Oct 15, 01:32 AM
“National discussion of pover…Hey, did you see that new iPod?”
“It has long been said that Americans have short attention spans, but this is ridiculous: Our bold, urgent, far-reaching, post-Katrina war on poverty lasted maybe a month.”
That’s E.J. Dionne with a depressing but must-read column on what’s quickly turning into a missed opportunity.
The conservatives have managed to spin the hurricane (pun intended) for their own purposes, which, are essentially, to cut programs that actually serve the poor and give tax cuts and other breaks to wealthy people and corporations who are then supposed to give them jobs. Trickle down economics, because it has such a long history of success (sarcasm intended), back on the job.
The NY Times, in an article from Tuesday under the headline “Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate,” summed up the situation like this:
Conservatives have already used the storm for causes of their own, like suspending requirements that federal contractors have affirmative action plans and pay locally prevailing wages. And with federal costs for rebuilding the Gulf Coast estimated at up to $200 billion, Congressional Republican leaders are pushing for spending cuts, with programs like Medicaid and food stamps especially vulnerable.
“We’ve had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks,” said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. “We’ve gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn’t actually happening.
How the hell do we get out of this mess, when any sort of intelligent policy discussion is hijacked by Republican sloganeering that is intellectually bankrupt but somehow resonates with, or at least distracts, the American public?
Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, invoked the deity (Reagan) to bring some folksy cant into the discussion:
“Raising taxes in the wake of a national catastrophe would imperil the very economic growth we need to bring the Gulf Coast back,” Mr. Pence said. “I’m mindful of what a pipe fitter once said to President Reagan: ‘I’ve never been hired by a poor man.’ A growing economy is in the interest of every working American, regardless of their income.”
One problem though, chief: if we look at some actual evidence instead of just throwing out a wise sounding but ultimately meaningless anecdote, we see that any positive connection between low taxes and economic growth or decreased poverty is fuzzy, to say the least.
The Times again:
Economic growth is crucial to reducing poverty, but the effect of tax rates is less clear. In 1993, President Bill Clinton raised taxes on upper-income families, the economy boomed and poverty fell for the next seven years. In 2001, President Bush cut taxes deeply, but even with economic growth, the poverty rate has risen every year since.
In 2004, about 12.7 percent of the country, or 37 million people, lived below the poverty line, which was about $19,200 for a family of four. The figure was 7.8 percent among whites, 24.7 percent among blacks and 21.9 percent among Hispanics.
And if lowering taxes for rich people doesn’t help poor people (it’s amazing that you have to spell that out), it’s undeniable that there are in fact systemic problems that could be rectified and government programs that could be put in place to help the poor. Starting with a real commitment, backed with real cash, for an excellent education for all. I would add to that, healthcare for all, tons more Headstart programs, adult education opportunities, government work programs in the most impoverished areas, smart assistance for housing, etc.
But how do we get people to listen to these ideas? Dionne succinctly points out what I’ve been thinking for a long time: that, a bit ironically, we’ll get people interested in such programs—and, most importantly, have better success with them—by recognizing that government assistance, no matter how much we invest in it, is not the only thing that is needed to end poverty.
[L]iberals also need to seize the initiative by speaking candidly and not defensively about the social causes of poverty. These include family breakdown and the heavy concentration of very poor people in a small number of neighborhoods in our big cities. Just because some conservatives are tempted, wrongly, to blame all poverty on problems in the family doesn’t mean that liberals should shy away from talking about the difficulties faced by children in fatherless homes.
Even in an America with extremes of wealth and poverty as bad as what we face today, even if the “American dream” is not as realizable as it should be, we have to understand that any individual has the best hope for a good life by working hard to apply herself and overcome her challenges.
Conservatives use that fact as an excuse to say that deficiencies in personal responsibility are all that prevent poor people from entering the middle class, and if they can’t hack it, it’s not our problem; long live social Darwinism.
Progressives should say that, since success in the world necessarily depends so much on each person’s willingness to work hard and make smart life decisions, we need to empower every person to be truly competitive. We need to ensure that applying oneself provides as close as possible to the same opportunities for everyone, not merely the best of a bad situation for large groups. We need to give people second chances. We need to show that this is in everyone’s interest—that, to be as strong a country as we can be, we need everyone to be able to use their skills, talents, and hard work to have a good life.
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