Josh Barro didn’t leave conservatism. Conservatism left Josh Barro.
By Ezra Klein, WashPost, Updated: May 24, 2013
I know Josh Barro. Josh Barro is a friend of mine. Josh Barro does not climb trees and throw coconuts at you, as the Atlantic’s graphic alleges. But he really, really, really likes talking about state pension systems. That part is true. And, these days, he doesn’t come across as much of a Republican. That part is also true.
But is that his fault? Or the Republican Party’s?
Over the last few years, the Republican Party has been retreating from policy ground they once held and salting the earth after them. This has coincided with, and perhaps even been driven by, the Democratic Party pushing into policy positions they once rejected as overly conservative. The result is that the range of policies you can hold and still be a Republican is much narrower than it was in, say, 2005. That’s left a lot of once-Republican wonks without an obvious political home.
Health care is the most obvious example. The basic architecture of the Affordable Care Act is, as has been pointed out ad nauseum, a Republican idea. It was first proposed in a 1993 plan that had 20 Senate Republicans as co-sponsors. It was passed and implemented by Gov. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. It was supported by Newt Gingrich. Through much of this time, Democrats viewed it with skepticism: They wanted something closer to single payer, and it seemed borderline offensive to insist that Americans buy products from for-profit insurers. But key Democrats dropped those objections in order to actually pass health reform.
Republicans could’ve pocketed the Democratic concession as a win. They could’ve celebrated the triumph of their ideas and the Democratic abandonment of single payer. They could’ve used the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle to push some of their other health policy initiatives, like medical malpractice reform, capping the employer tax exclusion, and spreading health savings accounts.
(More here.)
I know Josh Barro. Josh Barro is a friend of mine. Josh Barro does not climb trees and throw coconuts at you, as the Atlantic’s graphic alleges. But he really, really, really likes talking about state pension systems. That part is true. And, these days, he doesn’t come across as much of a Republican. That part is also true.
But is that his fault? Or the Republican Party’s?
Over the last few years, the Republican Party has been retreating from policy ground they once held and salting the earth after them. This has coincided with, and perhaps even been driven by, the Democratic Party pushing into policy positions they once rejected as overly conservative. The result is that the range of policies you can hold and still be a Republican is much narrower than it was in, say, 2005. That’s left a lot of once-Republican wonks without an obvious political home.
Health care is the most obvious example. The basic architecture of the Affordable Care Act is, as has been pointed out ad nauseum, a Republican idea. It was first proposed in a 1993 plan that had 20 Senate Republicans as co-sponsors. It was passed and implemented by Gov. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. It was supported by Newt Gingrich. Through much of this time, Democrats viewed it with skepticism: They wanted something closer to single payer, and it seemed borderline offensive to insist that Americans buy products from for-profit insurers. But key Democrats dropped those objections in order to actually pass health reform.
Republicans could’ve pocketed the Democratic concession as a win. They could’ve celebrated the triumph of their ideas and the Democratic abandonment of single payer. They could’ve used the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle to push some of their other health policy initiatives, like medical malpractice reform, capping the employer tax exclusion, and spreading health savings accounts.
(More here.)
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