Reihan takes issue with me calling the Republicans nihilists. All I know is that their current proposals would insure no one and restrain costs at the margin. As for the Democrats who opposed social security reform in the Bush administration, I disagreed with them. I thought they were demagoguing a necessary reform.
But they did have an argument that social security could be reformed in ways that did not require opting out. And the social security crunch in that period was not as alarming as the healthcare crunch now.
If the GOP had been actively offering a series of alternatives to Obama's proposal that would address the scale of the problem it would be one thing. They haven't. In fact, Brown campaigned on no federal healthcare reform and tax cuts. In an era when healthcare costs are strangling us, and the GOP-debt is crippling us, that's nihilism.
[Apologies for the first headline typo.]
The Dish 