Now, the Politics

Now, the Politics by MSW.  MGB: There is such a post going around about a nine year old with brain cancer. Get on Facebook and you will see it. The take-away here is that Romney is claiming that this act taxes the middle class in a major way. The mandate itself is fairly minor, but about half the money to implement comes from a tax on non-wage or unearned income paid to households making $250,000 per year. I'm sure Romney considers these people to be middle class - and this is exactly the theme that Obama should seize on (as well as the Massachusetts experience).


Will raising this tax cause "job creators" to fire people or will it have the opposite effect - taking away some of the profit from sending jobs overseas by channeling it to the government? This is actually the central economic question of our time and why the Bush years were so bad while the Clinton years were better (but not good enough). It is also the crucial difference between Democrats and Republicans, for the most part (defense is mostly a wash, as is drug policy and most of what happens in domestic government). Not that you could demonstrate that with Obama's action letting all the Bush cuts extend until the end of this year.

The main political flaw in Obamacare is Obama. If Romney had been elected, he could have passed exactly the same bill had he wished to (that Republicans may not have wished to is beside the point - he would have gotten enough to work with Kennedy to pass what Obama passed). Obama's race and age are all they really don't like about Obamacare. Luckily, all things being equal, the most likable candidate ususally wins. People like Obama better and most people find the people who really dislike Obama to be hateful, which makes their task impossible.