Steyn : Stark Raving Madmen
Democrat Tourettes syndrome gone wild.
By Mark Steyn
On Thursday, Congress attempted to override President Bushs veto of the S-CHIP debate. S-CHIP? Isnt that something to do with health care for children? Absolutely. And here is Representative Pete Stark (Democrat, California) addressing the issue with his customary forensic incisiveness
The Republicans are worried that they cant pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure dont care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money? Are you going to tell us lies like youre telling us today? Is that how youre going to fund the war? You dont have money to fund the war on children, but youre going to spend it to blow up innocent people? If he can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the Presidents amusement.
Im not sure I follow the argument here: President Bush wants to breed a generation of sickly uninsured children in order to send them to Iraq to stagger round the Sunni Triangle weak and spindly and emaciated and rickets-stricken to get their heads blown off? Is that the gist of it? No matter, Congressman Stark hit all the buzz words children, illegal war, $200 billion, lies, etc and these days theyre pretty much like modular furniture: you can say em in any order and youll still get a cheer from the crowd. Congressman Stark is unlikely ever to be confused with General Stark, who gave New Hampshire its stirring motto, Live free or die! In the congressmans case, the choice appears to be: Live free on government healthcare or die in Bushs illegal war! Nevertheless, in amongst the autopilot hooey the Stark raving madman did use an interesting expression: the war on children.
One assumes he means some illegal Republican party war on children. On Thursday Nancy Pelosi, as is the fashion, used the phrase the children like some twitchy verbal tic, a kind of Democrat Tourettes syndrome: This is a discussion about Americas children
We could establish ourselves as the childrens Congress
Come forward on behalf of the children... I tried to do that when I was sworn in as Speaker surrounded by children. It was a spontaneous moment, but it was one that was clear in its message: we are gaveling this House to order on behalf of the children
Etc. So what is the best thing America could do for the children? Well, it could try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme. Most of us understand, for example, that Social Security needs to be fixed or well have to raise taxes, or the retirement age, or cut benefits, etc. But, just to get the entitlements debate in perspective, projected public pensions liabilities are expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 per cent of GDP in the US; in Greece, the equivalent figure is 25 per cent thats not a matter of raising taxes or tweaking retirement age; thats total societal collapse.
So what? shrug the voters. Not my problem. I paid my taxes, I want my benefits. In France, President Sarkozy is proposing a very modest step that those who retire before the age of 65 should not receive free health care and the French are up in arms about it. Hes being angrily denounced by 53-year old retirees, a demographic hitherto unknown to functioning societies.
Heh.
You spend your first 25 years being educated, you work for two or three decades, and then you spend a third of a century living off a lavish pension with the state picking up every healthcare expense. No society can make that math add up. And so in a democratic system todays electors vote to keep the government gravy coming and leave it to tomorrow for the children to worry about. Thats the real war on children and every time you add a new entitlement to the budget you make it less and less likely theyll win it.
A couple of weeks ago, the Democrats put up a 12-year old S-CHIP beneficiary from Baltimore called Graeme Frost to deliver their official response to the presidents Saturday-morning radio address. And immediately afterwards Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, and I jumped the sick kid in a dark alley and beat him to a pulp. Or so youd have thought from the press coverage: The Washington Post called us meanies. Well, no doubt its true we hard-hearted conservatives cant muster the civilized level of discourse of Pete Stark. But we were trying to make a point not about the kid, but about the family, and their relevance as a poster child for expanded government health care. Mr. and Mrs. Frost say their incomes about $45,000 a year she works part-time as a medical receptionist and he works intermittently as a self-employed woodworker. They have a 3,000 square foot home plus a second commercial property with a combined value of over $400,000, and three vehicles a new Suburban, a Volvo SUV, and a Ford F250 pick-up.
How they make that arithmetic add up is between them and their accountant. But heres the point: The Frosts are not emblematic of the health care needs of America so much as they are of the delusion of the broader western world. They expect to be able to work part-time and intermittently but own two properties and three premium vehicles and have the state pick up health-care costs. Who do you stick the bill to? Four-car owners? Much of France already lives that way: a healthy wealthy well-educated populace works a mandatory maximum 35-hour week with six weeks of paid vacation and retirement at 55 and with the government funding all the core responsibilities of adult life.
Im in favor of tax credits for child health care, and Health Savings Accounts for adults, and any other reform that emphasizes the citizens responsibility to himself and his dependents. But middle-class entitlement creep would be wrong even if was affordable, even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover it every month: it turns free-born citizens into enervated wards of the nanny state. As Gerald Ford liked to say when trying to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. But theres an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isnt big enough to get you to give any of it back. As I point out in my book, nothing makes a citizen more selfish than socially equitable communitarianism: once a fellows enjoying the fruits of Euro-style entitlements, he couldnt give a hoot about the general societal interest; hes got his, and who cares if its going to bankrupt the state a generation hence?
Thats the real war on children: In Europe, its killing their future. Dont make the same mistake here.
Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-10-22 |