I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a lawyer. But many doctors and many lawyers have examined the sad case of Terri Schiavo. They've determined that she is in what's called a "persistent vegetative state" -- a state, in other words, in which all the functions of consciousness, decision-making, emotion, and thought have been destroyed and from which she has no hope of recovery. They have also determined, through arduous litigation, that, to the best of our ability to know, she would not wish to persist indefinitely in this state, and that it would be in keeping with her best interests and desires to have her feeding tube removed, and to die. Good enough for me, and good enough, one would think, for any reasonable person.
But not good enough for the Republican Party, which, as I write this, is busy casting all the values of family and the rule of law, precedent, federalism, and common decency aside to provide for the federal court system to hear the case all over again -- and not out of a genuine belief that there is any realistic possibility the courts will produce a new decision but out of a stomach-turning wish to prolong the spectacle to try to reap partisan gain. As a memo obtained by ABC News explains, Republican senators have been instructed that "the pro-life base will be excited" by the debate, which is "a great political issue" and "a tough issue for Democrats."
Nauseating, yes, but not nearly as nauseating as the knowledge that in the state of Texas, thanks to a bill signed in 1999 by then-Governor George W. Bush, conscious, living human beings are deprived of life support against their express wishes (and those of their family) in order to save money from the Medicaid budget and make room for tax cuts.
Last week, the overwhelming majority of the Senate GOP caucus joined colleagues in the House of Representatives to try to enact some budget cuts in order to finance the federal version of tax-cut mania. Lacking the balls to take on the powerful interests behind wasteful spending, they seek to heap the burdens of these cutbacks on the poor. What had once been put forward as a cut in agricultural subsidies has now become cuts in food stamps (because a culture of life demands that poor children go malnourished while the rich get tax cuts). But the real money in anti-poverty spending is in Medicaid, so these were the cuts that mattered. Lacking the courage of their convictions, or any actual plan to cope with escalating health-care costs, conservatives hope to implement cuts without the resulting cutbacks in services being traceable to them. As a result, states are simply to be given less money to finance their Medicaid benefits, but left with the discretion as to what form the service cuts will take.
We know, however, what the biggest sources of Medicaid costs are: long-term care for the elderly and the disabled. So we know there's a good chance that more states will be joining Texas in watching idly as those who want to live, and whose lives could be prolonged, are left to die so that trust-fund babies can avoid paying taxes on the dividends paid by the stocks they inherited (tax-free, naturally) from their parents -- parents who, presumably, got the best health care money can buy.
Ultimately, the Senate rejected the cuts, which may or may not pass after the conference committee finishes working its evil. The Republican senators responsible for the rejection will no doubt be seeking political reputations as worthy moderates who reject their colleagues' view that poor people shouldn't be treated when they get sick. They deserve no such credit, however, as they voted uniformly for the tax cuts that will make spending cuts necessary at some point in the future. Rather than moderates, these are cowards, blame-avoiders, and buck-passers who want their constituents to believe that we reside in a fantasy world where federal spending and federal revenue may proceed indefinitely on different trajectories. Senators Norm Coleman, Mike DeWine, Arlen Specter, and Gordon Smith deserve special opprobrium, for as they voted to rescind the Medicaid cuts, they also provided the votes necessary to block the reimposition of "pay-as-you-go" budget rules, thus paving the way for further debt-financed tax cutting.
Also last week, Senate Republicans rejected the Democrats' Prevention First Act. The idea here was to reduce the incidence of abortion without curtailing the rights of women by combating unplanned pregnancy through a variety of family-planning measures. I would like to believe that it was religious fanaticism and a genuine belief that opposing contraception is more important than stopping abortions that led the Republicans to do what they did. My deep suspicion, however, is that, as with Schiavo, genuine, if misguided, conviction played a smaller role here than crass opportunism. The festering sore left from the upheavals of the 1960s is conservatism's great source of electoral strength. Anything that might allow the wounds to heal would hurt them at the polls. So every effort at a suture must be opposed, and every opportunity to pick at the scabs must be seized. This week, the Schiavo family is the scab to be picked.
While this appalling spectacle played out in Washington, state-level politicians were gearing up for crackdowns against sexy cheerleaders (really) and college students who use birth control. If you're lucky, you'll even get a tax cut in the deal.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer. This column originally stated that "Republicans" were responsible for the "crackdown[] against sexy cheerleaders"; in fact, that legislation was filed by a Texas Democrat, State Representative Al Edwards.
