What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Malthus]

In most of Western society, such things as health insurance for prenatal care are typically considered "public goods". Apparently, Obamacare treats it as a "public good". In that, it is going with the consensus.

Calling that "crazy", as this Rep was alleged to have done, is in fact dumb. There may be an argument that it should not be a "public good", that there is some efficiency or social goal to making it a "private good" - but it isn't somehow obviously insane to treat it as a "public good".

You're using "public good" to mean something worthy of spending public money on, which is not its meaning.

In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.

You can't really build a library or a bridge and say everyone can use these now except Barbara Rank.

Uh, sure you can. Last time I checked, you need this thing known as a "library card" to borrow books from a library.

Don't issue a card to Ms. Rank, and you have "excluded" her.

This in fact happens routinely; if one fails to pay one's late book fines, one is "excluded" from borrowing any more.

There used to be private bridges - the owner charged what the market would bear for allowing people to use them: "toll bridges". The whole point of a toll bridge is was to exclude those who would not pay.

Private toll bridges:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_bridge

Bridges and libraries are not "public goods", by the strict definition.

Nor in fact is nearly anything else a modern state does. Armies? There are, and were, private armies. Police? There were, and are, private police. Schools? There are private schools.   

The notion that insurance for health care can be a in the same category as (say) libraries, bridges, schools, police and armies - that is, things that it is better for the public to pay for at least some level collectively - is certainly not "insane". Evidently, writers for The Economist think it can be - and they, presumably, know something about economics:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/10/universal_health_insurance_is

Universal health insurance is a common good

There are private parks, but no private public parks. Same with health insurance


SINCE the first rumblings of the current move towards universal health care got going two years ago, one of the arguments that's come up is the question of whether health care is a public good. Most libertarians and conservatives, contrary to some stereotypes, do acknowledge a substantial role for government, but they think it should usually be limited to things that are "public goods": goods that are "non-rivalrous and non-excludable", ie where my getting more of the good doesn't mean someone else is getting less of it, and where there's no realistic way to stop someone who doesn't pay for the good from taking advantage of it anyway. The market doesn't do a good job of suppling these goods, because there's no way to make people pay for them. Traditional examples of such public goods include lighthouses, national defence, roads, clean water, police and fire departments, parks, and public schools.

Health care, some libertarians and conservatives have argued, isn't like that. It's rivalrous: if a doctor is busy taking care of my cancer, he's not taking care of yours. And it's excludable: if I don't pay a doctor, he can refuse to treat me. The same goes for health insurance: if I don't pay my premiums, the insurance company can refuse to cover me. So why should the government provide these services, when the market ought to be able to supply them on its own?

The answer is that there's a confusion here about the good we're talking about. To understand the confusion, you have to look back at those traditional public goods, like parks, schools, the armed forces, and roads.

None of these things are actually public goods. There are, in fact, private parks. There are private schools. There are private armed forces. There are private roads. There are private water companies. There are private police and private fire departments. All of these goods are rivalrous and excludable, on the private market.

But there are no private public parks. There are no private national Armed Forces. There are no private public schools, or private public roads, or private public police. The difference between a private park and a public one is that the public can use the public park for free. The difference between private security services and the Police Department is that everyone is entitled to protection by the police. Anyone can drive on a public road. Any kid can go to a public school. And so forth. In other words, the difference is simply that with the public version of the good, we, the people, decided to make it a public good.

And we did so for one or both of two reasons. The first is that it works better. Countries with public roads, universal public education, and national armies are richer and more powerful than countries that don't provide these as public goods. (Think Napoleon v German principalities relying on private mercenaries.) And the second is that it is more just and fair to citizens. Countries where kids born into poor families can't go to school are inherently unjust.

But our decision to provide some of these things as public goods often produces an ideological shift that makes it difficult even to remember that a choice was made. Take, for example, this pretty good interactive map of public v private goods by Canada's Frontier Centre for Public Policy. The map classifies primary education as "close to being a public good" even though it admits that education is easily excludable. (And rivalrous. Teachers' attention is scarce, and a class with 30 kids provides worse education than a class with 15.) The Centre makes a weak argument that the benefits of primary education are non-excludable because they spill over to the rest of society; but positive externalities are not the same as non-excludability. The overwhelming benefit of education accrues to the student, which is why people who do have money are willing to pay so much for it. But the idea of acknowledging that primary education isn't really a public good seems to threaten the very idea that government should only busy itself with public goods. If you want to stick with that principle, then you have to phrase it differently: the good at issue here isn't the education. It's the universal guarantee of an education. And that's non-excludable.

