If only all newspaper reading was like this...

Recently the Washington Post offered buyouts to a lot of their longtime writers, some of which were accepted by such household names as David Broder and Tony Kornheiser. Peter Carlson also took the buyout and wrote his final article here on a column that reviews magazines. I never read the column, but if the old ones offered lines as funny as the quote below from this final column, then he will be sorely missed...

"In the last 12 years, there have been many changes in magazines, but some things never change. For instance, Cosmopolitan and Glamour keep running sex tips and discovering hitherto unknown sex acts pretty much every month. For all those years, I have assiduously studied approximately 2,638,419 sex advice articles, and I believe I can now boil down all their wisdom into two simple rules:

1) Insert tab A into slot B.

2) Season to taste."

“We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard…”

(warning, this is a stream of consciousness rant composed while on the train to Boston on Wednesday. I also constantly reference 'my generation' mostly meaning people roughly 25-35, I do not claim ownership, and realize that speaking in generalities is pointless)

I will admit to being an Obama supporter ever since I lived in Chicago during his Senate bid in 2004. I like they way he speaks, I like that he is post-baby boomer, and I like his candidacy forces us to address some issues that make us a little uncomfortable. I think Hillary is very capable, and her views are very similar to those of Obama’s which are, admittedly, just left of center. While their small differences in health care have been covered exhaustively, I think that neither of them seems willing to really stand up and start the discussion that John Edwards and Kucinich were driving towards. Which is probably the politically prudent thing to do. But while I have been thinking long about looking for a transcendent leader to challenge my generation to action to solve the hard problems of global warming, inequalities, terrorism; maybe I should be asking my politicians to really discuss the tough questions of the day with the people they represent. All too often we are willing to hear canned, unmeaning answers to placate us rather that demand frank discussion of what our vision truly is for the country and the ever-shrinking world.

The quote at the top I believe is from JFK’s inaugural address. And while it was discussing the race to the moon against the Soviets, I constantly ask that my politicians ask this from me. In many ways, the people in charge of the government for my ‘adult’ life have been largely uninspiring or have often had a combative view towards government in general. Those more active or self-starting have found ways on their own to volunteer their time, money, and skills towards changing their immediate surroundings. While this is reassuring and many ways, very immediately gratifying, it is a lot harder to drive societal change one neighborhood at a time, while government appears to be made for this (albeit somewhat inefficiently if not carefully monitored).

But, in turn we should ask this of our politicians. They seem to treat us as if we can’t handle or shouldn’t be troubled with details or the truth. How come we can only get government officials to speak truthifully to anonymous sources to newspaper officials? Should that be the least of what we expect from our government? How can we ask one segment of the population to risk life and limb in war and give another segment a tax break, while we all go further into debt which my generation and our children will have to deal with. We need to discuss what is the function of government? What should be provided? Who should provide it? How do we control costs to make it feasible? We’ve pretty much determined through our history that there is a right to education, which is why there are free public schools available. Is healthcare a right? I think the popular consensus is yes for children (even if somehow Republicans can find a way to protest SCHIP). Don’t we already have national healthcare in the form of emergency care, and wouldn’t it be cheaper to treat these things before they have irrevocably progressed? What is the roll of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? How can these prices be controlled? There is some evidence that Medicare and Medicaid do a great job at making sure that most of the money goes to patient care and treatment (something like 98-95%) while private insurance has an overhead of 18-30% (Google search, not very scientific). While Obama speech on race was to start of national discussion of race, it isn’t clear that the general public has been willing to continue it.

Politicians must be willing to discuss this with us and the media that covers it should discuss this in a grown up way (although it looks impossible nowadays). You can disagree without being disagreeable. To do a national healthcare program would be expensive, would have many vested interests (doctors, nurses, pharmaceuticals, hospitals), and that could lead to a boondoggle disaster such as the farm bill. But it also needs to compensate enough to attract the best people and spur the innovation that we expect from out doctors and medical industry, but at the same time, can we really afford to redistribute 16% of our GDP that does little or nothing as far as building wealth (ie export to the world)? I hope to discuss such issues with Tony this weekend since my knowledge of macroeconomics is minimal at best.

These things are hard, and I ask that my government challenges me and my colleagues to work towards solving these issues frankly. Failure to do so may be comforting now, but what will it do to our future?

*This might spawn more mini-rants on things that are hard that need to be solved…