Ed: From NYT – can’t find online copy.
New York Times JOSEPH LOCONTE January 2, 2006
WASHINGTON
NANCY PELOSI, the Democratic leader in the House, sounded like an Old Testament prophet recently when she denounced the Republican budget for its “injustice and immorality” and urged her colleagues to cast their no votes “as an act of worship” during this religious season.
This, apparently, is what the Democrats had in mind when they vowed after President Bush’s re-election to reclaim religious voters for their party. In the House, they set up a Democratic Faith Working Group. Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, created a Web site called Word to the Faithful. And Democratic officials began holding conferences with religious progressives. All of this was with the intention of learning how to link faith with public policy. An event for liberal politicians and advocates at the University of California at Berkeley in July even offered a seminar titled “I Don’t Believe in God, but I Know America Needs a Spiritual Left.”
A look at the tactics and theology of the religious left, however, suggests that this is exactly what American politics does not need. If Democrats give religious progressives a stronger voice, they’ll only replicate the misdeeds of the religious right.
For starters, we’ll see more attempts to draw a direct line from the Bible to a political agenda. The Rev. Jim Wallis, a popular adviser to leading Democrats and an organizer of the Berkeley meeting, routinely engages in this kind of Bible-thumping. In his book “God’s Politics,” Mr. Wallis insists that his faith-based platform transcends partisan categories.
“We affirm God’s vision of a good society offered to us by the prophet Isaiah,” he writes. Yet Isaiah, an agent of divine judgment living in a theocratic state, conveniently affirms every spending scheme of the Democratic Party. This is no different than the fundamentalist impulse to cite the book of Leviticus to justify laws against homosexuality.
When Christians – liberal or conservative – invoke a biblical theocracy as a handy guide to contemporary politics, they threaten our democratic discourse. Numerous “policy papers” from liberal churches and activist groups employ the same approach: they’re awash in scriptural references to justice, poverty and peace, stacked alongside claims about global warming, debt relief and the United Nations Security Council.
Christians are right to argue that the Bible is a priceless source of moral and spiritual insight. But they’re wrong to treat it as a substitute for a coherent political philosophy.
There is another worrisome trait shared by religious liberals and many conservatives: the tendency to moralize in the most extreme terms. William Sloane Coffin of the Clergy Leadership Network was typical in his denunciation of the Bush tax cuts: “I think he should remember that it was the devil who tempted Jesus with unparalleled wealth and power.”
This trend is at its worst in the misplaced outrage in the war against Islamic terrorism. It’s true that in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, some Christian conservatives shamed themselves by blaming the horror on feminists and gays, who allegedly incited God’s wrath. But such nonsense is echoed by liberals like the theologian Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University.
“The price that Americans are going to have to pay for the kind of arrogance that we are operating out of right now is going to be terrible indeed,” he said of the United States’ response to the Qaeda attacks. “People will exact some very strong judgments against America – and I think we will well deserve it.” Professor Hauerwas joins a chorus of left-wing clerics and religious scholars who compare the United States to Imperial Rome and Nazi Germany.
Democrats who want religious values to play a greater role in their party might take a cue from the human-rights agenda of religious conservatives. Evangelicals begin with the Bible’s account of the God-given dignity of every person. And they’ve joined hands with liberal and secular groups to defend the rights of the vulnerable and oppressed, be it through prison programs for offenders and their families, laws against the trafficking of women and children, or an American-brokered peace plan for Sudan. In each case believers have applied their religious ideals with a strong dose of realism and generosity.
A completely secular public square is neither possible nor desirable; democracy needs the moral ballast of religion. But a partisan campaign to enlist the sacred is equally wrongheaded. When people of faith join political debates, they must welcome those democratic virtues that promote the common good: prudence, reason, compromise – and a realization that politics can’t usher in the kingdom of heaven.
Joseph Loconte, a research fellow in religion at the Heritage Foundation and a commentator for National Public Radio, is the editor of “The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm.”
Loconte considers all attempts to raise the topic of the morality of our nation’s budget priorities as politically motivated. This is convenient for him. If the morality of our nations budget priorities is no more than a superifical political tactic, we need not trouble ourselves with thinking about the topic any further, and can file it way in a folder entitled “Another lame complaint from those pesky Democrats.”
It doesn’t seem to occur to Loconte at all that some sincere Christians might actually be troubled by the Dickensian spectacle of a group of corrupt legislators beholden to lobbyists, corporations, and billionaires slashing assistance to the the neediest and most vulnerable of our neighbors in order to finance new tax loopholes and subsidies for rich corporations and tax cuts for people with incomes of over a million dollars a year. One imagines Mr. Potter from “It’s Wonderful Life” and the pre-visitation Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol” offering their vigorous approval.