So, let's go back to health care. What is it that we are talking about in this debate? We're talking about whether or not to ensure that all citizens, rich and poor, get decent health care when they need it. Can the free market ensure this? No, no more than the free market can ensure that every child gets an education. Only the government can ensure that everyone is guaranteed decent health care. That doesn't mean that the providers have to be government; they can be private doctors and hospitals and insurers. But the guarantee of coverage for those who can't afford it has to come from government. That is the public good we're talking about here: universal health insurance.

Does it work better than private health insurance? The evidence from every other OECD country is that it does. But do the American people consider it more just? Yes, they do. Since 1965, America has guaranteed health insurance to its poorest, through Medicaid. Since 1986, we have mandated that hospital emergency rooms must treat people without regard to the ability to pay. Since 1997, we have guaranteed health insurance to poor children, through CHIP. No one proposes eliminating government-provided health insurance for those who cannot afford it. The problem is that because Medicaid doesn't reach the working poor, it leaves a large number of people who aren't quite poor enough to qualify unable, in the real world, to afford insurance. The current reform proposals begin with an effort to fix that hole, and get everyone covered.

Basically, we're not talking about whether health care is a public good. We're talking about universal health insurance. That's non-excludable by its very nature; if it weren't, it wouldn't be universal.

Having said this, there's a qualifier: universal health insurance probably isn't best described as a public good. It's non-excludable, but it's somewhat rivalrous. The more generous the universal insurance plan is, the more it increases poor people's consumption of health-care resources, leaving less available for the rich. Increased demand creates increased supply, but at the expense of other goods and services in the economy. In that sense, like universal primary education, police (and prisons), and public roads and parks, universal health insurance is better described as a "common good": non-excludable but rivalrous. Managing common goods, like fish stocks and water, often takes a lot of government intervention and market-based co-pays to ensure resources aren't exhausted. But here's the deal: this is a perfect description of what's happening with Medicaid and Medicare spending. We turned health insurance into a common good in 1965. And unless America wants to deprive the poor of health insurance, which it doesn't, there's no going back.

[Syt]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-trip-idUSKCN18D0C7

Embroiled in controversies, Trump seeks boost on foreign trip

Besieged by controversy at home, U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure to stick to the script and avoid fresh flare-ups when he embarks this week on his first foreign trip, a nine-day trek to the Middle East and Europe.

White House officials and Republicans close to the administration say Trump, who campaigned on an "America First" slogan, wants to demonstrate leadership abroad on his visit with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Israel and the West Bank, the pope at the Vatican, NATO leaders in Brussels and G7 counterparts in Sicily.

Trump faces fierce criticism over his sharing of sensitive national security information with Russian officials and his firing last week of FBI Director James Comey. Allegations that he previously asked Comey to end an investigation into his former national security adviser drew a new round of attacks on Tuesday.

A Republican strategist close to the White House said Trump needed a strong trip to help put the past tumultuous 10 days behind him.

"If the White House is looking for this international trip to turn the page, then it really needs to come off well without any balls dropped or serious mistakes," said the strategist, who requested anonymity.

"This is their time to shine, to show Americans and the world that the White House isn't becoming a circus of errors."

Airing his frustrations on Twitter, Trump has lashed out at leaks to the news media from officials inside his administration. Confidants say a staff shake-up is possible, although major changes are unlikely before Trump's foreign trip.

His political woes will add to Trump's challenges as he tries to bolster ties abroad.

"This trip combines so many different things and actors that the question is going to be what's the message that he wants to communicate when he's out there," said Lanhee Chen, who advised Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in 2012 and Marco Rubio's in 2016.

'DON'T THINK HE UNDERSTANDS IT'

Some doubt whether Trump, a businessman-turned politician who never held elective office before becoming president in January, is ready for a smooth presidential debut abroad.

One Republican official, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, said after meeting Trump recently he did not think the president had a firm enough grasp on the nuances of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I don't think he understands it," said the official, adding that Trump needed more detailed briefings before leaving on Friday. "I think it's a very difficult challenge and I hope he's going to talk to a lot of smart people."

White House advisers insisted Trump was up to speed on the Middle East, having already hosted Arab, Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the White House.

"His way of doing diplomacy, which really contrasts with President Obama's approach, is to ... prioritize the personal relationship," said Michael Singh, a foreign policy adviser to former Republican President George W. Bush.

To prepare for his trip, Trump has been meeting with briefers including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Conversations with some officials who have briefed Trump and others who are aware of how he absorbs information portray a president with a short attention span.

