Small-government conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg makes a startling argument on today's Op-Ed page: We should make the House of Representatives bigger. A lot bigger, in fact; Goldberg says a Congress with 5,000 members would shake up our nation's calcified two-party system and more closely approximate the kind of democracy the founding fathers intended.

UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, meanwhile, debunks arguments that the healthcare bills pending in the House and Senate would be unconstitutional. And obesity experts Kelly D. Brownell and David S. Ludwig argue in favor of a tax on sugar-sweetened sodas, which would help fund healthcare reform programs and lower healthcare costs by decreasing obesity and related ailments such as diabetes.

On the editorial page, the board urges the Obama administration to consider backing new elections in Afghanistan or a transitional government, unless monitors can determine that the country's Aug. 20 election was legitimate.

The editorial board also takes up a gun-rights case and argues, surprisingly enough, in favor of stronger protections for gun owners. Though the board favors measures to reduce gun violence, it thinks the Supreme Court should rule that the 2nd Amendment applies to states as well as the federal government. That's because allowing states to ignore this part of the Bill of Rights could undermine the requirement that they abide by others.

Finally, the board notes that Comcast Corp.'s proposal to buy NBC Universal cuts against the grain of recent media deals, and its effect on the marketplace may be limited. But it will be interesting to watch how the combined company's approach to the Internet might change.

* Cartoon by Rob Rogers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget observes the last day of fiscal 2009 (that is, today) by measuring how deep a hole Washington has dug for itself in the past 12 months. The highlights (OK, lowlights) cited by CRFB, a non-partisan group dedicated to the quaint notion of fiscal discipline, include:

• $1.65 trillion added to the national debt, a 28% increase;
• A debt-to-GDP ratio of 11.2%, a post-war record;
• A $4.3 trillion increase in projected deficits over the coming decade, up 300% from the Congressional Budget Office's estimate last year.

CRFB President Maya MacGuineas cut policymakers a little slack, saying that many of the steps that drove up the deficit were needed to strengthen the economy. "But if not accompanied by efforts to reduce the long-term fiscal gap," she added, "they come at the expense of future growth and prosperity."

Lawmakers still have time to establish a bit of deficit-cutting credibility -- 12 of the 13 annual appropriations bills that were due by Oct. 1 are still working their way through Congress. Unfortunately, there are signs that some powerful lawmakers (in the Senate particularly) are more concerned about steering dollars to pet projects than saving money for taxpayers. Granted, earmarks are a minuscule part of the budget problem. But if Congress can't get the small stuff right, how likely is it that lawmakers will take the hard but meaningful steps to close the budget gap?

Incidentally, the liberal Center for American Progress added its voice today to the anti-deficit chorus, issuing a primer on the problem from a left-of-center point of view. Sounding a bit like editorial writers, the authors say that there are no easy choices (No, really?). They also offer a less-than-dispassionate view of how we got in the mess we're currently in, treating the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 as costly deficit boosters rather than acknowledging their role in stimulating the economy. The center's analysis gives short shrift to the growing economy's role in solving the short-term budget problems of the 1990s, and all but ignores the complex interrelationship between taxes, spending and GDP growth.  Nevertheless, the authors paint a clear picture of the structural problems facing lawmakers, and explain why neither spending cuts nor tax hikes alone can close the gap. 

-- Jon Healey

The Times editorial board laments the departure of Guy Mehula, the man who oversaw the recent surge construction for the Los Angeles Unified School District. That program operated with an efficiency and competence rarely found at LAUSD, the board asserts, and those qualities are threatened by Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines' reported plans to supervise the unit more closely:

Elsewhere on the editorial page, the board defends Facebook's handling of a user-generated poll asking whether President Obama should be assassinated. And it urges lawmakers to grow spines and stop blocking the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to maximum security federal prisons in the U.S.

On the Op-Ed side of the fold, columnist Tim Rutten runs through the list of policy challenges facing President Obama -- the jobless recovery, rising health insurance premiums, the war in Afghanistan, the Iranian leadership's nuclear ambitions -- and finds no easy choices. Nina Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the Chinese government is sending mixed signals about its willingness to play ball with international organizations to address global problems: And writer Kathryn Wilkens of Upland muses about the life and death of the mission fig tree that had anchored her garden for decades:

Insert your ironic comment about this article appearing in dead tree media here.

