Sure that many of you have seen the Jonathan Gruber (architect of the Affordable Care Act) video where he states that the law was purposefully written in a non-transparent way to better insure that it was not clearly understood and not viewed as a tax, so that it would more easily pass. The **stupidity of the American voter was critical **to getting the bill passed. Sure being honest and transparent would be better, but if it meant the bill not passing and becoming law they were willing to rely on deception to increase its chances of it getting passed.
So is it okay for the government to deceive the public to get laws passed? Is lack of transparency in our political process okay if the outcome is considered important by those in power?
Examples: WMD’s in Iraq; Obamacare; etc.
I don’t really care to debate the merits of Obamacare or other past political areas where this applies, but more the use of deception of the lie of omission as a means to pass legislation, etc.
I personally think that full disclosure is the best way to go.
Writing the law to be opaque to the public does not make sense to me. Americans, for the most part, don’t really pay attention to the details on these things anyway and believe whatever their echo chamber puts on it (death panels anyone?). Even if it was written transparently it’d still be impenetrable and interesting to the vast majority of the public. The public will rely on others to analyze and digest the complicated stuff for them. Making the law impenetrable doesn’t really buy the writers anything in this case.
I think where making the law weirdly complex helps is for industry. People may not notice this or that loophole or handout.
This is straightforward. It’s acceptable if elites engage in skullduggery and chicanery to pass laws I approve. It’s damaging to the democratic process if they do it for laws I disapprove.
I had just typed up an OP of a thread to address this very issue, but now I see I’ve been beaten to it. So here’s what my putative OP was:
There’s a lot of discussion over the last few days about a Smart Professor-type Guy named Gruber who did a lot of work on the ACA bill having repeatedly said in various scholarly forums that the ACA was deliberately crafted in a manner so as to obfuscate what was being done, relying on the stupidity of the voters, who would fail to understand how things would really work. Aspects include promoting the notion that the ACA was designed to save money when it would actually increase costs, and that the taxes on high cost plans were taxes on insurers when it was understood that it would be passed along to people. [OT: Gruber is also the guy who undercut the administration’s legal arguments on whether the law intended for subsidies to go to federally run exchanges - I’m not sure this is all doing good things for his future consulting opportunities.]
Some cites:
The conundrum, as I see it, is that Gruber is fundamentally right about the bigger issue. The voters are stupid. The reason political and election battles are fought over idiotic and misleading sound bites is because anything more sophisticated just goes over the head of most voters, and the only thing that actually works are these slogans and empty words.
So what’s to be done? On the one hand, politicians should be honest with the people. But what if the people’s ignorance of things like economics and foreign policy is such that they simply cannot form intelligent opinions about these matters? To take the case at hand, suppose you believe that if the people appreciated that significantly decrease the number of uninsured people would inevitably increase spending which would have to be funded by tax increases they would support it, but that due to their ignorance they would not support it as a practical matter. Do you allow this ignorance to sink the bill, or do you take advantage of that same ignorance to slip these items past them by sleight of hand?
There’s no doubt that both parties play these types of games, and for these reasons. But yet, once this becomes SOP, there’s no limit to how much dissembling will go on.
Bottom line is that voter stupidity is a significant flaw in a democracy, and I can’t think of any way around it. The only thing I can think of that would ameliorate it would be civics tests for voters. But that has its own set of problems and potential for misuse.
Some smart guy once said something to the effect of (I can’t be bothered to look it up just now): the only good thing about democracy is that it’s better than all the other systems of government.
I don’t think so. The people who run the CBO are not the stupid people that Gruber is talking about.
The CBO accurately reported that the bill would cost quite a lot of money and raise a lot of taxes. And yet, many people - including many people on this very board - seemed to be genuinely confused by the distinction between reducing the deficit (which reflects tax increases) and saving money.
If it’s opaque to the CBO then by god it’s opaque to the public. The CBO are staffed by countless number crunchers, accountants, eggheads and analysts. What chance then that the stupid people will ever understand it. The public are reliant upon “indpendent” bodies to keep them informed.
