Elite Linkage

By Dave Anderson:

One of the great structural problems that faces the United States is that our elites are insulated from their stupidity.  There is sufficient wealth and social amnesia that being wrong is at most a minor inconvenience instead of a career killer unless the "wrongness" involves stating the unpleasantly obvious.  When 'mistakes are made' in the passive voice, the elites are bailed out, as Ian Welsh notes the Bernacke preferred policy to pay for the past decade with another decade of the suck:

Bernanke has been succesful at making sure that the rich weren�t wiped out by their failures and retained their power.

Trillions were spent bailing out the rich, and no taxes were levied
on them to pay for it.  Now what will happen is that in order to
balance the budget, money which primarily helps the middle and working
classes will be cut, while those same middle and working classes will
be forced to bail out the insurance and health industries.

The world�s financial elites blew up the world�s economy.  Now the
world�s schmucks (aka. ordinary people) are going to be stuck with the
bill.

So when I saw the American governing elite removing some insulation during the healthcare debate in the Senate, I had to do a double-take.  Steve Benen has the details:

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.) no doubt thought they were being clever. They crafted an amendment
that would force members of Congress to get their coverage through a
public insurance plan, if the public option were included as part of
health care reform. If it's good enough for American consumers, it
should be good enough for their elected representatives, right?

They had no idea how much Democrats agreed with the sentiment.

As we talked about
this morning, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) not only loved the idea, he
wanted to join the right-wing senators as a co-sponsor on their
amendment. When they refused -- this was supposed to be a conservative
stunt, not a real idea -- Brown used procedural tactics to make himself a co-sponsor of the Coburn/Vitter measure, whether they like it or not.

Then, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said she, too, wanted to join.
Soon after, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) endorsed the Coburn/Vitter
amendment and also asked to be a co-sponsor. "If we have a public
option in this plan, as I hope that we will, I think there's nothing
wrong in insisting that members of Congress be included in that public
option proposal," Dodd said, calling the idea "wonderful."

A good chunk of this is basic, effective populist politics as the 2010 elections are shaping up to be a time of pitchforks amidst tar and feathers for any and all incumbents who are seen as out of touch or ineffective from both parties.  But at the same time, it is a minor piece of elite insulation that is not being installed.  And that (unfortunately) is notable.  It also has the nice side-benefit (assuming healthcare reform passes) of making America's governing elite personally interested stakeholders in the reforms instead of distantly interested stakeholders.