when you do that you set off all the red flags of a lib Concern Troll. eg you are 100% wrong to throw out 'bigot' accusation so liberally. the race card is a bad habit used by intolerant leftists and you sound like an intolerant leftist when you use it.

Good God, do you not understand the folly of playing into your opponents' hands?

The number one way we do that is with fratricidal personal attacks. Let's stop the circular firing squad.

LP, GOP, same page

Submitted by chemjeff on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 17:41.

I think you and I are actually on the same page.  I agree that we shouldn't become LP-clones.  But I also think there are some LP ideas that are compatible with our own and IMO would behoove us to steal from them.  Not the drug legalization, no.  Not abandoning our pro-life position, absolutely not.  But I see no ideological harm with, say, Max's #6 suggestion, as it flows nicely with the already established GOP premise of HSA's.

And white sheets! Don't

Submitted by Nine-of-Diamonds on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 02:51.

And white sheets! Don't forget the white sheets!

9 'o'diamonds does the Saul Alinsky two-step...

Submitted by Michigan-Matt on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 11:16.

again, sigh.

 

 

 

 

62 -48?

Submitted by caringwhiteguy on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 20:02.

62% + 48% is 110%.  Using your own math is there any wonder we keep seeing Democrat precincts where the number of votes cast exceeds the number of voters registered.

Price Competition

Submitted by StevefromMKE on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 22:27.

In regards to #6, I would also say we should encourage price competition or menu pricing for clinics & hospitals. People go to every other business knowing what the price would be (either up front or after an estimate for car repair) before plunking down one cent. As a person in the healthcare field, I'm shocked nobody EVER talks about this. Patients should know what they're paying for and if clinic or hospital A charges $100 for a service, but clinic B charges $70...so and so forth. Isn't this something the GOP has always been about, the free market?

delete misplaced double post

Submitted by caringwhiteguy on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 20:03.

delete misplaced double post

If they gave the US an enema,

Submitted by Nine-of-Diamonds on Sun, 05/17/2009 - 17:00.

would they stick it in Saginaw or Detroit? :)  H/T to Petra from "Ender's Game", BTW.

To see why shiny new GOP proposals won't expand the party's market share, look no further than the crucial blue/purple states with declining-but-still populous urban areas. It's been kinda interesting to see how functional American cities have been regressing towards barbarism as lefty social engineering policies bear fruit. Witness predominantly black cities' incompetent AA-handpicked emergency services, disintegrating infrastructure, low home values, high labor costs, high school "race wars", etc etc.

Given that local media outlets hemm & haw about affixing blame for urban decline where it belongs (with the little 0bamas at thhe local level), I suppose it's only natural that the American people elected 0bamugabe. He's the epitome of the small-time, urban Affirmative Action rabble rouser who's run community after community into the ground.  In fact Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are arguably more qualified to be Chief Exec than Odinga's bastard. Seriously - how do you become HLS editor and write less than 2L's have to do for their Legal Research & Writing intro exercises?

Now that he's coasted into the ultimate Affirmative Action job, 0bamugabe's gonna run this country with all the competence of a chimp hopped up on Xanax. Then again, since economic failure is a feature & not a bug of Marxism & Fascism, perhaps I have no right to call him incompetent

To get back to the recommendations made at the outset, I'm pretty certain that there are just too many constituencies in these declining areas for the umpteenth GOP revamping to do any good. Minority Boss Tweeds, "community activists", bureaucrats, unions - do you really think they're going to fall for some milquetoast G. Dumbya "Compassionate KKKonservativism v. 2.0?" Even as their cities fall around them, look for Rove & Jorge's beloved constituencies to [sensibly] vote for the party that panders and race baits better.

Apologies for strayin' kinda OT...

 

Sweet Darwin...

Submitted by Nine-of-Diamonds on Sun, 05/17/2009 - 17:19.

When's this gibbering spastic gonna get off of his ice-fishin' duff and learn how to Moby properly?? Must be somethin' in the water in Lake Erie/Superior/whatever.  I spend all day starchin' my sheets & cuttin' out eyeholes, so I'm not gonna put up with no bush league mobyin'. We're all very busy individjuls, and we deserve better.