OPINION
The anti-government plot
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t turns out that Republican leaders did and Charles Koch, not blunder into the cataclysm that faces who viewed the the nation over the budget and the debt Affordable Care Act but merely followed the script written by a as part of the lineage few of the country’s richest and angriest men. of Social Security, That had been obvious, but The New Medicare, deposiERNEST York Times spelled it out Sunday. As Presi- tors insurance, polDUMAS dent Obama prepared for his second inau- lution control, the guration, the men gathered in Washington GI bill, workplace safety and all the other to plan the disruption or defunding of the federal programs that punish and tax their health law before its final parts took effect class to benefit the undeserving. in January 2014. They planned to blackmail On a cruise ship in the maritime provthe president and Democrats with the threat inces at the end of September, a man who of shutting down government and default- enjoyed a fortune from some enterprise or ing on the national debt if they did not scrap inheritance captivated all of us within earObamacare and to blame the president for shot about the evils of “Obamacare” — horthe economic collapse. Now, they want the ror stories with no basis in the law or facts country to know it was their doing, not just — with a mixture of humor and anger. It was the rash impulses of a few zany Tea Party so important that Obamacare’s new insurpoliticians like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton. ance markets be thwarted that he thought The leader was Edwin Meese III. You Republicans were doing a good thing by remember the attorney general whom Presi- shutting down the government, sending dent Reagan refused to fire in 1988 after the nation into bankruptcy and destroying his role in the Wedtech, Iran-Contra and global faith in U.S. currency to stop it. (I Bechtel pipeline scandals came to light. After didn’t hear him mention it, but Obamacare his top Justice aides resigned to protest his makes him pay the 3.8 percent Medicare crooked actions, Meese quit. After 25 years tax on his investment income, heretofore his bitterness has not subsided. untaxed unlike your wages and salaries, to Much of the money for the campaign shore up Medicare. Could that have been came from billionaire industrialists David in his craw?)
The GOP and the gender chasm
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flurry of new public opinion polling reaffirms the anecdotal chatter from social events of the last several days that Americans’ anger at their members of Congress is as intense as ever before and those who are Republicans are given special blame for the fiasco taking place in Washington. While utter hell for Republicans who happen to be on the ballot at the moment (a weak Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia appears to be waltzing to victory in that state’s election next month), some of the political animus shown in this polling data is ephemeral. Once the budget and debt limit crises subside, as they must, political attitudes will recede to the polarized norm that is contemporary American politics. However, there is one trend from the polling that portends long term problems for a GOP that has an array of long term problems: the fact that American women are decidedly more concerned about the ramifications of the shutdown. Given short shrift in the post-election analysis that focused on the continuing racial and ethnic diversification of the electorate was what happened with the gender gap in the 2012 election cycle.
According to Gallup polling, the gender gap — significant since 1980 and consistently large since the 1996 Clinton/ JAY Dole race — passed BARTH another threshold with a record 20 percentage point gender gap emerging in 2012 according to Gallup polling. While Obama lost badly among men, a 12-point margin in the Democrat’s favor among women drove a comfortable victory. The gender gap is reasserting itself in the current political crisis. In this week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll, the negative numbers for Republicans are driven by the fact that three in four women voters oppose the Republican tactics over the past weeks. Reporting shows that in internal GOP polls in advance of the shutdown in an effort to undermine Obamacare, even Republicanleaning women overwhelmingly opposed the idea by more than 30 points. The gender gap in American politics is driven by any number of forces — party differences on issues of peace and war and reproductive choice, the comparative ability of candidates to frame issues in ways that resonate differently for women and
It was too bad, in his mind, that Repub- support the idea of giving tax credits to licans had not taken similar steps when all working people with low incomes so that this started, in 1935 with the passage of the they can afford health insurance — the Social Security Act or later when Republi- single provision that Republicans most cans regained enough clout in Congress and loathe. Two-thirds favor barring insurers from denying people coverage because of the White House to undo it. There is merit to the Social Security, a predisposition for sickness. Medicare and Obamacare analogies. In all Surveys also show that when people are three cases, the government mandated that asked about the Affordable Care Act, they nearly everyone — employers and employ- like it. It’s “Obamacare” that terrifies many. ees — buy insurance: old-age and surviThe loopiness is understandable. Stories vors insurance, unemployment insurance, about how the law works usually label it by disability insurance, old-age and disability its shortened actual name, the Affordable health insurance and finally, with the Afford- Care Act, but stories about the political able Care Act, health insurance for able- attacks always call it Obamacare. At Fox bodied people under the age of 65. News, it’s always Obamacare. Republicans The only difference is that the original must refer it as Obamacare. My excursion mate and Cruz are right Social Security and Medicare acts required people to buy the coverage from the federal that protections grow on people. If you are government and have the premiums with- old enough you recall actor Ronald Reaheld from their payroll checks and matched gan’s brave campaign to block Medicare in by employers. The Affordable Care Act the ’60s. His LP, paid for by the American encourages them to buy insurance on the Medical Association and widely distributed, regulated private market, where the insur- urged people to help him fight health insurance companies could not deny them cov- ance for people over 65 or disabled. erage for a predisposition to illness or end “If you don’t do this,” Reagan warned, their coverage in the event of a catastrophic “one of these days you and I are going to illness or accident. spend our sunset years telling our chilPolls have shown that Americans over- dren and our children’s children what it whelmingly like each of the major elements was like in America when men were free.” of Obamacare. Three of four like it that Twenty years later, as president, he wanted children can stay on their parents’ policies to protect the programs he once called until they are 26, and the same percentage socialism.
men, and a not insignificant level of gender consciousness among American women. First and foremost, however, is women’s elevated faith in government to aid in easing the challenges disproportionately faced by women (and for those who also are mothers, their children). This government shutdown hits right at the heart of governmental efforts that aid the vulnerable in American society. From WIC feeding programs to Head Start early childhood programs to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families to investigations of child neglect, such programs are either shuttered or threatened by the government shutdown. Showing the legacy of Bill Clinton in U.S. politics, Democrats have also been effective in framing the shutdown in terms of its human impact while Republicans have continually discussed it in terms of dollars and cents. For these reasons, women are decidedly more likely to view the shutdown as a “crisis” and for it to have lingering electoral impact with them. Three-quarters of women voters say the shutdown is causing major problems while only 57 percent of men do, according to a CNN poll this week. Moreover, it’s crucial to remember what was at the root of the government shutdown: the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is a law that represents one of
the most important attacks on gender discrimination in history. Many of those policies — ranging from ending disparities in rates insurance companies charge women and men to requiring private employers to cover contraceptives as part of their insurance packages — are already in place. Moreover, the health care overhaul that will aid the uninsured has the power to stymy a fascinating but troubling trend in public health: the decline in female life expectancy in many parts of the country in the last generation. (This is a reality in 45 percent of American counties, including in over 50 of Arkansas’s counties.) The popularity of Obamacare will rise with time and, all signs indicate, that it is with women (already more supportive of the law) that the rise will be most pronounced and permanent. Despite the party’s challenges with white men, the gender chasm created by the current governmental shenanigans creates a path to victory in the 2014 election cycle for Democrats. Even before the latest events, Arkansas Democrats knew that running up a margin with women is vital to winning close races for the U.S. Senate and governor in 2014. If they — and Democrats like them across the country — are able to succeed, we will look back at the last couple of weeks as the time when those dynamics were rooted. www.arktimes.com
OCTOBER 10, 2013
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