Friday Links: Paul Ryan on Health Care, Making Matthew 26:11 a Reality and Federalism

Rep. Paul Ryan has an important article in the New York Times making the case not only for repealing Obamacare but for replacing it. “It is not sufficient,” he argues, “for those of us in the opposition to await a reversal of political fortune months or years from now before we advance action on health care reform.” To build a system that puts patients first, not bureaucrats, he favors “attaching tax benefits to the individual rather than the job” and enabling state-based reforms like risk pools to manage pre-existing conditions.

The government seems determined to enforce Matthew 26:11. A new poverty metric would count as poor not those living in real destitution but those living in relative destitution.

In the Washington Post, Brian Frosh and Jamie Raskin argue that if progressives want to undo the effects of Citizens United—a bad idea, to be sure—they ought to turn to the states, which retain broad regulatory powers.  (Full disclosure: Brian is a cousin.)

And last but not least, an amusing video of President George W. Bush wiping his hand on his predecessor.