On two of the biggest “kitchen table” issues of this presidential campaign, health care and education, John McCain and Barack Obama offer starkly different approaches. On both, McCain has by far the preferable prescription, because he appreciates that targeted government is wiser than massive government.
On health care, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. Let’s simplify. The Obama plan boils down to 1994’s Hillarycare in a clever disguise. It sets up a government insurance program to compete with existing private companies, but puts so many mandates on the private companies that it would slowly but effectively force them out of business. The inevitable result a few years hence: A national, government-run plan, with all of the rationing of care that plagues systems in Britain and Canada. No, thank you.
McCain’s plan has two main features. First, it would give the tax break for health insurance to the worker directly rather than to the company. Automatically, all the self-employed would have access to affordable coverage that they do not enjoy right now. Second, McCain would let people buy health insurance across state lines. Consumers would have more choice and more control. Who can object? Was it unwise to open personal banking across state lines? Anybody who uses an automatic teller while traveling, without having to pay a fee, knows the answer is no. The same logic applies to health insurance. McCain’s plan is more straightforward and less expensive for taxpayers. It is clearly superior.
Similarly on education, Obama has a severe case of Big-Governmentitis. While running roughshod over the bedrock principle that education is mostly a state and local responsibility, Obama promises national programs like the overenthusiastic neighbor who indiscriminately hands out Halloween candy. The cost, not to mention the bureaucracy, would be staggering. He promises “care, learning and support to families with children from birth up to five years old.” And “recruiting well-qualified teachers to every classroom in America.” And heading off dropouts by “investing in proven intervention strategies in the middle grades and in summer learning & afterschool opportunities.”
Oh, and yes, a “program of school construction all across the nation” and “substantial Teacher Service Scholarships” and a “Teacher Residency Program.” And so on and so on and … The last time anybody promised so much for the children his name was Pied Piper.
Yet when it comes to empowering parents, Obama offers only rhetoric. Despite the overwhelming success of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and of voucher programs in Wisconsin, Florida, and elsewhere, Obama kowtows to the education unions by opposing full school choice. McCain’s support for the full panoply of school-choice options is one of the best features of his candidacy. So is his insistence on the accountability of measurable standards. So is his repeated admonition against just “throwing money” at school problems, and his commitment to state and local control – where active parent groups have direct access to decision-makers. McCain’s well-targeted federal commitment is far better than are Obama’s intrusive, unaffordable promises.
