Pondering political puzzlers

So many questions. Maybe you have the answers.

1. President Obama’s compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts has been labeled a flip-flop, but the capitulation by the many Republicans who have endorsed the deal has gone largely unnoticed.

Questions: If Obama is being unprincipled by extending tax cuts for the rich, shouldn’t conservatives take a credibility hit for surrendering on the extension of unemployment benefits, tax breaks for low-income families, a one-year reduction in the regressive payroll tax and other items that will amount to redistributing the wealth? And what of their alleged concern for the widening federal deficit?

2. The two-year package of tax cuts and spending would cost an estimated $800 billion to $900 billion, but it is being touted for its potential for jump-starting the economy.

Questions: If the original $787 billion stimulus package had been called something else, would it have been more acceptable? After all, about one-third of it was tax cuts. So why is a similarly sized package deemed acceptable now?

3. When you add the $244 billion in tax cuts from the 2009 stimulus bill to the hundreds of billions of reductions in the Obama-GOP package, the sum is breathtaking. Next year, the federal tax burden of most Americans will reach historic lows. And that’s coming off a year in which nearly half of all households paid no federal income tax.

Questions: If this deal passes, will Obama be portrayed as one of the greatest tax-cutters in history? Even by conservatives? Will they one day wax nostalgic about the Obama tax cuts the way they do about the Kennedy or Reagan tax cuts?

4. U.S. Rep Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was selected to head the House of Representatives’ leading investigative committee. He said one of his top priorities would be to examine our health care system to slice costs.

“If I can help every senior get the same care they’re getting and still save tens of billions of dollars and have no doctors cheated out of what they’re entitled to, what’s not to like?” he said in a Wall Street Journal article. “South Florida could lose an awful lot of revenue,” he said, referring to high Medicare spending there.

Hmm. The new health care reform law is paid for, in part, by extracting savings from Medicare without affecting the level of care. We know waste exists because of the large differences in health care spending from one region to the next, with Florida being a prime example of high spending without better health outcomes. Washington state, by the way, is a good example of more efficient Medicare spending.

However, this cost-cutting effort was effectively demagogued during the most recent election, with the result being that the elderly formed the strongest bloc in opposition to health care reform. Why? Because they were frightened into believing that “death panels” and “Obamacare” and “rationing” would rob them of $500 billion in vital government-subsidized care.

Questions: Where was Issa when that scare campaign was being waged? Will he one day lament that it made his efforts to cut costs more difficult?

5. Issa points to one source of possible savings, noting that in a six-year span Medicare paid more than $100 billion for 6.9 million procedures in which medical devices were used. Medicare data indicates that doctors are overusing many expensive cardiovascular and orthopedic implants, among other devices. Issa’s own doctor tells him that the Medicare system encourages this overuse because cost-effectiveness cannot be considered when deciding whether to pay for a procedure.

Questions: Will Issa’s colleagues join the push to lower medical costs by changing the Medicare payment law? Or, will they portray the effort as Big Government getting between doctors and their patients?

6. A recent Gallup Poll shows that two out of three Americans want to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that dictates the nature of service for gay and lesbian members in the military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff want to end it. The president wants to end it. The U.S. House voted 234-194 to end it. In the U.S. Senate, 57 of 100 members wanted to proceed with ending the policy, but that effort failed to garner the 60 votes needed under Senate-imposed rules.

Question: Will the public ever pressure the Senate to change rules that give 41 out of 535 members of Congress so much power?