I just saw a terrific interview with Dr. Laura Tyson, Dean of the London Business School, formerly Dean of the UC Berkeley Business school, and an economic advisor to the Kerry campaign. The interview was on a show called
Europe Squawk Box on CNBC World.
I think Democrats have a problem, in that when they simplify their statements down to talking points, it often isn't clear how what they are criticizing affects other things. Then, when they try to speak from a macro point of view, they end up speaking in hopeless generalities. Interestingly, Dr. Tyson seems to be able to boil things down into an easy-to-understand package of why the Bush administration is leading us to hell in a handbasket. but wait, there's more!
I even transcribed some of the interview. First she was asked about how difficult it might be to defeat Bush on the WoT:
It's hard to take the facts and put them with the argument that this is a president who has run a successful war on terror. This is a president who actually connected Iraq to the war on terror without ever developing the evidence for that connection. And in fact, most of the intelligence services around the world, and a lot of experts around the world, say that --- actually --- while we've focused on Iraq, the underlying terrorist threat has become more severe.
Interviewer then asked --- wouldn't it be hard for Kerry to get Bush on that? Wasn't he for getting Saddam also?
Since Bush is making the argument that since this has been a President who has successfully prosecuted the war on terror --- that's his whole statement to the American people about why he should be re-elected --- I think one can point to the evidence and say 'Are we in fact successfully prosecuting the war?' and if you look at Iraq and if you look at evidence of terrorism around the world it's hard to make that case.
Interviewer: Aren't Kerry and Edwards more anti-Business? Aren't their healthcare initiatives and anti-outsourcing bad for business?
The place to start with the Bush administration and it's <sarcasm>pro-business policy</sarcasm>, if that's how you want to characterize it, is it's engineered the biggest deterioration in its fiscal position in U.S. history. And what you have is a structural fiscal deficit, that is a deficit that won't go away, whether the economy is at full employment or below full employment --- which probably means an additional percentage point on long term interest rates, and has led to this growing dependence of the U.S. economy on global financial flows. I think from the point of view of the business community, if you think longer term, these are negatives for the U.S. economy, and they're negatives for the U.S. business community.
On health, let me say that it's very clear that the Bush administration has done nothing except to push through a medicare prescription drug package, which costs if anything 2-300 million dollars more than their estimate, so it's part of the deficit projection.
On the issue of healthcare, the U.S. has the highest level of uninsured ever, 45 million, and the cost to the employers, who are the primary source of providing insurance to workers, has risen 41-50% during the Bush administration. Kerry and Edwards have proposed a policy, analyzed by experts, which will actually, by allowing the government to be the re-insurer for catastrophic cases, will reduce premiums to employers and employees by about $1000 per year.
Then, after being asked what the few undecided voters will base their decision on, she tied it all together by saying the recovery has been different in that employers won't hire because of higher healthcare costs, and workers can't get insurance if they're not employed. Through all of this it suddenly became clear how inexorably tied together are the economy, job recovery, fiscal deficits and healthcare costs. And she did it in about five minutes. Bravo, Dr. Tyson.
Still not as pithy as Senator Frist screaming that torts are the root of all evil, but she's getting somewhere. I'd love to see her on American TV, especially since she actually does have connections with the Kerry campaign.