Illustration: Blair Thornley / For The Times

-- Jon Healey

An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal finds a new setting for the argument that the Democrats' healthcare reform bills would reduce Medicare benefits -- this time, lambasting Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for calling on an Obama administration "crony" to punish Humana Inc. for warning customers that their Medicare Advantage benefits were at risk. According to the Journal's editorial, Humana wasn't saying anything that Congress' chief budget analyst, Doug Elmendorf, hasn't said.

The Journal's right about Baucus and the Democrats' proposals, and yet it paints a misleading picture of the policy at issue. Medicare Advantage is an HMO-style approach to Medicare, with care managed by private insurers such as Humana. The healthcare reform bills would phase out the additional subsidies that insurers receive for Medicare Advantage programs, bringing the cost into line with conventional Medicare. The reduction will almost certainly lead to the elimination of some of the extra benefits that those programs provide. But think about that for a moment. 

Insurers created HMOs to cut healthcare costs by steering consumers to a network of doctors and hospitals that had agreed to charge the insurer lower fees. Hoping to tap into those savings, Medicare has been encouraging seniors to join HMOs since the 1970s. In the past decade, however, the insurance industry's allies in Congress have ratcheted up the subsidies for Medicare HMOs (dubbed "Medicare Advantage" in 2003), enabling those programs to offer extra benefits in the hope of attracting more subscribers. By MedPAC's estimate, every $1 in added benefit cost the Medicare program $1.30. Medicare Advantage no longer tries to save taxpayer dollars; instead, it exists mainly to shift the elderly into privately run plans by delivering more benefits, but in a less efficient way than the basic Medicare program does. 

Those extra benefits, by the way, typically consist of lower co-payments, although they occasionally take the form of additional services. Medicare Advantage plans aren't as generous as Medigap policies, but those have monthly premiums and Medicare Advantage doesn't. If the healthcare reform legislation drains the extra subsidies from Medicare Advantage, those enrollees will feel the pinch. But they won't receive less than their counterparts in the basic Medicare program -- most likely, there will still be some advantage to Medicare Advantage. Which brings us back to the issue here. Are the Democrats proposing to cut Medicare benefits? No, they're proposing to trim the sweeteners that had been used to draw the elderly into privately managed plans. And if the private plans cost taxpayers more than basic Medicare, why do we have them?

Picture credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images

-- Jon Healey

Republican members of Congress have started spouting Reason magazine-style arguments against the individual mandate in the healthcare reform bills moving through the House and Senate. For example, Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) called the mandate "a stunning assault on liberty," and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) declared that "Individuals should maintain their freedom to chose health-care coverage, or not." Setting aside for a moment the support that Republican lawmakers expressed in the not-too-distant past for the individual mandate (including the Republican governor of a certain large West Coast state), it's just ... unseemly for the GOP to stick a shiv in the ribs of the insurance companies they've been protecting throughout this debate.

Remember, the main proponents of the mandate are private insurers, who like it for at least two reasons. It brings a significant number of young, healthy people into the risk pool, which should improve their margins. And it helps solve the "adverse selection" problem that would be caused if insurers were required to offer coverage to everyone, with no increase in price for those with pre-existing conditions. The insurance industry's trade association has agreed to such regulations as part of a package of changes that includes an individual mandate.

The main argument these days against the mandate is that Congress doesn't have the power to impose it. Slate's Timothy Noah has explored this interesting constitutional question, concluding that it is, in fact, legal. It would be more of a slam dunk, IMHO, if Congress allowed insurers to offer policies across state lines, which the proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would do under certain circumstances. Even without interstate policies, I think there's a good case to be made that requiring people to carry health insurance is akin to requiring them to pay into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds -- it's a forced contribution into a national system of shared risk and cost, albeit one administered largely by private entities.

Nevertheless, I'll freely admit that there are compelling arguments on the other side too. It's just strange to hear that position taken by the same Republican lawmakers who fight even the mildest version of a public-plan option on the grounds that it's bad for private insurers.