I actually used to be like Loconte in that I regarded the mention of abortion and gay marriage as no more than a Republican poltical tactic. My friends on this blog persuaded me to think more deeply and as consequence I have revised my views and aligned them more closely with those of my Church. My conservative friends would also do well not to dismiss the topic of the morality of our nations budget priorities but to closely consider what its says about our nation when we take from the poorest of our neighbors so the rich can have even more.
Nearer to jail, the GOP.
“Abramoff deals, Congress quakes; In pleading guilty, the lobbyist agrees to help prosecutors nab others.”
CSMonitor
“…In exchange for his guilty pleas, in both the Washington case and a separate Florida case in which he was indicted last year, Mr. Abramoff will cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating members of Congress, Capitol Hill aides, and other lobbyists. Political players with ties to Abramoff and his network, who knew the lobbyist was preparing to cut a deal, have been sweating for months. Now they’re sweating harder.
Though members of both parties are involved, analysts expect Republicans – who control both houses of Congress – to bear the brunt of the political fallout. Abramoff, who has close ties to former House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, allegedly funneled campaign donations to lawmakers, who were treated to lavish trips and meals, in exchange for official acts.
“It could end some careers,” says Jennifer Duffy, an analyst at the non- partisan Cook Political report.
Stanley Brand, a Washington defense lawyer and former Democratic counsel to the House, predicts at least six members of Congress and at least as many staff will be convicted by the end of the year.”
Moral of story: Corrupt budget policy comes from a corrupt Republican congress.
Dean, the moral invective you invoke is precisely what Loconte critiques. Moral invective is no substitute for rational policy — and Wallis and crew have a policy that does not differ what I find in the pages of “The Nation” and other progressive journals. So let’s dispense with notion that progressive ideology in inherently more “Christian,” or at least conforms more to the biblical commandment to care for the poor. It’s window dressing.
As for the Republicans, those who have committed crimes ought to be prosecuted. But again, let’s exercise a bit of restraint and separate fact from spin (on both sides, BTW). In purely political terms, the question will be if the Democrats will gain from Republican malfeasance. My hunch is they won’t gain much unless the corruption is so rampant it exceeds expectations by a train load. If this is the case however, you will find some Democrats compromised as well.
Moving back to economic policy, ever read Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom?”
Well then let’s put aside moral outrage and stick with economics. I give you recent findings by the Congressional Budget Office.
“.. In July 2003, Mr. Bolten said this at a press conference: “All economists, I think, will agree very strongly that when you reduce taxes, put more money back into the economy, that has a feedback effect in the economy that causes growth” and in turn “increases receipts.” He added that he wanted “to see how much better the government’s fiscal situation is as a result of the tax cuts.”
The recent analysis by Mr. Page at the Congressional Budget Office dismisses the idea that tax cuts may actually improve the government’s fiscal situation. Even in his most generous scenario, only 28 percent of lost tax revenue is recouped over a 10-year period. The United States, it seems, is firmly planted on the left side of the Laffer Curve.
Recent experience corroborates this prediction. In the second quarter of 2001, just before the first of President Bush’s tax cuts took effect, federal receipts from personal taxes accounted for 10.3 percent of the economy. By the end of the post-recession slump, receipts had dropped to 6.4 percent. But in the third quarter of 2005, with the economy booming, they were still under 7.5 percent – an enormous difference. In dollar terms, federal receipts from personal income taxes, at $802 billion in 2004, are still lower than they were in 1998 ($826 billion) and much lower than in 2001 ($994 billion).”
Shortfalls in revenue cause the government to borrow more, so money intended for other purposes must be paid as interest instead. Even in Mr. Page’s most generous picture, the federal government would probably have to pay an extra $200 billion in interest over the decade covered by his analysis.”
A Bit of Doodling About a Tax-Cut Danger, By DANIEL ALTMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/business/yourmoney/01view.html
The available evidence to date suggests that the tax cuts for the rich and corporate tax breaks and subsidies passed since 2001 have not stimulated the economy to new levels of growth that should, according to supply side economics, have pushed government tax revenues to higher levels as well. If supply side economic theory were correct the tax cuts should have created a rising economic tide lifting all boats and surpassing the growth of the nineties. Instead we have seen a rising poverty rate, tepid job growth, and wage and income stagnation for middle-class workers.
The tax tax cuts for the rich and corporate tax breaks and subsidies passed in fact, have never been aligned to any rational economic program, conservative or otherwise, but merely reflect the wish list of powerful special interests who wield considerable influence over Congress these days and seek to concentrate wealth in their own hands more completely.