He likes single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos.

National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump's name in "as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he's mentioned," according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.

Trump likes to look at a map of the country involved when he learns about a topic.

"He likes to visualize things," said a senior administration official. "The guy's a builder. He has spent his whole life looking at architectural renderings and floor plans."

PREDECESSORS' GAFFES

Although Trump has a string of golf resorts around the world that he has visited, the trip could take him out of his comfort zone. He generally prefers his own bed to hotel rooms. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he often flew home after a day of campaigning rather than staying in hotels overnight.

Presidential rhetoric and gaffes abroad have caused problems for some of Trump's predecessors.

Bush drew fire after his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Slovenia in June 2001, when he said he had looked the former KGB chief in the eye and "I was able to get a sense of his soul." The comment was seen as naive.

Even body language is watched carefully. Democratic President Barack Obama was criticized for bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito in a visit to Japan in November 2009.

One Gulf Arab official said Trump's decision to make Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, the first stop on his trip would send a message that America did not see Islam as an enemy.

    The trip could be a chance for the president to counter critics who accuse him of being anti-Muslim because of the order he issued, now blocked by U.S. courts, temporarily banning entry into the United States by citizens of several Muslim-majority countries.

    But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump, who is prone to speaking off-the-cuff, ended up undercutting his own message, it could be damaging.

"It can backfire, I mean it can seriously backfire," the official said.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to Bush, said that since the trip would be Trump's first overseas, the stakes were higher.

"The meaning and importance of his first trip abroad will be exaggerated, but it gives him a chance to get bipartisan accolades, or a chance to fail badly and have the failure exaggerated," Fleischer said.

[Valmy]

Trump in Israel-Palestine

Even competent Presidents fuck things up there.

[The Minsky Moment]

The notion that insurance for health care can be a in the same category as (say) libraries, bridges, schools, police and armies - that is, things that it is better for the public to pay for at least some level collectively - is certainly not "insane". Evidently, writers for The Economist think it can be - and they, presumably, know something about economics:

The term "insurance" is a little misleading in the health context because while "health insurance" does include insurance like aspects of sharing unpredictable risks across space and time, more fundamentally it is a financing mechanism for an essential good.  The key point is that the private market for health insurance suffers from serious and notorious market failure.  Most insureds have little choice of insurers, either taking what the employer gives or selecting from limited options.  Once insured, they have no incentive to monitor or control costs of medical services.  Insurers on the other hand are incentivized to minimize the cost and burden of claims without regard to merit, need or social value.   It's a highly dysfunctional combination of incentives.  It doesn't help that the insurance market itself is oligopolistic, the products are complex and opaque, and again the ultimate consumer has little ability to choose or have much impact on the choice.  In the US some of these issues are addressed through a patchwork "jerry-rigged" series of inconsistent regulations across 50 states and the federal government.  The argument for some form of single payer - the solution opted for by just about all the OECD ex US is that whatever its problems it is a lot cleaner.

[Tamas]

I read something about Putin offering to release records of the Russian-Trump meeting, in defense of Trump? I mean, of course the Russians would doctor the records but come on 

This whole presidency just keeps getting both worse and more ridiculous every week.

I am trying to convince myself it's logical end is not nuclear holocaust.

[Maximus]

Trump in Israel-Palestine

Even competent Presidents fuck things up there.

Don't worry, I'm sure the Israelis love him, what with him helping them spread their intel around.

[HVC]

Trump in Israel-Palestine

Even competent Presidents fuck things up there.

Don't worry, I'm sure the Israelis love him, what with him helping them spread their intel around.

Sure they give away American intel to china all the time, but trump does it once and he's the bad guy.

[celedhring]

I read something about Putin offering to release records of the Russian-Trump meeting, in defense of Trump? I mean, of course the Russians would doctor the records but come on 

This whole presidency just keeps getting both worse and more ridiculous every week.

I am trying to convince myself it's logical end is not nuclear holocaust.

Well, the smoke points to him being in cahoots with the other necessary partner in a nuclear holocaust, so I think we are safe on that end.

Many other kinds of misery are possible, though.

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/17/donald-trump-presidency-media-coverage-russia-scandal

Trump: 'No politician in history has been treated more unfairly'

No politician in history has been treated as unfairly as Donald Trump, the president claimed on Wednesday as he struggled under the weight of a series of major controversies.

"Look at the way I've been treated lately, especially by the media," Trump said during a speech to the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut. "No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly."

He told the coast guard graduates: "You can't let them get you down." Responding to their cheers, he commented: "I guess that's why we won."

