Poltics as normal, but should we be satisfied with this?

[Veldan Rath]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1uy...FE295C434CBA1E

One of the local talk stations was discussing this topic this morning, and the host, who is an self described progressive, stated that every administration lies like this, but he does not like it when they do it.

Wouldn't that be a cop out though? Everyone does it? That just sounds like ignoring the problem or at the very least not admitting that maybe too much power at the federal level can be a problem?

On a side note, I'm kinda surprised no one else has mentioned it yet on the forums.

[Ominous Gamer]

On a side note, I'm kinda surprised no one else has mentioned it yet on the forums.

because the "both sides do it" excuse is usually what the threads tailspin into, quick google search shows loki using it in the Giffords shooting thread, one of the campaign finance threads, and GGT's Republican Party thread

[Aimless]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/gruber.asp

During the portion of the video in question, Gruber said:

This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in — you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money — it would not have passed. OK? Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not.

After video of the conference was put online, Gruber elaborated on what he meant by his attention-garnering remarks and apologized for them, saying that he "spoke inappropriately":

Gruber's comments were part of a broader public conversation between him and economist Mark Pauly on the economics of health care reform. Gruber was responding to a remark by Pauly about financing transparency in the law and the politics surrounding the ACA's individual mandate. The political process, he said, striking a critical tone, resulted in inefficiencies in the law which should be corrected.

"In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which explicitly said that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed," he said. "You can't
do it politically, you just literally cannot do it. It's not only transparent financing but also transparent spending."

In the video, Gruber appeared to be speaking specifically about the political environment in 2010 and its impact on the law's funding mechanisms. Gruber takes a critical stance on some of those outcomes, calling them "irrational."

"I wish Mark was right and we could make it all transparent but I'd rather have this law than not," Gruber said. "That involves tradeoffs that we don't prefer as economists but are realistic."

Gruber apologized for his comments during an on-air interview with MSNBC's Ronan Farrow.

"The comments in the video were made at an academic conference," Gruber said. "I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments."

Although Gruber apologized for the language he used, Gruber said that the larger point he was trying to make centered on the political pressures that shaped the law. He added that those pressures "led to an incomplete law with some typos."

"It would have made more sense to do Obamacare the way we did in Massachusetts, which would be to just give people money to offset the cost of their health insurance," Gruber said. "That was politically infeasible and so instead it was done through the tax code."

[Aimless]

So when you look at those statements a little more closely you end up with a very different alternative question: can too little power at the federal level--and too much in the hands of "stupid" Americans --be a problem?

[Veldan Rath]

Off the cuff? He said it in 2 other forums.

[Aimless]

Maybe he speaks off the cuff a lot, the point is that maybe he wasn't saying quite what he seemed to say and that maybe this is how politics in the US must be

[Veldan Rath]

At what point do you just believe what he actually said, and not what gives him cover? Or should we look at Romney's 47% line in a more chairitable way too?

[Aimless]

I was referring to what he actually said

[Veldan Rath]

I guess what you and I just interpreting what he actually said in different ways.

[Dreadnaught]

So when you look at those statements a little more closely you end up with a very different alternative question: can too little power at the federal level--and too much in the hands of "stupid" Americans --be a problem?

Well, in this case the centralized power (in the form of our Congressional Budget Office) is being actively manipulated by elites of both our major parties. So, I would argue that the problem is at least the structure of the centralized leviathan state and probably the size of the leviathan state.

[GGT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1uy...FE295C434CBA1E

One of the local talk stations was discussing this topic this morning, and the host, who is an self described progressive, stated that every administration lies like this, but he does not like it when they do it.

Wouldn't that be a cop out though? Everyone does it? That just sounds like ignoring the problem or at the very least not admitting that maybe too much power at the federal level can be a problem?

On a side note, I'm kinda surprised no one else has mentioned it yet on the forums.

"Lies" is a pretty strong word to describe the propaganda politicians use. Sure, they twist and spin things to their advantage all the time, but it's a common marketing technique (and not reserved to just the political arena). It's only an example of "federal overreach" to people looking to justify an existing anti-federal ideology. Conspiracy theorists might do the same, but still a flimsy and erroneous rationale, working backward to 'prove' something.

The guy was right about a couple of things --- the American populace IS ignorant (another poor choice of words to mean either uninformed or misinformed), and legislators DO use complexity and opacity to pass Bills.

IMO, this is the kind of thing that used to be tackled by Newspapers, their staff reporters and investigative journalists....until the Digital/Information Age changed that dynamic. It's ironic that modern societies with full access to a global internet, seem generally less informed or knowledgable than their previous paper-reading generations.

I'm disturbed that very important national issues are being reduced to polls/surveys, that social media is being used/misused by politicians....and that it's 'successful' because people have the attention span of a gnat, won't take the time to do "research", yet still think they're getting real News from Faux News or the Twitterverse.

No, we shouldn't be satisfied with this.

[Aimless]

Well, in this case the centralized power (in the form of our Congressional Budget Office) is being actively manipulated by elites of both our major parties. So, I would argue that the problem is at least the structure of the centralized leviathan state and probably the size of the leviathan state.

But the manipulation--and the form that "manipulation" takes--is directly caused by the, shall we say quirks, of the American public

[Dreadnaught]

But the manipulation--and the form that "manipulation" takes--is directly caused by the, shall we say quirks, of the American public

I don't think they are unique. It's the same "quirk" that defines some of the things happening in southern Yurp as "austerity" when government payrolls barely budge. The Western world likes packages to seem tidy and nicely labeled, even when they shouldn't be.