We live in interesting times...

It's no secret that these are hard times, even for young people who have done everything the right way. Still, this testimony, gleaned from Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish, has to be sobering for anyone about to enter the current job market.

"I have in my hand a smoking tweet" --Senator Richard J. Durbin

Here in the capital of the free world we tend to take ourselves a little too seriously.

So here's a lusty shout-out to Dick Durbin for finding a clever way to complain about the Republicans' stalling tactics on the health care and Defense appropriations fronts. Politico has the whole story.

The incriminating tweet in question came from South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.

Health Care Reform: None of the Above

In the United States, we spend a lot more money, per capita, on health care than any other country on Earth. Given the widespread belief that Americans enjoy “the best health care in the world,” the actual results, as those are conventionally measured, are pretty mediocre. (See the results of a Congressional Research Service study of health care spending in some thirty OECD countries here.)

And so, about one year ago, we elected a new president who promised change on this and many other public policy fronts. It now appears likely that sometime during the next few weeks both houses of Congress will approve—along overwhelmingly partisan lines—a bill that will allow President Obama to declare victory in the battle to “bend the curve” of skyrocketing health care costs.

I must confess that I am starting to be, as Mark Twain liked to say, harassed by doubts about all this. And I am not alone. A story on page A6 of the December 16 issue of the Washington Post reports that a majority of Americans (51%) say that they “oppose the proposed changes to the health-care system being developed by Congress and the Obama administration.” Fully 66% say that they believe passage of the bill will increase the federal budget deficit.

But Democratic leaders in Congress appear undaunted, even by nay-saying on the part of the former head of the Democratic National Committee, Dr. Howard Dean, who argues that the Senate bill would “do more harm than good.” Dean urges defeat of the pending legislation on the grounds that it is “an insurance company’s dream.”

Evidently, the bill also is a pharmaceutical company’s dream. According to Dana Milbank, the industry is adamant in its insistence that Americans continue “to pay up to 10 times the prices Canadians and Europeans pay for identical medication, often produced in the same facilities by the same manufacturers.”

This is one of those times (there are many) when I’m glad that Washington Buckeyes have not been allotted a seat in the United States Senate. I don’t think I could hold my nose and vote for this bill. On the other hand, I can’t imagine voting to kill the bill along with Howard Dean and all the Senate Republicans, who seem to like the status quo in U.S. health care spending. Is a puzzlement.

The most thoughtful critique I have seen from the contrary-minded is that of Charles Krauthammer, who is not a conventional Republican, at least on domestic issues. Krauthammer proposes a tripartite approach to real reform: (1) overhaul U.S. tort law, (2) allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines, and (3) tax employer-provided health insurance. Pursuing this approach would make a lot of people unhappy, including (1) trial lawyers, (2), the insurance industry, (3) everyone who pays insurance premiums. In addition, abandoning all the present bills and starting from scratch would take time.

On the other hand, it would leave the best parts of the existing system—Medicare, for example—alone. And Krauthammer’s sausages could be produced one at a time, linked by experience.

Iran's Nukes: A Foreign Policy Simulation

Graham Allison, head of the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of one of the classic studies of public policy making, published in book form as Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). While provocative and theoretically important, Allison's retrospective analysis of the Cuban missile crisis doesn't necessarily help us understand contemporary foreign policy situations.

Consider, for example, the challenge posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose geopolitical situation has been vastly improved, albeit inadvertently, by the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran seems determined to develop its own nuclear weapons. Israel's Binjamin Netanyahu seems equally determined to prevent that from happening by conducting a surgical strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. So far, the U.S. has managed to restrain our Israeli allies, but we have been less successful in convincing Russia and China to support strong U.N. sanctions against Iran.

Allison has recently developed a set of exercises designed to simulate the way that Iran's quest to join the nuclear club is likely to play out over the next twelve months. The lesson, according to David Ignatius in today's Post, is that "the simulated world of December 2010 looks ragged and dangerous."

Hasta la vista

The autumn 2009 edition of the Washington Academic Internship Program is not quite over yet (policy papers are due tomorrow), but things are winding down pretty fast. Yesterday we enjoyed our farewell lunch at La Loma, and we all removed our sombreros right before the photographer pressed the shutter. From left to right, Laura Allen, Liz Hagan, Josh Kramer, David Young, Sam Rose, Terry Traster, Jessica Meeker, Amy Ovecka, Chelsea Rider, Ken Kolson

Terra Cotta Warriors

The terra cotta warriors are in town! Well, a handful of them are here, anyway, and they will be displayed at the National Geographic Society through March 31. That means that the current class of Glenn Fellows, who I suspect are fully occupied with their policy papers at the moment, probably will not get to see the exhibit. On the other hand, next quarter's class can be making their plans now. Order your tickets here.

Blake Gopnik has a review in today's Post, which boils down to the idea that "they look better in situ." Well, duh. (Don't get me wrong, Gopnik is always worth reading.)