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan, the most senior Republican in Congress, said he still had confidence in the president after a week of stunning revelations that have sent shockwaves through Washington.

But Justin Amash, a conservative from Michigan, became the first Republican legislator to publicly concede that if the new allegations against Trump are true, the president could be impeached.

Ryan warned about rushing to conclusions in the wake of a New York Times report that Trump had asked Comey to stop an investigation into his former National Security adviser, Michael Flynn. This news came just one day after a Washington Post report that Trump had revealed highly classified information during a meeting with Russian officials. The two controversies came in the wake of Trump's equally contentious firing of FBI director James Comey, who was leading the agency's investigation into Russia's meddling in the US election, last week.

"Our job is to get the facts," Ryan told reporters. The Wisconsin Republican said the House oversight and government reform committee had "appropriately" requested that the FBI hand over any memos and documentation Comey kept on his meetings with the president and said lawmakers would remain "sober" in their search for "the facts".

"It is obvious there are some people out there that want to harm the president but we have an obligation to carry out our oversight regardless of which party is in the White House," Ryan said. "And that means, before rushing to judgment, we get all the pertinent information."

On Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee joined the House oversight committee in asking acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe to hand over any notes or memos from Comey on such meetings, and wrote to Comey asking him to appear before it in both open and closed sessions.

Asked if he still had confidence in Trump, Ryan replied: "I do."

Ryan spoke after a closed-door meeting with Republicans, the first caucus wide meeting since the House returned from a 10-day recess.

For weeks, Republicans have carefully avoided casting criticism on the president, but by Wednesday, that loyalty was tested.

After the House meeting, Justin Amash told reporters that if Trump had tried to quash an FBI investigation, it would merit impeachment.

"Yes," the congressman replied when asked whether the report would qualify as an impeachable offense, according to a report in the Hill. He added: "But everybody gets a fair trial in this country."

Meanwhile, Republican Adam Kinzinger, who was previously opposed to appointing a special prosecutor to conduct and independent investigation into links between Trump and his campaign and advisers with Russia, now said he was open to one.

"It is time we look at the idea of an independent commission or special prosecutor," the Illinois congressman told CNN.

Republican senator John McCain, a frequent critic of Trump, said that the various scandals surrounding Trump had reached "Watergate size and scale."

Republican senator Lindsey Graham, another thorn in the president's side, said in a statement on Wednesday that he would like Comey to testify publicly. "I do not believe in trial by newspaper article or investigations based on anonymous sources," Graham said in the statement.

"However, it is important that Congress call the former FBI director James Comey before the judiciary committee to obtain a full understanding of what President Trump may or may not have done regarding the Russian investigation, including General Michael Flynn."

In his speech in Connecticut, Trump claimed that contrary to appearances his administration was in the process of delivering on three key domestic promises: tax reform, health care reform and the construction of a border wall with Mexico.

"We've begun plans and preparations for the border wall, which is going very very well," Trump said. "We are working on major tax cuts for all ... we are going to give you major tax reform."

He added: "The people understand what I'm doing, and that's the most important thing."

[Valmy]

True. I mean how unfair is it that this guy got elected President after all he did in his career up to that point? Greatest injustice in American history.

[celedhring]

Oh boy, this is going to be good.

http://time.com/4781153/donald-trump-islam-speech-saudi-arabia/?utm_content=buffer811e8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

President Trump Will Give a Speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia
Alana Abramson
May 16, 2017

[Valmy]

Why would he decide to do that? If he goes soft on Islam that will get in trouble with some of his base. If he attacks that will make his hosts upset and potentially harm American interests.

I don't get it.

[Barrister]

Oh boy, this is going to be good.

http://time.com/4781153/donald-trump-islam-speech-saudi-arabia/?utm_content=buffer811e8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

President Trump Will Give a Speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia
Alana Abramson
May 16, 2017

Meh.  His prepared remarks have all been reasonably serviceable.  What really gets Trump into trouble is when he works without a script, which he usually does.

[Valmy]

It looks like it is going to be one of those 'radical Islam is not true Islam, unite with the US to fight the fake Muslims' things. Well surely not even Trump can screw up that well known script.

[alfred russel]

Why would he decide to do that? If he goes soft on Islam that will get in trouble with some of his base. If he attacks that will make his hosts upset and potentially harm American interests.

I don't get it.

He is a reality TV guy.

It is like on Real World when MTV ran a bunch of ads to tune in the next week to see Puck tell the aids educator what he thought of gay people.