Washington • Watching Democratic presidential aspirants is like watching, a century ago, the 1919 World Series, when discerning spectators thought: Some of the White Sox are trying to lose. Michael Boskin, chairman of President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and currently at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, pays the Democrats the injurious compliment of taking seriously their aspirations, which are characterized by a disqualifying flippancy. For example:
Medicare for All is popular (when depriving 217 million people of their private insurance goes unmentioned) because, Boskin notes, under Medicare today "most of its costs are paid by taxpayers, not the beneficiaries themselves.