Howard Dean: Behind the Music

I've been waiting months now for John McClaughry, a former Vermont state legislator and a Reason regular, to weigh in on the Howard Dean campaign. Last weekend he cut loose.

Comments

[Phil]

Gee, his rating with the Cato Institute dropped. That's supposed to be a bad thing?

[Kevin Carson]

In foreign policy, I'd have to say, not quite as bad--to paraphrase Anthony Gankarsky, if somebody put a knife to my throat, I'd vote for him over Bush and hope the GOP opposition in Congress would keep him in check.

In fiscal policy, it's probably a draw: he'd save a little on military spending and foreign operations, but his healthcare "reforms" would probably result in the kind of fiscal time-bomb reported in the article.

Dean's health insurance tinkering is typical of the kind of Rube-Goldberg contraption liberals resort to for "fixing" problems. Rather than eliminate the kinds of state intevention that create skyrocketing costs in the first place (drug patents, licensing, FDA cartelization, and third-party payments that break the link between cost and benefit), he attempts even more intervention to correct the ill effects of past intervention.

He provided free health insurance to a major segment of the population, and shifted the costs to private insurance. Is it any surprise that people on the margin dropped their increasingly expensive insurance for the state program? The result: the "public" insurance is clogged with demand for the same reason that the subsidized highways are congested.

The minute you step away from the cost principle, which works through the market price system, you get irrationality.

[Mo]

I don't see how Dean's civil union move is a "bad" thing. Most Americans, including some civil union supporters, are uncomfortable with gay marriage. The fact that he did the right thing despite his personal views on the issues is a positive development. If Dean said it like this, he'd probably gain the support of more people, even though he would piss off the extremists.

The health care thing scares me though. However, I'd rather have Dean than Bush in the White House.

[Launchpad McQuack]

Not sure about anybody else, but I support Howard Dean's plan to fuck over the Iraqis.

[Lefty]

Sounds like sour grapes from a loser in '92. His ramblings describe the way every governor in America works except that in addition, Dean balanced his budget.

[Kevin Carson]

Yeah, Lefty, but the article goes into detail about HOW he balanced the budget: using trust funds with a positive balance, as an accounting gimmick, to offset the deficit. Much, but not all, of the Clinton surplus was the result of similar gimmickry. The quickest way to be turned into a pincushion by the establishment of both parties, in those days, was to propose taking all the trust funds off-budget and thus undermine the rationale for their respective pork-fests.

[Lefty]

Hell, I remember Reagan doing a budget trick just by moving December payments into January, the next fiscal.

I'm not excusing trickery. In the 50 state universe, though, Vermont's in pretty good shape.

[Gene Berkman]

For many years, John McClaughry has shown an outstanding commitment to liberty. He is a Republican, but like Tom McClintock, he has worked with the Libertarian Party, and he has been involved in the Republican Liberty Caucus and before that, LROC.
I sent a message to him after reading his article on Dean; I pointed out that I plan to vote for Dean to stop the re-election of President Bush, and asked if he could state a clear reason that Bush would be preferable to any of the Democrats, given the Bush record on big government and foreign intervention.
I hope he thinks about it.

[Mo]

Gene, could you post the response, if you get one? I'm curious what it would be.

[Brady]

Gene:

I'd be interested in hearing a response, as well.

There is a discussion area at Libertarians for Dean, and I'm considering starting an entire blog on the subject to debate the idea.

[Jesse Walker]

Incidentally, when Dean first declared my girlfriend told me that he sounded like a candidate I should support, on the grounds that he was both pro-gay and pro-gun. Reality, alas, proved a little trickier than that -- too bad, since that initial description made him sound a bit like a non-homicidal William Burroughs.

[Brady]

Jesse:

a non-homicidal William Burroughs

that's pretty good, i'll have to reuse that one.

BTW, I've gotten a few emails asking about the blog site's url, so here it is:
http://libertariansfordean.blogspot.com

It was born today, so look for it to grow quite a bit.

[Brady]

The interesting thing to ask after reading this, though, still comes down to the question "compared to what?". If we compare Dean to Bush, which is worse?

I'm sure a very similar write-up could have been done for dubya on his stint in Texas by opponents. It was fairly clear to many of us back then that he seemed dreadfully unqualified for the presidency.