Man Bites Blog

Guest-blogging for Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam nails it:

I’m late to the story of the Frost family, but it perfectly illustrates the tension between “pro-family” conservatism and “anti-statist” conservatism.

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Here’s my question: Would the world really be better off if, say, the four Frost children saw far less of their parents than they already do? I ask because we could imagine a world in which the Frost parents worked (even) longer hours a jobs that provided health care benefits, which would take an emotional toll not only on them but on their children, particular in light of the impact of the car accident.

Exactly.

I don’t think there’s a tent big enough to hold people genuinely concerned about family values (as my liberal readers roll their eyes at my failure to enclose that term in scare quotes) and those whose first instinct upon hearing the story of the Frost family is to sneer and dig around so that they can find out if they’re really needy.

I know. I know trotting a 12 year old out to make an argument is cowardly politics (though no more cowardly than hiding behind General Petraeus and the soldiers. ) I know that tax money isn’t free and comes at the expense of outher hard working people.

But jeez — these folks seem to be taking such glee in proclaiming the Frost family unworthy of benefits. As if the biggest problem we have in this country is that somewhere, somebody in the middle class might be taking advantage of a health care program designed for the working poor.

Plus, as Reihan wrote and I said earlier, it seems like this program is enabling the Frosts to structure their work lives in a way that’s beneficial to their family. Now, that may not have been the intended consequence of the program, but I have a very hard time working up much outrage over it. Isn’t the GOP supposed to be pro-family?

And if you think the Frost family is such an unsympathetic face of S-CHIP, what about those who stand to benefit most from taking away their benefits and cutting taxes (particularly capital gains and inheritance taxes) instead? I don’t think the GOP would come out ahead in that analysis.

No. And now they want to put Rudy Giuliani up there and tell me I better vote for him because Hillary Must Be Stopped.

Eh. No. You can’t run a war. You can’t do anything to confront the Culture of Death and are retreating on those issues. You can’t even evacuate a city during a hurricane. But you can damn well make sure that a family doesn’t present take advantage of a program for “working class” families when they’re really middle class.

It’s going to take more than scaring me with the possibility of a president whose husband presided over eight years of peace and prosperity during which free trade was expanded and welfare was reformed to make me pull the lever for you.

And I don’t think I’m alone.

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