Perhaps a program of tax cuts directed at putting money in the hands of those most likely to spend it, the poor and midle class, might actually have had some success in stimulating the economy. This is not the purpose of the GOP tax cut architects in Congress however, who instead seek greater cuts in taxes on capital gains from investment income, an income derived largely by the wealthy. They want to make sure that when the time comes to cash out the stock market gains of the nineteen-nineties, taxes on investment income are gone altogether. The tax policy czars of the GOP also recently signaled their desire to trim back two of the most important middle-class tax deductions for the middle class, the mortgage interest deduction and the deduction for employee health care benfits. They likewise refused to do anything about the Alternative Minimimum Tax which threatens to actually raise the tax burden of millions of upper middle-class families.
The dangerous levels of debt created over the past five years cast a pall over the nation’s economic future. We will have to raise tax rates much, much higher than they were in January 2001 to cover our swelling debt service or else abandon the entitlements that will preserve health care and a minimum standard of living for an aging population. Someone tell me how this is a rational policy?
Dean, the topic is how moral invective replaces rationality in discourse, in this case among the the progressive left. Replacing your outrage with an editorial doesn’t address this topic.
BTW, have you read Hayek?
Laconte’s exactly on the money here. However, his point seems to be that there are political issues for which our traditional understanding of Judeo-Christian values are not the most helpful in making decisions, not just that these values are often used to hide the emotional impetus propelling these decisions. IOW, these decisions involve values that are not specifically Judeo-Christian but instead values that are common to all societies at all times.
To take his thought further: I’m not sure Bush’s Social Security proposals can be considered moral or immoral but simply whether they are effective (or practical) policies or not. Often when making decisions in everyday life, we take practicality into account, but this value sometimes will yield to some greater moral standard (such as justice). Not so here (at least it seems). There is nothing else to appeal to here besides efficacy in doing something specific (in this case, more effectively generating retirement funds). It seems many political decisions are like this.
Fr. Hans writes: ” . . . the topic is how moral invective replaces rationality in discourse, in this case among the the progressive left.”
What I find monumentally ironic ih this article is that it’s the religious right that has been invoking scripture and spewing moral invective for years. I mean, it was as if the religious right had the market cornered on the use of the Bible in public discourse. Conveniently omitted by the religious right were all the passages in the Bible dealing with social justice, the poor, etc. (Even conservative Christians have noted that the Jesus of the gospels is almost never mentioned by the religious right.)
Then a handful of religious liberals start reminding people about certain largely-unmentioned passages in the Bible. These liberals don’t have their own TV networks, don’t have their own radio stations, don’t even have their own radio programs, and aren’t funded by think tanks and foundations, etc. They do have a couple of magazines that maybe one percent of the people read.
Comes now Joseph Loconte, warning about the use of religious language in the political sphere. Great Joe, glad to see you. Where ya been the last 20 years?
What I find monumentally ironic in this article is that it’s the religious right that has been invoking scripture and spewing moral invective for years. I mean, it was as if the religious right had the market cornered on the use of the Bible in public discourse….
Comes now Joseph Loconte, warning about the use of religious language in the political sphere.
Well said, Jim.
Another response I’ve noted (on this forum and others) is that the personal moral failings of “liberals” are crowed over and seen as evidence of the moral emptiness of their political (social, economic) stances, but when “conservatives” demonstrate the same personal moral failings they decry (eg, serial marriages, adulterous affairs), those who defend their positions say that such critiques are irrelevant.
Father, thank you for the book recommendation. I always find the content you post on the web site to be both stimulating and thought-provoking, whether I agree with it or not, so I look forward to reading more about Hayek.
The little I’ve read about Hayek on-line so far suggests that while he objects to government as a particpant in the economy, (and totally recoils at the mention of state economic “planning”) he has no objection to government assuming the role of umpire to assure a fair and competitive marketplace.
In “Road to Serfdom” he writes:
“It is important not to confuse opposition against the latter kind of planning with a dogmatic laissez faire attitude. The liberal argument does not advocate leaving things just as they are; it favors making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts.
..The successful use of competition does not preclude some types of government interference. For instance, to limit working hours, to require certain sanitary arrangements, to provide an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition. There are, too, certain fields where the system of competition is impracticable. For example, the harmful effects of deforestation or of the smoke of factories cannot be confined to the owner of the property in question.
But the fact that we have to resort to direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function. To create conditions in which competition will be as effective as possible, to prevent fraud and deception, to break up monopoliesâ?? these tasks provide a wide and unquestioned field for state activity.”
http://jim.com/hayek.htm
So Hayek doesn’t hate government, he just wants to see it in it’s zebra shirt on the sidelines blowing it’s whistle and calling penalties, and never on the field calling plays or picking up the ball. This assumes that the players always know what they are doing, have the proper equipment and a coherent strategy for winning, which I think is a legitimate topic for debate. Hayek however is worried that once the government strides out on the field as a player and takes hold of the ball, the original players may never get it back.
