Pass It or Go Home

by publius (coming briefly out of retirement)

Ezra Klein writes:

If Democrats let go of health care, there is no doubt that a demoralized Democratic base will stay home in November. And that's as it should be. If the Democratic Party won't uphold its end of the bargain, there's no reason its base should pretend the deal is still on.

I'll go one further.  If the House Democrats let this die, I'm voting straight Republican in 2010.  Health care reform is one vote away in a House with +70 Dem majority.  To let it die, after coming so close, would be one of the greatest acts of moral failure and political cowardice in American history.

Don't get me wrong -- I've hated virtually everything I've heard from the anti-HCR voices at FDL.  Frankly, I think their tactics have been short-sighted and idiotic.  The hard part of health care, in the era of the automatic filibuster, is setting up the initial institutional framework.  After that framework is in place, everything else becomes much easier.  This is a moral issue -- people die because of the country's policy failures.  And doing nothing is a policy choice.  But the FDL crowd spent its efforts making nothing a reality.  Well, they've almost realized their dream.  And I wish them a hearty congratulations on that.

But this time, it's different.  This is a betrayal.  If the party can't pass health care reform after the anachronistic Senate has okayed it, and with reconciliation so doable, then I don't really see what the point of having power is.  Power must be about more than simply denying one's opponents the opportunity to do bad things.

Democrats are a big tent party.  But health coverage -- and the security it provides -- is one of those issues upon which all Democrats agree.  The party's reputation on the issue has played an integral role in building its current supermajorities.  People like Stupak are benefiting from the party's stance on health care, stances that helped secure majorities, even while they seek to prevent reform from happening.

Letting this die will not be forgiven, nor forgotten.  And if they do let it die, to hell with them all.  Let a new group of Democrats -- one not scared by the oh-so-mighty forces of the Massachusetts electorate in a special election -- come to power.  Let the congressional Democrats know that its supporters have a few (a very few) non-negotiable conditions.  When you have historic supermajorities, you pass health care reform.  Or at least you don't let it die when generations of effort and struggle are within one measly House vote of coming to fruition.

I'm 100% serious.  I'm voting GOP if they let this die.  Sarah Palin, sure.  She's scrappy.  Why not? 

This is why we fight.  This is why we poured our hearts into elections and political organizing.  For this very moment.  The Democratic Party is on the verge of the greatest domestic policy achievement in decades.  And it is simultaneously on the verge of an outrageous and immoral betrayal to their base from which they will not -- and should not -- soon recover.

All that said, if they do pass it, we should celebrate and praise them.  It will be the greatest votes of their career.  They should just do it.  In 10 years, Republicans will be passionate supporters -- just like they are with Medicare.

So just pass it.  You won't have another shot anytime soon.  Barney Frank -- we need people like you on this.  Please shut up and start rowing.  This is why you're there.

[UPDATE:  People should call their House member.  People should call Barney Frank.  Don't let this die without doing anything.]

Comments

[Eric Martin]

Good to see a 100-comment domestic-oriented thread here. Thank you, publius.

I resent that ;)

But hey, they hired me to cover the FoPo beat. Who knew most the domestic minded folks would up and retire all at once.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

Yeah, sorry about that, Eric. I appreciate that you are good-natured.

I guess these Dems-in-crisis threads get a big response because all of this -- jobs, health care, foreclosures -- hits so close to home (that and I think the FoPo threads seemed more immediate when Bush and Cheney were blanking everything up on a daily basis).

And what were the odds of the domestic-minded folks retiring all at once? Kind of like the Jets making the AFC title game with a rookie quarterback.

;)

[Nombrilisme Vide]

@Marty:
There are lots of storys of successful people from the worst of our schools. We should keep focusing on making that less hard and focus less on the myth that our society or "right wingers" want it to stay that way. In the end that is just the hammer liberals use when anyone stands up and says we spend plenty on education. Let's figure out how to spend it smarter.

With all due respect, Marty, the above is a bit of a red herring. Yes, some people have succeeded in spite of their circumstances. This does not change the fact that they are a pitiful minority compared to the numbers who did no better than their circumstances would lead one to expect, and that "succeeding" with a great deal of effort may be doing no better than others born into more affluent school districts (or families given to private schooling) would do with next to no effort. It's also selection bias, in that we hear nothing of the people who make an enormous effort and still fail. That such people do not exist is as certainly a myth as what you cite.

The problem with our educational spending is less (as you say) one of inadequate overall school spending, and more (as you elide) one of inequitable individual school spending. "Spending smarter" taken to its logical conclusion would probably need to mean fully federal funding of public schools, with funds collected and disbursed evenly (with possible adjustments for standards of living, etc.; a teacher living in CA needs a higher wage to get by than one in MO, obviously) across the nation.

Alas, that shall never come to pass w/o nigh unimaginable sea change in attitudes in re: the US's educational structure.

[Eric Martin]

Yeah, sorry about that, Eric. I appreciate that you are good-natured.

Honestly, it bothers me that there aren't more domestic-minded posters. We're in the long hard slog of a process of trying to remedy that. In the meantime, since I'm the only one posting with any regularity, the content is out of balance to the fopo stuff when - as you said - the domestic scene is heating up.

[Jacob Davies]

Marty: we do have a government funded education system where every child has the opportunity to receive reasonable education K-12

Couple of miles north of me in East Oakland: Lockwood Elementary (95% Hispanic and black)

CST Results - 5th Grade
English Language Arts
Lockwood Elementary 2009 - 8.0
California 2009 - 54.0
Math
Lockwood Elementary 2009 - 8.0
California 2009 - 57.0
Science
Lockwood Elementary 2009 - 5.0
California 2009 - 49.0

Couple of miles west of me in Castro Valley: Chabot Elementary (80% white and Asian)

English Language Arts
Chabot E.S. 2009 - 72.0
California 2009 - 54.0
Math
Chabot E.S. 2009 - 76.0
California 2009 - 57.0
Science
Chabot E.S. 2009 - 82.0
California 2009 - 49.0

While Lockwood is particularly bad even for Oakland, probably because the student body is almost entirely Hispanic (though I didn't see any qualifications about "a reasonable education so long your parents speak English"), here's results from some West Oakland schools that are mostly black: Prescott Elementary (95% Hispanic and black)

English Language Arts
Prescott E.S. 2009 - 34.0
Martin Luther King, Jr. E.S. 2009 19.0
Lafayette E.S. 2009 - 18.0
California 2009 - 54.0

Math
Prescott E.S. 2009 - 30.0
Martin Luther King, Jr. E.S. 2009 - 19.0
Lafayette E.S. 2009 - 46.0
California 2009 - 57.0

Science
Prescott E.S. 2009 - 34.0
Martin Luther King, Jr. E.S. 2009 - 18.0
Lafayette E.S. 2009 - 15.0
California 2009 - 49.0

The idea that a "reasonable education" is available to every child in this country is flatly untrue, and it is hard not to come to negative assumptions about those that repeat it in the face of statistics showing it to be untrue.