Left On Haggard

Mike Bloomberg is a weird guy. I think he’s done an admirable job in NYC on some issues – climate change, transportation, etc. But by and large, he seems to be one of those people who would rather appear to be calm and rational than take a calm and rational position. Take, for instance, his comments on “Meet the Press”:

“You know, if you really want to object to something in this bill, number one, I have asked congressperson after congressperson. Not one can explain to me what’s in the bill, even in the House version. Certainly not in the other version,” Bloomberg said during an appearance on “Meet the Press.” “And so for them to vote on a bill that they don’t understand whatsoever, really, you got to question how– what kind of government we have…

“They are not talking about reducing costs,” he added. “They’re talking about changing the first derivate, slowing the growth down. And when you look at where the cost savings are going to be, well, they’re going to cut something out of Medicare and Medicaid. Now anybody that runs for office will tell you, you don’t do that. I mean, the bottom line is it’s so politically explosive, it really would be a first time in the history of the world that they ever cut anything [from those programs].”

This is a bunch of really stupid stuff. First, I’m going to go head and call BS on his claim that he hasn’t yet spoken to a member of Congress who knows what’s in the House bill. That claim is so blatantly ludicrous that I’m just going to chalk it up to hyperbole or a momentary mental break.

The second part, however, is truly bizarre. Bloomberg complains that Congress isn’t really bending the curve, it’s merely slowing the increase. This is a valid point and a cogent criticism – the bill could definitely have gone further in savings. But Bloomberg then pivots and criticizes the savings in the bill, essentially arguing that Congress doesn’t really mean it.

This argument – Congress needs to find savings in Medicare (and Medicaid), but we can’t really count on them to do it anyway – is actually kind of common. It’s also utter nonsense. As Jim Horney notes in this interview with Ezra Klein, you only have to go back to 1997 to find an instance of Congress cutting Medicare. It’s clear that Congress has had some difficulty finding the political courage to make tough Medicare decisions (wonder why?), but it’s also demonstrably false to say that this would be “the first time in the history of the world” that Congress has authorized cuts.

Ezra Klein refers to this kind of thinking as “deficit nihilism” – an overwhelming concern with reducing the deficit, coupled with a rejection of measures specifically  intended to reduce the deficit. How are we supposed to actually reduce the deficit if we reject every deficit-reducing measure out of fear that it won’t be implemented? Where does this leave us? It’s total nihilism, and it carries us into some pointless, miserable abyss of public policy. Hardly calm and rational.