I don’t think there is any debate that Hayek would object to the pay-to-play culture that has come to dominate Washington and of which Jack Abramoff has become a symbol. A government fiscal policy shaped by campaign contributions and special favors represents a corruption of the umpire role and tilting of the playing field, violating the fair and competitive marketplace that Hayek holds up as an ideal.
“What I find monumentally ironic in this article is that it’s the religious right that has been invoking scripture and spewing moral invective for years. I mean, it was as if the religious right had the market cornered on the use of the Bible in public discourseâ�¦.”
When I see the words “spewing” and “invective” in the same sentence, it alerts me that what I am reading may not be, of itself, particularly tolerant or dispassionate.
But to the point, I think the religious left is at least as large and influential as the religious right, and has been busy and successful for a at least as long. Maybe more so. However, no one has exploited the term “religious left” for political purposes the way the term “religious right” has been exploited.
As far as I can tell, the religious right are folks who personally take the historic creeds of the Church seriously and not as hazy metaphors, and who take scripture seriously, and who adhere to traditional Christian teaching, notably in distinction to the left, about abortion and homosexuality. In addition, they tend not to equate Christianity with what has been called “the social gospel.” In other words, while these folks practice charity with their own resources, they tend not believe in doing so with the resources of others. For these things they are demonized. (Actually, just disagreeing with either the abortion or the homosexual agenda is enough to get them demonized.) From all the negative press they have gotten, you would think they are the largest threat to the nation.
On the other hand, for just the example of abortion — and there are many other examples — for decades you will have seen all of the main-line protestant churches in lock-step agreement: availability of abortion on demand is a good thing — or for a few of them, at least not a thing to be disparaged. That is a substantial, decades-old example of what I would call the religious left at work.
So whatever you might say about the “religious right” I’d say there has been, for a long time, a pervasive, influential, successful, mostly un-noticed “religious left” that looks for all the world like a combination of the DNC and the ACLU. And NARL.
Augie writes: “But to the point, I think the religious left is at least as large and influential as the religious right, and has been busy and successful for a at least as long.”
You’re kidding, right? The religious left is a whitecap on a lake in comparison with which the religious right is a tsunami. The religious right has its own TV networks, radio networks, and radio stations, many of which are aligned with right-wing political figures. They collect hundreds of millions of dollars annually. There simply is nothing like this on the left.
Augie: “As far as I can tell, the religious right are folks who personally take the historic creeds of the Church seriously and not as hazy metaphors . . .”
By “seriously” I think you mean “literally.” In a literal sense, where the creed says that Christ “came down from heaven,” precisely in which direction is heaven located? If Christ literally “sits” at the “right hand of the Father,” where exactly does that occur, if God is present everywhere? If these are not metaphors, then what are they?
Augie: ” . . . and who take scripture seriously, and who adhere to traditional Christian teaching, notably in distinction to the left, about abortion and homosexuality.”
It’s interesting to me that abortion — never mentioned in the Bible — and homosexuality — barely mentioned in the Bible — always turn out to be the very pinnacle of traditional Christian teaching. Meanwhile, the many passages in the Bible — Old and New Testaments — dealing with the oppression of the poor and the stranger are never mentioned. For the first 300 years of Christian history it was virtually inconceivable that a Christian could fight in a war, but now that’s never mentioned either.
Augie: “In other words, while these folks practice charity with their own resources, they tend not believe in doing so with the resources of others.”
In failing to recognize the social character of private wealth the religious right is in profound disagreement with the Christian tradition as understood by Pope John Paul II:
“Here I would like to indicate one of them: the option or love of preference for the poor. This is an option, or a special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness. It affects the life of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ, but it applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our manner of living, and to the logical decisions to be made concerning the ownership and use of goods. . . .
“It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a ‘social mortgage,’ which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods. . . .
“The motivating concern for the poor – who are, in the very meaningful term, ‘the Lord’s poor’ – must be translated at all levels into concrete actions, until it decisively attains a series of necessary reforms. Each local situation will show what reforms are most urgent and how they can be achieved. But those demanded by the situation of international imbalance, as already described, must not be forgotten. . . .”
from Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, chapter 6.
Note 9.
Dean, read the book. The quotes you provided seem more of an attempt to fit Hayek into a prevailing debate, when in fact Hayek’s ideas shaped the debate, a lot like say, Orwell and socialism.
Note 10. Well said Augie.
Note 11. Jim, the left’s moralizing about the poor (repeated in your post) has been incessant.