Updated on Sept. 24 at 2:50 p.m.: I just came across a thorough discussion of the constitutional issues triggered last month by Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy blog, with a follow-up last week by Adler. The posts are well worth reading, along with the comments, if you want to dive further into the weeds.

Photo: Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and John Kyl (R-Ariz.) debate healthcare legislation at the Senate Finance Committee. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

-- Jon Healey

What if instead of calling it the "public option," supporters of heath care reform simply referred to their effort to expand insurance to all Americans as "Medicare"? To be more specific, author Theodore Roszak proposes on today's Op-Ed page that reformers simply expand Medicare so that people of all ages could qualify, not just seniors. It's an existing, well-trusted program that already exists, so expanding it would quell much of the political opposition.

Former Times staff writer Johanna Neuman polled Washington insiders for the cause of today's hyper-partisanship in the Capitol, and names the most-cited culprit: Newt Gingrich. The architect of the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-1990s also changed the congressional calendar and urged Republican lawmakers to spend their weekends at home, not mingling with colleagues of both parties in D.C. as they'd done before.

Updated at 1:05 p.m.: Neuman will discuss her Op-Ed on the "Michael Smerconish Show" at 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday, in case you're up that early and want to listen online. Or if you're in Philadelphia.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg eulogizes the "godfather of neoconservatism" Irving Kristol, who died last week at 89 -- and who had a major impact on Goldberg's political thinking.

On the Editorial Page, The Times examines the much-delayed work of the blue-ribbon panel trying to reimagine California's tax structure, and wonders if it might be a little too innovative. Its business receipt tax might not stand up to legal scrutiny, and its attempts to decrease revenue volatility appear to come at the expense of the poor and middle class.

We also address the backfiring strategy of seven former CIA directors who sent a letter to President Obama urging him to abort a Justice Department inquiry into torture... er, enhanced interrogation techniques... by the CIA under the Bush administration. The directors seem not to have realized that they were asking the president to abandon his assurances that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder would put the law above loyalty to the White House. The unintended result: Obama was forced to renew his promise, the opposite of the outcome they wanted.

And on the tangled question of Net neutrality, we weigh in on the side of new FCC chief Julius Genachowski, who wants to develop new rules governing what Internet service providers can do with the data that travels through their networks. Without such rules, the major phone and Internet companies have too much power to quash innovation in the name of "managing congestion."

Cartoon by Tom Toles / Washington Post

-- Dan Turner

 

The Times editorial board praises President Obama for scrapping the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, calling the program "immensely expensive technology that still doesn't work, designed for a threat that may never materialize."

As various versions of health-care reform wend their contentious way around Washington, the board finds several weaknesses in the proposal by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) but finds reason to hope those very weaknesses will help "bring the public's focus back to the flaws in the current system and the challenges posed by any attempt to fix them."

Health care reform and several other moves and policies by the Obama administration have led to some vitriolic protest, which prompted  former President Jimmy Carter to declare that most of this protest was racial in nature. The board finds a kernel of truth in Carter's statement but also sees much legitimate protest about political differences.

On the other side of the fold, two writers debate whether the U.N. Human Rights Council report alleging war crimes by Israel in its Gaza fighting was the product of a prejudicial probe or a clear indication of abuses of international law that should not be tolerated by Israel's allies.

Photo of Jimmy Carter by Paul Abell / AP

--Karin Klein

 

Time's a-wastin'.

Next May, Norman Corwin celebrates his hundredth birthday.

The nation should celebrate with him.

The genius poet of radio, the Mozart of the spoken word, Corwin has won almost all the plaudits his craft can offer -- Peabody awards, an Emmy, an Academy Award nomination, and a documentary about his life and work did indeed win an Oscar.

He is a rarity in the writing world, as accomplished as he is prolific, and an author and thinker of the first water down to this day. He has just published, at age 99, his umpteenth book, ''One World Flight,'' his accounts and letters from his 1946 around-the-world journey to document the globe of the world in the wake of the war.

In his books, radio works, essays, screenplays and letters, he is sober and whimsical and always original and wisel. He is regarded as the poet laureate of the Golden Age of radio; he once commanded audiences of tens of millions of listeners, and deservedly so. President Franklin Roosevelt called upon him to write a radio play for the end of World War II, ''On a Note of Triumph.'' It is celebratory and cautionary, and men and women who were alive and aware then can still recite passages of it from memory.