The answer to the original question; yes, it’s kinda okay to deceive the public. Just as it’s okay for the public to kick the decieving bastards out when the deception comes to light.
Understood. But the point is that the CBO is not the ones being bamboozled. They knew what would happen. But they have technical rules on how they report things. The idea was not to fool the CBO but to configure things so that the CBO’s report could be used to fool the people.
As another example, the bill was structured so that some of the tax/revenues began immediately but the costs began after a few years. As a result, the CBO reports, which used a 10 year window, showed a reduction in the deficit. But this deficit reduction was a phantom, created by (among other things) showing 10 years of taxes but less than 10 years of benefits. Was the CBO “fooled” by that game? Of course not. But they were mandated to use the 10 year window, so that’s what they reported.
The OP’s query is a political theory question that goes back to Plato, of course.
But I think the Gruber scenario isn’t so much about the noble lie as it is about how much of the internal workings to make explicit. There’s a distinction between deception and lack of transparency, and they implicate different concerns.
To take the WMD example, there’s a difference between saying we know where Saddam’s WMD are (a lie), and saying that we think Saddam has the capability to use WMD without explaining that this belief in his capability is based on very circumstantial data and is hotly debated in the intelligence community. Americans may not be able to understand the intelligence debate, and it very well might be better settled by our elected representatives who can, at least in theory, devote the time and research necessary to have informed views on the issue. But it’s quite another thing to affirmatively mislead Americans.
I’m not saying there isn’t a case to be made that the Obama Administration also engaged in some “noble lies,” with claims about being able to keep your policy, etc. But whether you agree with those claims or not, I think they fall into a different category from what Gruber is saying in the OP’s clip.
(Off-topic, but it’s worth noting that Gruber’s comments about the tax credits may well have been a reference to an earlier version of the bills that did indeed make the credits contingent on state choices.)
Enh. Laws and sausages. I would totally agree that full disclosure would be best, but political reality usually intervenes. In the case of the current situation, when the opposition has clearly demonstrated that honest discussion and full disclosure is not on their agenda, it would seem foolish for the proponents not to try to finesse the situation.
You are foolish if you don’t think congressman don’t poll their own constituency about significant legislation. They worry more about re-election than anything else.
And given that it was more or less a party-lines vote, I find it unlikely that the people who supported healthcare reform and would vote for a Democratic congressman in the first place, would have switched allegiances if only they had heard the mandate described as a “tax”.
I was thinking the same thing. When exactly did the public read this opaque bill in it’s entirety and when did the public vote on it?
How many bills does your average citizen read in a year? Try none.
That’s the stupidity of the public he’s talking about. Thirty percent of our population has been so brainwashed by RW media that the word “tax” might as well be “fisting infants.”
Some taxes are a good thing. Like if they help fix the chucklefuck medical system in America. So to get it passed, they called something that should have been a tax, not a tax. The deception and stupidity he’s talking about is people flying off the handle if the mandate came as a tax penalty.
So, which is it? Is calling a subsidy a tax damaging, or not? Cause we are kinda getting mixed messages here. In fact not only mixed messages but downright conflicting messages.
Im siding on the word “tax” as being extremely important. I don’t trust politicians on much, but I do trust them on their knowledge of getting re-elected. If politicians thought the word important then it probably was important.
A subsidy isn’t a tax. A subsidy is the amount paid to low income people to help offset the cost of mandated insurance.
The mandate penalty is what could be called a tax. I’m sure that was just a slip of the keyboard, but it’s important to be precise.
As to what Smapti said conflicting with what I said, I didn’t consult him or her before posting what I said. I only speak for me, and my assessment. I don’t think someone else disagreeing with me is particularly surprising. I’m not sure why you are agape at the very concept. If you want a guide for future incidents, just assume I’m the one that’s right.
It’s important in that the bill helped millions of people. So they packaged it in a manner that was palatable to the electorate. That’s politics. That’s why we have nonsense law names like, “The Stolen Valor Act” or “The Patriot Act.” It’s a candy coating.
Calling a tax for not having insurance a mandate penalty is the same thing.