Yet these are not the people help who women with problem pregnancies (check your yellow pages) and insist that abortion is a one-size-fits-all solution; who help prisoners and their families (see Prison Fellowship, or go into a prison and see who really volunteers); or who opened their homes or gave with generosity when Katrina hit.
Wallis’ attempt to add a religious patina to the moralizations reveals that the old tactic is losing steam, and implicitly affirms from the liberal side that the liberal value deficit is real.
Fr. Hans writes: “Jim, the left’s moralizing about the poor (repeated in your post) has been incessant.”
I guess you can blame the writers of the Bible for that. I suppose it would be nice to have a Bible filled with denunciations of abortion and homosexuality. But that’s not the Bible we have. A quick look at the Bible reveals 205 mentions of the word “poor” throughout 197 verses. If only half of those are related to the moral aspect of poverty, then there would be over 100 passages dealing with that topic. And there are yet other passages related to poverty and social justice that do not specifically contain the word “poor.”
In the Bible there are exactly zero references to abortion, though there are a few allusions to life in the womb. There are fewer than 10 references to male homosexuality and zero to female homosexuality.
What you call “moralizing” is what the Pope called “proclamation.” Action is important, but so is proclamation.
Fr. Hans: “Yet these [the left] are not the people help women with problem pregnancies (check your yellow pages) and insist that abortion is a one-size-fits-all solution; who help prisoners and their families (see Prison Fellowship, or go into a prison and see who really volunteers); or who opened their homes or gave with generosity when Katrina hit.”
Hmmmmm…. I don’t understand this at all. Surely there may be differences in the kinds of volunteer work undertaken by liberal or conservative Christians, but I don’t see how that translates into some kind of moral superiority. Where I live the liberal churches are involved in a number of social programs — soup kitchens, and so on. And here the Catholic church is extremely active in helping migrant workers and their families.
But the Pope knew that volunteer work and personal charity are not enough. This is why he talked about the larger societal structures at both the national and international levels that help to reinforce injustice and poverty. In 1987 the Pope asked this important question: ” . . . how can one justify the fact that huge sums of money, which could and should be used for increasing the development of peoples, are instead utilized for the enrichment of individuals or groups . . .?” Surely this is a legitimate question for the Christian of today to ask.
While the church does not endorse or promote any particular technical solution to the problem of poverty, I think it is legitimate for a Christian to be concerned when his or her government directs resources to the rich rather than to the poor — to those who have already “made it” rather than to those who are trying to make it. Though it is not the role of the church to present specific solutions as part of the dogma, surely as individuals we can advocate for particular solutions.
Though the church does not endorse specific tax policies, the church does expect that believers will advocate for tax policies that are consistent with the church’s moral vision. In other words, at some point the church’s proclamation has to be implemented “on the ground,” so to speak. The Pope noted that
“In addition, the social doctrine of the Church has once more demonstrated its character as an application of the word of God to people’s lives and the life of society, as well as to the earthly realities connected with them, offering ‘principles for reflection’, ‘criteria of judgment’ and ‘directives for action’.”
For me the idea that such concerns can be dismissed as left-wing “moralizing” is completely wrong. The Pope saw such concerns as flowing from the heart of the Christian tradition and as legitimate parts of the church’s moral theology.
Let me put it more plainly. The left, while incessantly moralizing about the poor, has done little to alleviate poverty. Wallis and crew merely call forth the old, and now, discredited ideas of the left that have institutionalized poverty and contributed to the creation of an underclass, especially among blacks.
Fr. Hans writes: “The left, while incessantly moralizing about the poor, has done little to alleviate poverty. Wallis and crew merely call forth the old, and now, discredited ideas of the left that have institutionalized poverty and contributed to the creation of an underclass, especially among blacks.”
Concern for the poor involves far more than “anti-poverty” programs such as welfare. There are food assistance programs, medical programs, job training, various kinds of educational programs, and so on. And there are many different kinds of programs designed around the specific needs of various groups. For example, I think it would be difficult to argue that medical assistance for poor elderly people in nursing homes has perpetuated the black underclass.
Out of all these programs, many of them quite successful, you continually focus on welfare — and not even welfare as it is today, but welfare as it was 30 or 40 years ago. Frankly, you could completely eliminate welfare and the overall budget for social programs wouldn’t go down all that much. That’s because most of the money is not spent on traditional welfare programs.
As far as “doing little to alleviate poverty,” you have to look at the larger picture. Social programs are not just about alleviating poverty. They are about kids not going hungry. They are about sick and disabled people being kept alive. They are about the creation of opportunities that will help people from becoming poor in the first place.
But in this venue we rarely hear about these programs. No, it’s always the black underclass, the black underclass, the black underclass, while a thousand other programs go unnoticed.
