# Cato Institute: "Blocking Obama’s Health Plan Is Key to the GOP’s Survival" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 23, 2008, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075 "2008-11-23T04:59:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/41 "2008-11-24T05:03:06Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > In other words, you have no cite and were talking out your ass in GD, which is what you always do. I’m not a member of the “Republican base.” Well for starts it’s Republicans who fight tooth and nail and sequel like the greedy little stuck pigs they are when anyone brings up healthcare for the poor. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/42 "2008-11-24T05:25:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > My cite is DECADES of Republican behavior, where they have consistently shown zero concern for the welfare of others, and opposed any attempt to help others. You are the one making the bizarre claim. I think he wants you to draw him the picture, **Der Trihs** , not just point him at the blackboard and hand him a history book and a piece of chalk. And, this being GD, that really is a legitimate demand, at least from a purist’s POV. A simple IMHO (or even an IME) added to your post would undercut his position quite nicely. ETA: As for the bizarre claim you assert was made by **Rand Rover** , would you be good enough to specify what it was? I have my suspicions, but I’d like some independent corroboration or elimination from you. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/43 "2008-11-24T05:38:23Z")
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**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/44 "2008-11-24T06:35:08Z")
> [@DubsyUin](#): > > Well, support for Fannie and Freddie was bi-partisan. Clinton supported it. Bush supported. An R and D congresses supported it. DubsyUin: 1. Government Sponsored Enterprises had little to do with the current crisis. I respectfully suggest that either I am wrong or you should re-evaluate your sources of information. That’s valid, right? I mean if you are being fed poor information, it’s time to find a superior pundit. True, if the topic is national politics, it matters little. But woe to those who take financial advice from ideologically blinkered turkeys. 1a. Starting in 2002, the GSEs lost market share to “Asset backed securities issuers”, who were not regulated by any federal organization, AFAIK. So we _tested_ laissez faire in the 2000s - and got only abuse. [http://economistsview.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/24/gse.gif](http://economistsview.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/24/gse.gif) 1b. Although, Fannie and Freddie participated in high risk lending, they didn’t lead the pack. They lagged behind more aggressive players. [Cite by industry observer](http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/07/krugman-on-gses.html). 1c. > [@Tanta from Calculated Risk](#): > > I think we can give Fannie and Freddie their due share of responsibility for the mess we’re in, while acknowledging that they were nowhere near the biggest culprits in the recent credit bubble. They may finance most of the home loans in America, but most of the home loans in America aren’t the problem; the problem is that very substantial slice of home loans that went outside the Fannie and Freddie box. But Krugman is right to focus on the fact that it was the regulatory and charter constraints of the GSEs that kept that box closed. In other words, though the GSEs overstepped certain boundaries _regulatory restraints stopped them from the sort of piss-poor lending that private institutions engaged in_. 1d. To sum up, the GSEs pulled back in 2003, when things started going crazy, and it was non-depository institutions (which btw fall outside the Community Investment Act of 1977) that were responsible for most of the abuses. 1. Furthermore, your story lets derivative packagers off the hook. A huge part of the story involves CDOs and SIVs. [Today’s New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/business/23citi.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) has a story about the utter breakdown of risk management inside Citigroup. Check it out: Citigroup is one of the 1-4 largest banks in the world _and it was relying on the bond raters to do their risk assessment_ because, you know, those CDOs were just so complicated. Sheesh. Not only that, but the risk manager who practiced this awful oversight just left the bank with payouts worth tens of millions of dollars. The private sector throws money at high level incompetence. 2. There is much more to this financial clusterfuck. But again, I would respectfully suggest that if you think that Fannie, Freddie and the Community Investment Act of 1977 are mostly to blame, then you are reading entertainment, not serious analysis. 3. The main problem is that focusing on the 2 GSEs feels nice ideologically but puts a cap on understanding the underlying issues. Here’s [another take:](http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/09/index.html) > [@Professor Brad DeLong](#): > > …because the **investors** and creditors did not do their due diligence and check that the **banks that were the ultimate holders** of derivative securities had done their due diligence and checked that the **financiers** who had created the derivatives had done their due diligence and checked that the **purchasers** of the securities had done their due diligence and checked that **securitizers** had done their due diligence and checked that the **lenders** had done their due diligence and checked that the **home buyers** had done their due diligence and checked that they could afford their mortgages if house prices stopped going up. > > Catastrophic failures of risk management at seven different points along the chain–any one of which would have kept us out of this current mess. Emphasis in original dutifully copied. Professor DeLong didn’t even mention the bond raters S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/45 "2008-11-24T06:43:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > We’re Number 24! We’re Number 24! Only one other country above Mexico. :eek: These statistics are somewhat old, any newer ones? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/46 "2008-11-24T06:49:03Z")
> [@DubsyUin](#): > > P.S. > [Xoilac TV - Trực tiếp bóng đá Xôi Lạc HD - Link XoilacTV hôm nay](http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070718153509.aspx) > > “The Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit frequently quoted by the media, puts the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That is a much smaller figure than the media report.” > > 11.05 (average between the high and low estimate)/ 300 (off the head guess at US pop.)=.03683=3.683%. We’re moving closer to that 1-2% Stone. That is, if you agree with the above cite and the premises it assumes. Take it for what you will. Your cite is from the Business and Media Institute: Advancing the Culture of Free Enterprise in America. Their goal is to rout out _bias_ in news coverage. AFAICT, nothing in your link disproved the 47 million number: what it implied is that a large number of the uninsured appear to make more than $50,000 a year. But because they are hack artists and not analysts, we didn’t see any pie charts tabular breakdowns or even links to serious reports. We didn’t see an evaluation of the consequences of being middle class and uninsured on the individual and _on other policy holders_. Rather we got cherry picking and a few examples of those who quoted the 47 million figure _accurately but without a decomposition_. Hey, it’s a living. It’s just not a serious one. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/47 "2008-11-24T16:21:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > My cite is DECADES of Republican behavior, where they have consistently shown zero concern for the welfare of others, and opposed any attempt to help others. You are the one making the bizarre claim. So if you say it twice that makes it true? The point you are missing is that fiscal conservatives have a different view of what the government should do to help people, and many Republican administrations have been doing those things over the time period you cite. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/48 "2008-11-24T16:24:12Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > So if you say it twice that makes it true? The point you are missing is that fiscal conservatives have a different view of what the government should do to help people, and many Republican administrations have been doing those things over the time period you cite. That’s “different” as in “not”. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/49 "2008-11-24T17:10:46Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s “different” as in “not”. In your opinion. IMO, fostering an environment that encourages economic investment and job creation helps people more than throwing a few dollars at them. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/50 "2008-11-24T17:15:41Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > In your opinion. IMO, fostering an environment that encourages economic investment and job creation helps people more than throwing a few dollars at them. And in my opinion, encouraging economic investment and job creation will still leave some people behind. There IS a middle ground. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075/51 "2008-11-24T17:35:09Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > In your opinion. IMO, fostering an environment that encourages economic investment and job creation helps people more than throwing a few dollars at them. Not based on our experiences with the last three Pub administrations, it wouldn’t. Or maybe those didn’t meet your criteria? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cato-institute-blocking-obama-s-health-plan-is-key-to-the-gop-s-survival/474075.md?page=2)