Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
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Re the
New York article.
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Since people know so little about public policy in general and health-care policy in particular, they tend to have incoherent views. In health care and other areas, they want to enjoy generous benefits while paying low taxes and don’t know enough details to reconcile those irreconcilable preferences.
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That's not stupid. That's being unrealistic and overly-demanding - pushing a system to give you what you want in the short term without giving a shit about how you're damaging its long term stability. That's being selfish. People all over the world get paid loads of money for behaving in exactly that fashion every day, particularly on Wall Street.
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Gruber’s error here is that, by describing this as “stupidity” rather than a “lack of knowledge,” he moves from lamenting an unfortunate problem both parties must work around to condescending to the public in an unattractive way.
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This is crap. Gruber's statement can be taken two ways:
1. Voters were so stupid we snuck a tax past them by calling it a mandate;
2. Voters are so stupid they would have rejected the ACA if we admitted it involved a tax increase and wealth transfer because they don't understand that we need to raise taxes to give them what they want.
As to 1, if he's saying that, I agree. And I like his candor. As to 2, see my bit above on why "selfish" and "stupid" are not synonyms.
