“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: What’s the Matter With Europe?
On Sunday France will hold its presidential runoff. Most observers expect Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, to defeat Marine Le Pen, the white nationalist — please, let’s stop dignifying this stuff by calling it “populism.” And I’m pretty sure that Times rules allow me to state directly that I very much hope the conventional wisdom is right. A Le Pen victory would be a disaster for Europe and the world.
Yet I also think it’s fair to ask a couple of questions about what’s going on. First, how did things get to this point? Second, would a Le Pen defeat be anything more than a temporary reprieve from the ongoing European crisis?
Some background: Like everyone on this side of the Atlantic, I can’t help seeing France in part through Trump-colored glasses. But it’s important to realize that the parallels between French and American politics exist despite big differences in underlying economic and social trends.
Adam Gaffney: Donald Trump’s homicidal healthcare bill will kill some, and enrich others
Let us imagine that you would like to redistribute hundreds of billions of dollars from working class people to the rich, and wouldn’t hesitate to risk the lives of tens of thousands of people to do so. Well, as luck would have it, there is a bill— the “American Health Care Act” (AHCA)—that does precisely that.
On Thursday, it squeezed through the House of Representatives. Trumpcare – at least for the moment – has been triumphant.
Many of us thought – or hoped – that Paul Ryan’s bill was as good as dead on 24 March, when, in a pleasurable political moment (a rare event these days), he admitted he lacked the votes to push it through. But where there is a will to degrade the healthcare safety net, there is a way. And, to the House Republicans’ credit, they indeed found a way to ram this grotesquerie through.
Timothy Egan: No Country for This Old Man
In his three calamitous months in office, President Trump has visited a property that is part of his business empire nearly once every three days. And while Barack Obama had gone to nine countries in that amount of time, Trump has been to no other nation — though he just announced an overseas trip for later this month.
That’s not surprising, given Trump’s nativist biases and his need to curl up at night in high-thread-count sheets in his own properties.
But do you know how many times Trump, as president, has been west of the Mississippi? Zero. While most presidents are curious about the land and people under their rule, Trump treats the sunset side of the 100th meridian as a foreign country.
Yet, for something he has never seen from Air Force One, Trump is now trying to do historic and vengeful damage to a vast part of the country that he clearly knows nothing about. With one executive order, he set in motion a plan that could lift federal protection from some of the most stunning scenery and singular cultural landmarks in the world — land owned by the American public.
Theresa Brown: The Real Problem With the Health Care Bill
With the American Health Care Act headed to the Senate — and possibly President Trump’s desk — it’s important to step back from the debate over the bill’s details and recognize two essential truths about American health care.
First, health care in the United States costs much more than in other developed countries, and on average the outcomes are worse. Second, any plan that focuses primarily on reducing the cost of insurance will inevitably lead to less access to care. Indeed, whatever Republicans say about high-risk pools and other ways their plan covers vulnerable people, the fact is that millions will lose coverage.
Health care in the United States is more expensive because, unlike the systems in other countries, ours rests on the idea that profits and quality health care go hand in hand. As a result, government programs working with our existing structure of for-profit insurance companies can expand and improve coverage (like the Affordable Care Act) or offer lower insurance premiums (like the new Republican plan). But they can’t do both.
Keith Ellison: The Great Recession hurt millions. Now, Republicans want to risk a repeat
secretary Hank Paulson told Congress members that if several hundred billion were not approved over a weekend, we wouldn’t have an economy the following week. Not something I’d like to see again. But here we go again.
They’re calling it the Financial Choice Act. But in fact, it is a wrong and dangerous choice that pretends as if there never was a financial crisis.
In 2008, the world economy crashed because a bunch of large financial institutions acted irresponsibly. These banks, investment firms, mortgage lenders and private equity fund suckered people into terrible loans and investments, and then engaged in reckless speculation – all to help their bottom line. The banks took the homes of millions of families; millions of hardworking people lost their jobs.
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