It is one of the singular boasts of my life that Corwin counts me among his friends -- and I count myself among his fans. Another of his fans is filmmaker Michael James Kacey, who has taken up Corwin's cause. Kacey's website shows a Mt. Rushmore of radio with Corwin right up there with Orson Welles and Jack Benny.

Now Kacey is campaigning for a Congressional Gold Medal for Norman Corwin's 100th birthday. This has my wholehearted and full-throated support. I think Corwin and President Obama, both splendid and subtle speakers and accomplished prose stylists, would form a mutal admiration society.

But I think Kacey is being a bit too modest -- I think both a Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom are in order. Elsewhere, Corwin would already have been knighted, or be a member of a national academy of letters.

A couple of gold medals is the least we can do for someone who, in the world of words, is already Olympian.

-- Patt Morrison

The Opinion Manufacturing Division straddles the ideological divide today, offering red meat to both sides of the aisle. The Times editorial board blasts ACORN, the community organizers at the heart of conservative talk radio's favorite conspiracy theories, for failing to acknowledge and correct its serious internal problems in the wake of "devastating" hidden-camera exposes. And Op-Ed columnist Tim Rutten peers behind the newfound celebrity of Rep. Joe "You lie!" Wilson (R-S.C.) to find all sorts of fringe-group, umm, creativity. In particular, he examines the roots of the tea party movement and the intellectual underpinnings of the "10thers" -- anti-government conservatives who claim the 10th amendment gives state lawmakers authority to reject many acts of Congress and Supreme Court rulings.

Elsewhere on the Op-Ed page, David A. Lehrer, president of Los Angeles-based Community Advocates Inc., argues that anti-Semitic attacks are declining -- contrary to dire warnings from the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Similarly, Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection, contends that tragedies such as those involving Dae'von Bailey and Lars Sanchez -- two children killed despite the supervision their families were given by county child-welfare officials -- are the exception, not the norm:

Back among the editorials, the board urges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign AB 2, a bill by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate) to limit the ability of health insurers to cancel policies retroactively. And while it praises the announcement that the Irvine Co. would transfer 20,000 acres to Orange County for parks, it calls on the county to reveal more about how it will manage the windfall:

Photo: Police in Nevada gather evidence from an ACORN office in 2008 as part of an investigation into voter fraud. Credit: AP Photo / Jae C. Hong

-- Jon Healey

Should California teachers be evaluated based on their students' performance on test scores? That's the subject of dueling pro vs. con commentaries on today's Op-Ed page. On the pro side is state Board of Education President Ted Mitchell, who says California must change a law forbidding such evaluations if it is to qualify for millions of dollars in federal funds, and that the system would help school districts reward exceptional teaching and weed out instructors who can't make the grade. On the con side is former LAUSD teacher Walt Gardner, who points out that teachers in low-performing schools are often dealing with kids from very poor families who are dealing with pressures that make learning a serious challenge, and expecting teachers to overcome such obstacles on their own is unrealistic.

Meanwhile, physicist Frank von Hippel aims to debunk claims from the nuclear-power industry that reprocessing nuclear waste is a solution to our problems with storing the highly radioactive materials. Not only is it extremely expensive, it fails to reduce the stream of long-lived nuclear waste and provides access to weapons material that could fall into dangerous hands.

Today's editorial page notes the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Bros. by pointing out that the $700-billion federal bailout that followed helped prop up the nation's financial system, and without it the economy would undoubtedly be in worse shape than it is. Nonetheless, now that the economy is on the rebound, "it's time for the administration and the Federal Reserve to lay out a strategy for pulling the government out of the financial industry."

The Times also weighs in on prospective furloughs or layoffs for city employees, who in tough financial times may be sacrificed in order to keep alive Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's ambition to keep hiring more police officers. Though that seems unfair, it's the right thing to do for Los Angeles.

And we give a boost to a package of state bills aimed at fighting animal cruelty, including a ban on puppy mills, a crackdown on dogfighting (thanks Michael Vick!), and a measure mocked by the governor to forbid docking (cutting off) the tails of cattle.

Photo by Seth Perlman / AP