David Brooks and Gail Collins...

...have a blog in the online version of the New York Times called "the Conversation." Anything written by these two is worth reading. Brooks is one of the best columnists out there and Collins is really witty. In today's blog Brooks says:

"...there is a broad consensus on what we need to do to solve many of our major problems, but no political way to get there. Most experts of left and right believe we need a gas tax in order to address our energy problems. No political way to get there. Most believe that we need a flatter, fairer tax code, probably based on a consumption tax. No political way to get there. Most agree that the fee-for-service system drives up health care costs and the employer based insurance system is unsustainable. There is apparently no political way to change these things. Most experts agree that teacher quality is crucial to the schools and that bad teachers need to be fired. Again, no political way to do this."

This is something I've been trying to say in my own blog for a while now. Take health care, for example. I could accept a solution from either the right, like a more market-based reform, or from the left, like a single-payer system akin to Medicare or the Canadian model. Either one would be preferable to the mess we have now. But the problem is how to get there politically; it's nearly impossible. The medical-industrial complex is just too powerful. So the Republicans only propose legislation when the Democrats are in power. (Where were their reforms when they held the White House for 20 of the last 29 years? On a shelf somewhere, gathering dust.) And for the same reason, a single-payer system is just a non-starter. Too many in Washington get campaign funds from the parties that would be most affected.

And this is one reason I like Obama so much; he's a pragmatist. He'll get a health care bill to sign by Thanksgiving. It will be far from perfect; the right and left will both complain. But it will be better than what we currently have and something to build on in the future.