Two of my favorite bloggers–Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias–offer contrasting predictions as to what will be of healthcare reform.

The healthcare reform debate seems to have progressed to a point where the largest concern is now how to pay for it (it being the $120 billion a year needed to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured).

In his budget, the President has proposed limiting tax deductions on charitable contributions and mortgage interest—deductions mostly enjoyed by the affluent—to raise about $30 billion, half of the new revenue the administration plans to use to put a “down payment” on healthcare. Many in Congress—Senator Baucus and Representative Rangel, in particular—almost reflexively rejected the proposal, leaving the plan $90 billion in the red.

So unto another feasible option: capping the tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance. Currently, the government loses out on $250 billion in taxes annually because of the deduction. By capping it—applying it only to the lower end of the spectrum of those with employer-provided health—and making it a much more progressive deduction, the government could comfortably bring in the remaining $90 billion.

But lo and behold: “Charles Rangel, the influential Democratic House member, say[s] [he] remain[s] firmly opposed to capping the deduction.”

WHY? Would he prefer to cut back on health spending, lower the amount of subsidies available, and thereby leave some people unable to afford coverage? Why is he so strongly opposed to sensible tax revisions to pay for health? And why do we need to subsidize charity in the first place?

This tax deduction—which makes healthcare for an unemployed or self-employed person much more expensive—is essentially a subsidy from people who don’t receive healthcare insurance from their employer to people who do (who are already relatively more well-to-do).

I’ve got to say, I may disagree with David Brooks the great majority of the time but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more thoughtful, intellectually rigorous, and visionary conservative in America today. Below are some ideas he expressed recently at Yeshiva University:

“The problem with the Republican party is that it’s still essentially a Goldwater free-market party oriented around maximum personal freedom. Well that was fine if you were fighting the Soviet Union. It was fine is you were combating socialism. But it’s not fine if you are combating an economic crisis that was, in large part, created by mistakes made by capitalists. It’s not fine if you’re combating inequality. So the Republican party really has no voice on a lot of the most germane issues of the day.”

“To me, the one part of global conservatism that does have a voice is the British Conservative party which decided: ‘We are not going to be a radical free-market, individualistic party. We are going to be a communitarian, socially-oriented party. We’re not going to put economics first. We are going to put society first. And we are going to work on shoring up the institutions of society. We’ll make the Labour party be the State and we’ll be the more community-oriented party.’ That’s a viable way forward because it gives you something to supplement the free market with.”

“I take the maximalist view, the Republican party is three election defeats away from that kind of view.”

“I went to talk to a group of students,” he said, “and I decided to ask them what they wanted to learn about. So they made a list of questions, and to be honest, I don’t know how to answer those questions and that is why I am so glad I have run into you up here on this hill. Perhaps you can help me.” [Paulo] Coelho, curious, offered to help and asked what the questions were. The officer replied, “Is there a God? What happens after we die? Is there life outside the planet earth? Why do people hate each other? Things like this. Philosophical questions that you have as children and that we still have as adults.”

In light of the forthcoming Treasury Department plan to revamp regulation over the financial industry, some thoughts to ponder.

“The [financial] crises have revealed the public’s attitude toward many in the superclass, highlighting resentment at what is seen as a pattern of gaming the system, of getting rich on the way up and on the way down, of making taxpayer pay for their errors while being the primary beneficiaries of their gains. The political drum has started to beat again for more aggressive and vigilant regulation and for an end to obscene pay packages that reward private sector leaders, even if they end up screwing their shareholders, their customers, their employees, and the public at large.”

Preface to Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World they are Making by David Rothkopf.

Great Charlie Rose interview with Joshua Cooper Ramo, a managing director with Kissinger Associates and author of The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It.

Money quote: “What capitalism appears to be at this point is the most efficient engine for creating inequality in human history. It does a lots of other good things but its creating a situation where the wealth gap on the planet is greater than it’s ever been before. That’s fundamentally unsustainable.”