Kristof and the Rule of Two

Nick Kristof presents a case study for the Rule of Two.

Let me offer two counterarguments. 

First, a civilized society compensates for the human propensity to screw up. That’s why we have single-payer firefighters and police officers. . . . Compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but of civilization. 

My second argument is that if you object to Obamacare because you don’t want to pay Scott’s medical bills, you’re a sucker. You’re already paying those bills. Because Scott wasn’t insured and didn’t get basic preventive care, he accumulated $550,000 in bills [he didn't pay] . .  . We’re all paying for that.

By the rule of two, one of these arguments has to be bullshit. Obviously here it is the second one. Taxpayers and the insured currently pay for a substantial amount of free riding. Kristof would have you believe that under Obamacare, despite substantial expansions of Medicaid and large subsidies for others, we would pay less for other people's healthcare because so much expensive treatment would be avoided when diseases are detected and treated early on. That is mostly bullshit, or at least wishful thinking. There is a substantial costs to screening everyone to detect disease early. In most cases it costs as much or more as waiting and treating the few cases that develop. The CBO estimates for the cost of the Medicare expansion and subsidies is positive to the tune of hundreds of billions over 10 years. If the savings from preventative care were so substantial they should be negative.

Kristof knows this, but at least he is transparent enough to include the real reason he favors increasing health care subsidies and even to put it first.

The Rule of Two

I have this rule that when I hear someone make an argument and they give me two or more reasons they are right, I always assume they are wrong. Some examples:

We went to Iraq to prevent WMD terror . . . and to spread Democracy.

Cash for clunkers will stimulate the economy . . . and lower carbon emissions.

Affirmative action is helps level the playing field . . . and diversity is good for every college student's education.

We should make Medicare a voucher system to increase competition . . . and to reduct the deficit.

Whenever you hear more than one reason to support a policy, odds are someone is just trying to find something that sticks. Why would people do that, why not just offer the one compelling reason that convinced them? Probably because they know you disagree with them on that point, so they hope they can sway you with other reasons -- reasons that they don't even find convincing.

And that is the generous interpretation. Sometimes people give you a lot of (bad) reasons because they want to hide the real reason they favor a policy. M.D.s will tell you that "brain drain" of medical professionals causes shortages overseas, hurting the poorest, and lowers quality standards in the U.S. . . . but not that it increase supply putting downward pressure on wages. The foreign aid lobby will tell you that the U.S. spends lots of money screening immigrants for TB each year and that dangerous strains of TB from overseas will eventually kill Americans . . . but only when they can't sell spending on overseas TB treatment for humanitarian reasons.

So whenever I hear two reasons to support a policy I assume that one of them is bullshit and that the other is so weak not even the person saying it believes it.

Thought Police

There is this stereotype that some liberals are so liberal that they will attack you for even asking certain questions. Do blacks have lower SAT scores, in part, because they study less and not just because of bias in the test? Don't ask, racist.

But in most cases there is a reasonable response: no one is attacking someone for asking the question, just for intentionally get the answer wrong, probably due to prejudice. At least some of the time that is plausible.

But today Time just published this headline from Toure:

Will Blacks Vote for Obama “Because He’s Black”?The question itself is offensive and racist. Here's why

A lot of the time journalists don't write their own headlines. I don't know if he wrote the subtitle, but he does say it in almost the same words in his article "the idea that blacks support Obama just because he’s black is itself racist."

The strange thing is that Toure brings up these statistics "Obama leading Romney among blacks 94% to 0%" while "Al Gore won 90% of the black vote in 2000 and John Kerry won 88% in 2004" and then concedes "[yes], Obama’s blackness is part of why many blacks support him."

The strange thing is that Toure goes on to write about why blacks should vote, in part, based on race because race is "a deep shaper of your life, a significant part of your soul, such that [Obama's victory] is critical to your life and worthy of support."

I wonder what people will think of this argument in 50 years. When my mom was a kid every Irish person she knew in New York was a Democrat. They all liked the Kennedys, in part I guess becasue John's "victory helped Irish-Catholics feel fully American." But my generation, or maybe it's just me, look back on the era of machine politics with shame, not pride.

Mularkey

Evidently no one has ever heard of mularkey. I guess that is why they can't identify the horseshit leaking out of the politicians' mouths for what it is.

If I were an idiot I'd be voting for Paul Ryan. The guy promises that you can have your cake and eat it too on entitlements. Medicare will be cut because there is a low-cost low-benefit option but if you can't want the low-beneift option you can keep the old one and . . . somehow that still saves money?

I'll be back after I eat 10 McRyans. You see they introduced a low-calorie soup for dieters, but if you don't want to eat if you can have the McRyan burger and still lose weight.

TV is "America's Biggest Classroom?"

When did cutting subsidies for children's TV become an attack on education?

The old liberal line used to be that we needed universal pre-K and subsidized daycare so that parents would not "use the TV as a babysitter." Somehow that become "TV is out best educational device" so we need to encourage kids to watch more?

This is almost as bad as eating fried chicken to "protect First Amendment rights."

Political Economy 101

In a fleeting moment  of coherence David Brooks wrote about the contrast between the private sector and the public sector in our economy. (The public sector here includes all industries with heavy government involvement that substantially distorts incentives and generates rent-seeking behavior.)

One commenter responded:

In the US, [the public sector] has to purchase from [the private sector]: books, standardized tests, . . . , etc. and in too many cases, there is little or no competition. Consequently, [the private sector] is turning a considerable profit and part of that profit goes into campaign contributions . . .

I spent 25 years in commercial printing before becoming a teacher about 13 years ago - so I've seen both sides of the issue. . . . Meanwhile, I have seem more waste than you can imagine in public schools - all involving products of some large company that maintains a strong presence on K street. 

The conclusion is that we need strong leaders to say no to no-bid contracts and to kick all the textbook publisher and computer manufacturer lobbyists out of D.C., state capitals, and the like.

I think this misses some core lessons from Political Economy 101, big government encourages big rent seeking. If you don't want textbook companies and computer companies convincing schools to piss tons of money away on their products then give the people who make purchases decisions an incentive to make them wisely. Private schools have those incentives in many cases, but public schools often do not. If you don't want tons of Medicaid fraud then get companies incentives not to commit fraud: severe punishments. Big its a fact of life that the government is often bad at putting these incentives in place whereas they often emerge naturally in the marketplace (schools that spend too much go into the red and close shop).

"I voted to send men and women to war"

In 2002 voting against going to war in Iraq was expected to be a massive political liability.

In 2008 Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in part because of his continuous opposition to the war. (He did vote against withdrawal in 2006 but I don't think that changes the perception that he was "against the war.")

Now in 2012 Paul Ryan went on TV and supported his claim that he has foreign policy experience by saying "I voted to send men and women to war [in Iraq]."

You get whiplash from how fast public opinion about Iraq changes.