Matt on compromise

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Now of course that leaves aside the question of whether the country can really be governed on this basis. Sometimes to advance a progressive agenda, you might need to embrace some politically dicey ideas. Then you might hope that you could acquire some political cover from members of the opposite party. Of course they won’t just do that to be nice, so you make some substantive ideological concessions to the right. You propose, for example, a health care package that would raise taxes and extend coverage to the uninsured (woo liberals!) but also slow the rate of growth in Medicare, hoping that some substantial number of conservatives will find the latter attractive.



Francois' response: Conservatives would love to cut Medicare. But so would liberals, because Medicare threatens the budget. Liberals aren't giving conservatives anything, they are just finding a small piece of common ground and then acting like they are making a concession.

If Democrats really want to tackle Medicare, then Republicans will cooperate. A bipartisan bill to cut Medicare, a standalone bill, would pass. And there's not a whole lot the elderly or the AARP could do about it. Where would they go?

But Democrats don't want to tackle Medicare without getting something bigger out of it: an expansion in coverage. This is a horrible deal for deficit hawks of either party, because if Medicare savings is $500 billion, and the bill costs $1 trillion, then we're out $500 billion. For deficit hawks, the status quo is better.

If liberals really want a compromise, and if health care for all is truly the defining Democratic priority for this century, then they should be willing to pay dearly for it: $500 billion out of Medicare, and $500 billion out of other domestic programs currently in the budget. No new taxes. That's a program that would draw many Republican votes. I personally would even agree to single payer for that, provided rules were put in place(like a spending cap with teeth) to prevent the spending from being jacked up later.

So how about? Single payer in exchange for $1 trillion in domestic spending cuts? How important is this to you guys, really?