Editorial Quick Hits: Theirs

UAW needs cultural change

Paul Ingrassia in the Wall Street Journal:It's interesting, then, that Consumer Reports rates the quality of the four-cylinder Ford Fusion higher than the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, and the Lincoln MKZ higher than its Acura and Lexus counterparts. The Fusion and MKZ are built in a factory without job classifications because it's in Hermosillo, Mexico, and isn't represented by the UAW. If Ford targets future expansion in Mexico, the recent contract vote will spell further decline for a union that, like Detroit's car companies, badly needs cultural change.

Michigan, other states avoid hard choices

William Voegeli in City Journal:States that have grown accustomed to thinking of the engine that drives their economies as an inexhaustible resource -- whether it's Michigan and the auto industry, New York and Wall Street, or California and the vision of the sunlit good life that used to attract new residents -- find it tough to compete again for what they thought would be theirs forever, and to plan budgets for lean years that turn into lean decades. Instead, they invest their hopes in a deus ex machina that will rescue them from the hard choices they dread.

Obama blows economic chances

Paul Krugman, New York Times:While health care won't be Barack Obama's Waterloo, economic policy is starting to look like his Anzio. ... The president ..., having failed to exploit his early opportunities, is pinned down in his too-small beachhead.

No abortion subsides in health reform

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, in USA Today:House Democratic leaders introduced their health care plan last week with language ... that would mandate public funding for abortion. ... I have asked for a vote to amend the bill to include the Hyde amendment, which already prohibits federal funding of abortion in all other federal health programs. ... The Hyde amendment is not about limiting choice when it comes to abortion. Nothing prevents those who choose to obtain abortion services using private funds from doing so. It simply says federal funds should not be used to pay for abortion.

'Economics is new cultural war'

Peter Beinart, The Daily Beast: Doug Hoffman -- the right-wing insurgent candidate for Congress in the 23rd District of New York -- didn't even list his position on the Afghanistan surge on his Web site. Bob McDonnell, Virginia's Republican governor-elect, studiously downplayed social issues in his campaign. And the hard-right "tea party" movement that is threatening to take over large swaths of the Republican base ignores foreign policy and social issues almost entirely. For them, as for the Republican candidates who won (Tuesday), what matters are deficits, bailouts and government spending. In other words, economics is the new culture war.