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Go Home Dept. Of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

JONATHAN CHAIT FEBRUARY 4, 2011

Dept. Of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Wall Street Journal editorial page columnist Kimberly Strassel lays out the next parts of the Affordable Care Act that Republicans will attack:

If the GOP is to dismember ObamaCare, it must pressure Democrats into helping. That's what Republicans did this week. Next up for debate will be other odious elements: the individual mandate, taxes on kids' braces, restrictions on health savings accounts, cuts to Medicare. The GOP will highlight each one and then ask 2012 Democrats what they are willing to defend.

What holds these elements together? They're all elements of the program that reduce deficits. The conservative attack of the PPACA has centered around the claim that the deficit-reducing elements aren't sustainable because Congress won't follow through with them. And now conservatives are trying to make that a reality by systematically proposing to reduce tax revenues and raise expenditures.

I don't think they'll succeed. But if they do, it won't prove their objections were correct. It will only prove that deficit reduction is very difficult in a political culture in which one party is totally unconcerned about the deficit.

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What makes the right so effective is they pick a theme and stick to it. What makes the left so ineffective is they can't. Chait provides hope.

- rayward

February 4, 2011 at 10:54am

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Can you imagine were we would be if the Republicans had scrutinized the invasion of Iraq with one-tenth of the vigor they employ in opposing health care reform?

- Nusholtz

February 4, 2011 at 11:49am

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oops. "where."

- Nusholtz

February 4, 2011 at 11:57am

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Excellent comment, nush, simply excellent.

- liberalref

February 4, 2011 at 12:24pm

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Chait - -is the mental illness really getting this bad? "deficit reduction is very difficult in a political culture in which one party is totally unconcerned about the deficit" That will come as a surprise to all the Republican candidates and voters who crushed the liberals with a theme of cutting spending.

- mr_rationale

February 4, 2011 at 2:35pm

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Mr rat: Actually, I rather suspect the surprise will be on the voters who voted along those lines and threw out the party who are actually attempting to reduce the deficit. As opposed to explosively increasing it each time they are in power.

- Nari224

February 4, 2011 at 5:39pm

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