Paul Krugman is a socialist

I of course share Paul Krugman's belief that children have as fundamental a right to health care as they do to education, welfare, and puppies. And his point that the Republican party is completely inconsistent about what, on their own terms, counts as much-dreaded socialism (government healthcare) and what does not (public schooling) is well taken. But if he assumes that junking public schools and replacing them with a private system is an idea stuck out on the fringes of the Republican mainstream, then I think he's forgotten what sort of creature the Republican party is.

This is actually connected to a phenomenon Krugman has written about himself. Republicans want to block SCHIP expansion not just because such an expansion will cost insurance companies in the short term, but because they're worried that the creeping growth of well-run government provided care will ultimately reveal to the public just how preferable a universal system would be. And that would be deadly to the insurance industry.

If America had evolved in such a way that we had tax-payer-financed universal healthcare and a major private education industry, then the rhetoric would be flipped, and Republicans would attack every Democratic effort to expand public pre-school by warning voters not to be tempted by the poison berries of socialist dystopia. Because that kind of rhetoric is much more effective at drowning a baby initiative than it is at drowning one that's fully grown. As things are, it's much more feasible for Republicans to block universal health care than it is for them to dismantle the public school system, but that doesn't mean that Republicans wouldn't love to end public schooling forever if they could.