"We added Medicare Part D to a system facing bankruptcy and gave no thought to means testing it"
About this Quote
A confession wrapped in a rebuke, Inglis frames Medicare Part D not as a compassionate expansion but as a fiscal dare: we knew the house was already smoldering, and we tossed in gasoline anyway. The verb choice matters. "Added" sounds bureaucratic, almost innocent, until it collides with "system facing bankruptcy", a phrase designed to trigger alarm rather than debate. Inglis is signaling that the real scandal isn’t merely the benefit itself, but the casualness of the decision-making that produced it.
The second clause sharpens the knife. "Gave no thought to means testing" is less a policy critique than an indictment of political incentives. Means testing is the technocratic fix Washington reaches for when it wants to preserve a program while narrowing who truly benefits. By stressing its absence, Inglis implies lawmakers weren’t governing; they were buying goodwill. Part D, passed in 2003 under a Republican Congress and George W. Bush, was famous for its costly design choices and for being sold as a seniors-friendly win without the accompanying revenue or restraint that fiscal hawks usually demand.
Subtext: this was a betrayal of conservative rhetoric from inside the family. Inglis isn’t attacking Medicare as a concept; he’s accusing his own side of running up the tab while pretending to be the party of budgets. It’s also a warning about entitlement politics: once a benefit is universal, clawing it back becomes electorally radioactive. The line’s power comes from that quiet admission that the most reckless spending often arrives wearing the costume of pragmatism.
The second clause sharpens the knife. "Gave no thought to means testing" is less a policy critique than an indictment of political incentives. Means testing is the technocratic fix Washington reaches for when it wants to preserve a program while narrowing who truly benefits. By stressing its absence, Inglis implies lawmakers weren’t governing; they were buying goodwill. Part D, passed in 2003 under a Republican Congress and George W. Bush, was famous for its costly design choices and for being sold as a seniors-friendly win without the accompanying revenue or restraint that fiscal hawks usually demand.
Subtext: this was a betrayal of conservative rhetoric from inside the family. Inglis isn’t attacking Medicare as a concept; he’s accusing his own side of running up the tab while pretending to be the party of budgets. It’s also a warning about entitlement politics: once a benefit is universal, clawing it back becomes electorally radioactive. The line’s power comes from that quiet admission that the most reckless spending often arrives wearing the costume of pragmatism.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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