Jim do you work with these programs on a regular basis?
There are some interesting statistics here regarding welfare recipients. The stereotype is that most people on welfare generally are able-bodied workers suckling at the teat of Uncle Sam for the majority of their lives. In actuality, “the existing research indicates that cyclers make up a relatively small fraction of the caseload. Moffitt (2002), for example, defined cyclers as those with three or more welfare spells within a ten-year period. Using this definition and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from 1979 to 1996, he found that 20 percent of individuals who had ever been on welfare were cyclers. Ver Ploeg (2002) defined cyclers as recipients with three or more welfare spells within a nine-year period. Using data from a sample of adults in Wisconsin who received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in July 1995, she found that cyclers represented about 14 percent of the sample. Miller (2002) defined cyclers as individuals with only one short spell on welfare or those with two or more spells, who spent less than half of the observation period (three to five years) on welfare. Using this definition and data from several welfare waiver evaluations, Miller (2002) found that about 20 percent of a sample of new applicants and ongoing recipients were cyclers. Finally, Zedlewski and Alderson (2001) use data from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) and define cyclers as those who first received welfare more than two years prior to each survey (in 1997 and 1999) and who received welfare only intermittently in the two years prior to the survey. Using this definition, they find that cyclers were 20 percent of the caseload in 1997 and 23 percent in 1999, where the caseload includes all adults receiving benefits at the time of the survey.”
So it appears that generally less than a quarter of welfare recipients are “cyclers” and that around 75% never return. This is not a horrible number, in my estimation, even if there is room for improvement.
Jerry writes: “Jim do you work with these programs on a regular basis?”
I worked as an analyst for a teaching hospital/medical university in the finance office for over 20 years, so my experience is mostly in the realm of medical coverage, eligibility, reimbursement, healthcare financing, managed care contracting, etc. So I was not directly involved in the management of the programs, but was on the “other side,” so to speak, in an agency that dealt with these programs and with their clients.
What I resent is the suggestion that outrage by liberal Christians over current federal budget priorities reflects a misguided emotional response and is disconnected from “rational policy.” Such statements assume that the current federal budget priorities are “rational” – and that is an assumption very much open to debate.
1) Is it rational to deliberately run huge budget deficits during periods of economic growth and accumulate trillions in additional debt service that have to be paid off at the same time the government faces rising entitlement payments for an aging population?
Greg Mankiw, President Bush’s former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week, “This year I will be straight about the budget mess. I know that the federal budget is on an unsustainable path. I know that when the baby-boom generation retires and becomes eligible for Social Security and Medicare, all hell is going to break loose. I know that the choices aren’t pretty — either large cuts in promised benefits or taxes vastly higher than anything ever experienced in U.S. history. ”
2) Is the current process by which tax and spending legislation is passed by Conrgress rational? Increasingly such legislation has reflected the aggressive lobbying efforts of special interests and the influence of campaign donations and other special favors. Congressmen frequently reported that they had not even been given an opportunity to read the legislation they were voting on. The Jack Abramoff scandal ias disturbing because it has become emblematic of the “pay-for-play” manner in which Congress does business these days. Who “pays” so the interests of the poor and middle-class can receive some “play” in Congress? No one.
3) Is it rational to concentrate tax cuts among a relatively small number of the wealthiest families when economic research tells us this is not an effective method for stimulating the economy? Tax cuts that go to lower and middle income familes are more likely to be spend – and actually stimulate the economy. Tax cuts that go to rich families who have their material needs satisfied are more likely to be saved, and in an environment where interest rates are already low, this will have very little stimulative effect.
4) Shouldn’t a “rational” tax and spending policy be linked to positive econbomic outcomes? Instead of a rising economic tide lifting all boats and surpassing the growth of the nineties, we have seen a rising poverty rate, gowing anxiety over access to health care, tepid job growth, and wage and income stagnation for middle-class workers. The stock market, a harbinger of economic performance traded sideways during all of the last year, and shows no indication of a major bull rally this year.
5) What “rational” study or analysis told us that taxes on the rich, who are the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts, were too high? If taxes were too high before, how is it that the incomes of the rich experienced larger gains under the higher tax rates of the Clinton era, that they are experiencing now?
Dean do you believe health care is a right?
I forgot to add. I have problems with quotes from EPI when the majority of the organization’s board of directors are members are labor union officials.
Note 20. Dean writes: “What I resent is the suggestion that outrage by liberal Christians over current federal budget priorities reflects a misguided emotional response and is disconnected from “rational policy.” Such statements assume that the current federal budget priorities are “rational” – and that is an assumption very much open to debate.”
