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Pelosi: Health care reform will finally allow artists to focus on being unemployed, comfortably

By: Mary Katharine Ham
Weekly Standard
03/12/10 3:08 PM EST

From Rachel Maddow's show last night, here's a jaw-dropper from the woman who brought you, "We have to pass the bill, so you can find out what's in it." As I keep saying, the Democratic message mavens are working overtime, apparently to woo the all-important swing vote in Williamsburg to health care:

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

If Pelosi wants us to imagine it, let's do it with a few caveats, shall we? If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members of society.

If they insist on creating a generation unable to care for itself up to and past the ripe old age of 26 by incentivizing "children"—and I use to term loosely— to stay on parent's health insurance policies until they're turning the corner from Clearasil to Botox, there will be fewer educated, able-bodied people who ever learn to take care of themselves.

If they insist on creating a generation incentivized to "move out of the money-making industry" entirely and "into the helping industry," as Michelle Obama put it, with student loans forgiven by government if and only if students stay away from icky, profit-making industries, there will be fewer people making a profit.

These are the workers—and I may soon be using that term loosely— upon whom liberal Boomer Pelosi must rely to pay her Social Security through their working years. The ratio of workers to retirees has already shrunk from 41:1 in 1942 to 3.3:1 in the mid-2000s, and is expected to dip into to 2:1 in the next decades. Does Pelosi really want one or more of those young people supporting each worker to be a really keen charcoal sketch artist whose earning potential went as thoroughly unrecognized as his genius?

When imagining Pelosi's economy, liberal Boomers should also imagine what comes with it. The mediocre melodies of their street-bard children will be cold comfort indeed when they're warming their hands over hobo fires in Haight-Ashbury.

"Sorry, Pops! No more money! I'm a barrista-cum-unemployed-sculptor-with-benefits!"

Yes, I exaggerate (probably!), but the extent to which liberals actively discourage the very productivity that is the life's blood of their beloved entitlements, is astounding.