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Ezra reads my interview with Rep. Tom Perriello and isn't impressed with his response to my question about the public option:
I feel like you’re seeing a last gasp of the debate that has paralyzed politics since the ’60s, which is, either you’re pro-market or pro-government. I think this generation asks the question, “What’s the problem and how can we solve it?” For us, the market and the power of profit motive is a good thing. For us, this is a pragmatic question, are we going to bring costs down? Not “is it a government take-over?” or are these corporations run amok? So I think you see more of a solutions-oriented person in politics in confrontation with the ideological divides of the ’60s generation.Sez Ez, "I don't buy that someone with Perriello's background is actually skeptical of this bill. ... Rather, the relevant factors are probably his vulnerability, the apparent popularity of the bill in his district, and whether his vote is crucial to the legislation's passage. And everyone sort of knows that. But politicians aren't supposed to say it." Which is true so far as it goes, but I don't interpret the above statements as "pabulum." (Perriello isn't so cautious as Ezra implies, either, he voted for cap-and-trade when a lot of his colleagues wouldn't stand up for the bill.)In his answer, Perriello is definitely not interested in telling me where he stands on the public option, but I'm interviewing a politician and that comes with the territory. But what he is telling me, in so many words, is that he doesn't have a problem with a solution that combines government and market approaches -- a solution like the public plan. His answer is also something you can imagine him telling a constituent who does buy the kind of false dichotomy Perriello talks about. In the context of the entire interview, you can conclude that Perriello is not using the public option as a litmus test for the health care bill, since reform can, arguably, be accomplished without it. That's a very Ezra Klein position to take.
-- Tim Fernholz