No, it doesn’t assume that at all. There is a difference between “religicizing” the old, hard left, ideas and defending or critiquing current policy. Wallis and crew do the former — call is “Christianized progressivism” if you want.
Read Loconte’s article a bit deeper. He’s warning the liberals not to become leftist fundies (which Wallis is, BTW).
Jerry asks: “Is health care a right?”
Not to speak for Dean, but if it’s NOT, do we REALLY wish to say that those who can afford to be treated for their illnesses should be treated for their illnesses and them alone? If you’re some poor sap with cancer who was recently unemployed at 58 and can’t afford health care privately, then too bad?
IOW, the rich can pay to stay alive and the poor can die early. Pity.
If that’s the society in which we wish to live, then we need to state it in those terms, even if they’re unpleasant. However, can you explain how this is consistent with a “Culture of Life”? Also, if they’re not entitled to it at all, why should I bother giving anyone my hard-earned cash to assist them with their sufferings, whatever the method? If they don’t “deserve it” via the roundabout method of my taxes, why would they deserve it anymore were I to simply write them a check?
Finally, were to prefer that people go about asking for handouts from others instead of suckling off government funds, are you going to be able to handle people (often complete strangers) knocking on your door or calling you on the telephone begging for money? How much of this could you tolerate before you just start to tune it out and shut the door and/or hang up the phone?
I’m not being sarcastic, I’m just wondering what alternative you’re proposing, if any, or if you’re just suggesting, as I said, letting the poor do without. Personally, I don’t equate medical treatment for diseases with luxuries such as a Versace wardrobe and a second home in the Hamptons.
In a society governed by Christian belief health care should be a right; excluding of course non-medically necessary procedures like cosmetic surgery. My Christian faith is strengthened every day as I see the lessons of life affirming the teachings of my Savior. When we take the leap of faith and chose compassion, short term sacrifices are rewarded in the end with richly positive results. When we chose the path of selfishness and greed we inevitably find ourselves on an unhappy downward path.
The nations of the world that have enacted universal health care coverage are reaping rich rewards. Their populations are healthier, which enables them as a workforce to be more productive. Their businesses are more competitive because they aren’t encumbered with huge employee insurance costs. Their health care models are more efficient because the administrative overhead associated with a single payer system are much less than with reduntant multiple payers. By removing barriers to preventative care, single-payer systems treat patient illness in the early stages, before conditions beomes more costly and acute.
The United States on the other hand has the most expensive and inefficient health care system in the world. We devote a greater percentage of our GDP to health care than any other nation, yet at any given time we have more than 43 million people without health insurance, and millions more who have skimpy plans that leave them underinsured. The uninsured and underinsured are more likely to put off care until they are are really sick, so that their treatment, when they do receive it, is much more costly.
The US health care system is larded with administrative redundancy – and includes thousands of people whose jobs are simply to shift medical bills to other payers. We can see, for example, that there is no way that the hundreds of Medicare Part D drug benefit plans can be as efficient as a single payer. A recent analysis by the Kaiser Health Care Foundation found the drug prices charged by the Veteran’s Administration to be 48% below those of the Medicare Drug Plans for comparable medications.
Medical inflation in the US is out of control and consistently is in the double digits annually. US corporations are struggling with massive health insurance benefit costs for aging employees and retirees. The CEO of GM recently joked that he was the executive of a health care benefits plan that happened to also make cars.
The US health care system is in a slow death spiral. As health care costs rise, more employers are dropping insurance coverage. The presence of greater numbers of uninsured receiving uncompensated care at hospitals and emergency rooms means that the increased cost of providing that care must be passed on to those who do have insurance. As hospitals raise their rates, insurance companies must raise their premiums, forcing more employers to drop coverage, and the vicious cycle grows worse. If not for state Medicaid programs acting as an insurer of last resort for the poor, the problem would be much worse. Rising Medicaid costs however are becoming a difficult burden for state governments to handle.
A society governed by Christian belief would not want to reserve health care for only the those wealthy enough to afford it. Our Savior was horrified by the indifferent Pharisees who paraded past the suffering in the streets without the slightest care or concern. Saint Paul was horrified by Corinthian churches that reserved the best pews in front for the richest worshipers, making themselves theatres of social class inequality. Just as Christ asks us elsewhere, we must shed are selfishness and be willing to make the intial sacrifice of implementing a universal health care system so we can reap the long term rewards afterward.
Dean, your post is an example of moralisms replacing rational argument. Can you provide any data to back up your assertion that a socialized health care system will improve the system we have now? European and Candadian systems show the opposite.
Counts for the uninsured, btw, include illegal immigrants.
Fr. Hans writes: “Can you provide any data to back up your assertion that a socialized health care system will improve the system we have now? European and Candadian systems show the opposite.”
