The paper trail

How come nobody saw this before the weekend, a 2009 op-ed piece in USA Today by Mitt Romney, nominal GOP front-runner, endorsing an individual mandate plan and suggesting Massachusetts can be the model for the nation:

Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America’s families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There’s a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it....

Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn’t have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages “free riders” to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn’t cost the government a single dollar. Second, we helped pay for our new program by ending an old one — something government should do more often. The federal government sends an estimated $42 billion to hospitals that care for the poor: Use those funds instead to help the poor buy private insurance, as we did.

The Romney camp's response when Rick Santorum called the governor out as a liar? Denying that Romney was in favor of mandates before he was against them:

He is consistent in advocating for a state-by-state approach on health care.... he has always said that health care should be determined at the state level. States are the laboratories of democracy, the place where policy should be implemented

So Mittens wins big today...and then the base begins having second thoughts again tomorrow. The clown show continues.

At the GOP Christmas debate, the crowd will boo Santa Claus

They cheered Rick Perry for executing 234 poor souls. They roared in approval at the suggestion that a young man with no health insurance lingering in a coma might be left to die. Last night the audience at the Fox News/Google Republican debate in Florida booed an American soldier, all because he had the gall to ask whether any of the candidates on the stage would reinstate Don't Ask, Don't Tell and forbid him to serve in the military as a gay man.

None of the candidates, most of whom had never served in the military, had the decency to applaud the soldier for his service.

The question went to Little Ricky:

SANTORUM: I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. The fact they are making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to, and removing don't ask don’t tell. I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military's job is to do one thing: to defend our country...

KELLY: What would you do with soldiers like Stephen Hill?

SANTORUM: What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That’s tragic. I would just say that going forward we would reinstate that policy if Rick Santorum was president. That policy would be re-instituted as far as people in, I would not throw them out because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration. But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was -- sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.

So Santorum thinks that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is carte blanche for gay troops to have gay sex in the barracks, while hetero troops have no such privilege, and therefore allowing homosexuals to serve is "social experimentation."

And Santorum wonders why he has a "Google problem."

Tea Party to uninsured: Die!

The highlight of last night's GOP debate:

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer posed this question to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul: “A healthy young, 30-year-old man has a good job, makes a good living but decides, ‘You know what? I’m not going to spend $200 or $300 a month on health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it.’ But something terrible happens, all the sudden he needs it. What’s going to happen if he goes into a coma? Who pays for that?”

“What he should do is whatever he wants to do,” Paul replied. “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare to take care of everybody…”

“Are you saying society should just let him die?” Blitzer asked.

The audience responded with shouts of “Yes!”

Pretty much tells you all you need to know about the "loyal" opposition.

The GOP wants to kill jobs -- by gutting government spending

Overlooked in all the Republican rhetoric about "job creators":

In his defense, Obama’s advisers like to point out — as the White House did last week — that 2.4 million private sector jobs have been created in the past 18 months.

But that ignores the portion of the economy where Obama has the most influence: government jobs, which have seen significant losses. When those are taken into account, the economy has added far fewer jobs — 1.7 million — over the past 18 months.

(From today's WaPost.)

GOP set to give up House majority in 2012

From Democracy Corps:

A new survey by Democracy Corps in 50 of the most competitive battleground Congressional districts – nearly all of which gave a majority to Obama in the last presidential election – shows the new Republican majority very much in play in 2012. *

The Republican incumbents in these districts, 35 of them freshmen, remain largely unknown and appear very vulnerable in 2012 (depending on redistricting).  In fact, these incumbents are in a weaker position than Democratic incumbents were even in late 2009, or Republican incumbents were in 2007 in comparable surveys conducted by Democracy Corps.

These incumbents, identified by name, have an average approval rating of 35 percent across the 50 districts, with 25 percent disapproving.  Another 38 percent were not able to give the candidates a rating, suggesting lack of visibility.  This is about 10 points lower than the approval rating Democratic incumbents held in July of 2009 (with comparable disapproval rating).

More importantly at this early point, just 40 percent of voters in these districts say that they will vote to reelect their incumbent (asked by name in each district), while 45 percent say that they “can’t vote to reelect” the incumbent.

And with a landslide looming between Obama and generic nutbag Republican, not surprising.