Somehow, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has managed to pass herself off as a serious policy wonk. We could examine media failures that allowed this farce to carry on for so long, but more important than the bias that tolerates her grift is the cruelty behind it.
Warrenâs racket, as Washington Examiner Executive Editor Philip Klein lays out in our magazine feature this week, is to identify a serious problem, such as the high cost of healthcare, the crippling load of household debt, or climate change, and then offer an easy cure.
Warren is the doctor who promises she can fix your chronic back pain right away, for cheap, without any physical therapy.
Our economic and social problems are difficult. Addressing them will involve trade-offs. Warrenâs method is to tell voters that someone else will bear the costs. She denies the obvious truth that our problems are inherently tough to solve and instead declares that they persist only because other politicians are bought and paid for.
The real problem with Warrenâs tale isnât that this is class warfare, although it certainly is that. The real problem is, rather, that it is a lie.
Warren has championed âMedicare for allâ as a way to cater to her partyâs left-wing base, but sheâs also trying to sell it to ordinary people. She offers freedom from the injustice of insurance companies and the fear of being uninsured. She tells us weâll never have to worry about another medical bill again.
But in selling this plan, Warren has tried furiously to hide the costs. She has ludicrous âpay-fors,â claiming that rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse and driving tougher bargains with drug companies will produce massive savings. She pretends that cutting payments to doctors wonât result in less available care. When fellow Democrats pointed out that the Medicare for All bill she has co-sponsored outlaws all private health insurance, the senator dismissed this as a âRepublican talking point.â It’s a talking point because it is true.
Warren tries to pretend that all costs for her healthcare plan will be borne by âultramillionaires,â but that requires make-believe about her wealth tax.
She also tries to hide the middle-class tax hike involved in raising the payroll tax paid by employers. This would, of course, result in lower wages, but Warren doesnât admit this.
This is all a cruel lie to those people who will lose their private insurance, pay more in taxes, and find it harder to get seen by a doctor.
On education, Warren’s plan says, “We should stop the diversion of public dollars from traditional public schools through vouchers or tuition tax credits.â She presents this policy as if it would simply result in more money in traditional public schools. Who wouldnât want that?
Would she tell Congress to pass a law overriding the 29 states with vouchers or tax-credit scholarship programs? Or is she less ambitious, focusing her anti-choice efforts on the federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in which more than 95% of parents are happy with their child’s school?
In other words, thereâs a trade-off she’s hiding: more money in some public schools and less money in the charter schools that serve the most needy.
Behind it all is Warrenâs cheap populism. Her pitch involves denying economic reality and ignoring trade-offs. It is all based on the dishonest assertion that the only reason you donât have everything you need is that special interests are taking more than their fair share. Warren builds this myth with a misleading and a simplistic account of how special interests work.
She proposes an âexcessive lobbying tax,â which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. But also, sheâs not really an opponent of the biggest lobbyists. Notably, General Electric decided during the Obama administration to move its headquarters to Boston because Massachusetts’ senators, including Warren, supported the policies that padded GEâs bottom line.
It’s an easy story Warren tells: Washington can cure what ails you simply by taking from others. It isn’t true. Never has been. Never will be.