I don’t have time to research the statistics, but if you look at the bottom line — life expectancy — you’ll find that many of these countries have life expectencies equalling or exceeding that of the U.S., while at the same time spending less per capita on medical care.
Dean’s observations on the overhead costs involved in U.S. healthcare are largely consistent with my 20 years of experience as an analyst in a teaching hospital.
Fr. Hans, given your concerns over the cost of the bureaucracy involved in publicly-funded social service programs, I’m sure you’ll be very interested to understand the vast amount of expense involved in simply shifting money from one pocket to another in the healthcare system. For example, a large hospital might employ 100 people in the patient accounts office. These are people who answer phone calls, bill insurance companies, maintain automated systems, collet money from insurance companies, collect money from patients, and so on. Then, of course, you have the maintenance of the automated systems that have to deal with hundreds or thousands of different managed care contracts and permutations thereof — DRG-based payment (diagnosis related group), per diem, flat rate, room-based, passthrough, etc., etc., etc.
But wait, there’s more! In addition to the people working in the patient accounts office, you have yet other people scattered throughout the entire institution who participate in the patient billing process — nurses, nurse managers, supply aides, unit clerks, etc. etc., all of whom spend a considerable amount of time in the billing process. The hospital I used to work at paid $500,000 per year for supply cabinets that automated the process of billing for supply items. We paid another $500,000 for automated pharmaceutical cabinets that billed patients. There are patient billing systems for the lab, surgery, ER, radiology, angiography, etc. You can’t spit in a hospital without it landing on some person or system that bills patients.
So you have a batallion of these people working working in all the hopsitals. THEN — you have other batallions working on the other side, in the insurance companies. From the point of view of medical care, all of this is a non-value-added activity. I know because I was one of these people.
Of course, everyone will talk about how Canadians come here in order to get healthcare. The flip side is that we go there in order to get drugs. Now the Canadians could easily have a better healthcare system — if they wanted to double the amount they spend on it, like we do. Of course the difference is that all the Canadians are covered, whereas many Americans are not.
Dean is also quite correct about how health insurance is becoming increasingly unafforable for companies. Now, companies won’t say that they don’t have health insurance, but in fact many of them don’t. Something called the “high deductible health plan” is making the rounds. Since the right wing loves anything that shifts costs from companies to workers, I’m sure we’ll hear the virtues of these things extolled in the months to come.
But I have some experience with these health plans, since that’s all that my current employer offers. Here’s the deal: to cover a family you’ll pay $300 per month. Then — there is a $4800 deductible before the health plan pays anything. Then — once it starts paying it only pays 70 percent of costs. Between premiums and out-of-pocket, total out of pocket for a family can be around $13,000 per year, or even more, depending on various other factors.
At the point at which someone is paying $13,000 a year for medical care, I would argue that that person in a fundamental sense does not have health insurance. He has some kind of catastrophic insurance, but not really health insurance.
#27 Economists have argued that a nationalized health care does not improve the overall quality of life. It goes down.
A couple of points. It’s not the bureaucracy I object to in social service programs, it’s the institutionalization of poverty as well as the damage it has done to the family structure.
Socialization of health care is not needed to solve the problem of patient billing. A friend of mine, a doctor in the army, is one of the top guns in a project to standardize health care billing and coding across departments in the army, a situation that has the same problems as the private sector.* It’s getting a lot of notice in the medical and computer fields because of its scope and overall success so far. It can be modified for the private sector once the project completed.
(*Of course, if the standardization is ever completed, there will be no privacy whatsover. The inefficiencies of the present system hinders the transfer of information — not a bad thing necessarily if you value privacy.)
The reason drugs are cheaper in Canada (and Europe) is because they are price controlled. This shifts the cost of research to the American market. Americans are subsidizing the Canadians for drugs, even as Canadians seek out the superior American care. Put another way – Canadians don’t pay their fair share.
Further, I don’t see how socialization of health care solves the problem of rising insurance. All it does is shift the cost. Government is notoriously inefficient at managing most everything. Why would managed health care be any different?
Fr. Hans writes: “Socialization of health care is not needed to solve the problem of patient billing. A friend of mine, a doctor in the army, is one of the top guns in a project to standardize health care billing and coding across departments in the army, a situation that has the same problems as the private sector.”
Patient billing in the private sector is already standardized. There is the UB92 — the universal billing form, and standard revenue codes. There is the system of DRGs (diagnosis related groups) first started by Medicare around 1986. There is the ICD9 (International Classification of Diseases) standard coding for diagnoses and procedures. There there are professional medical record coders whose job is to extract information from the medical record and turn it into standard codes. This stuff has all been around for 20 years. Maybe the army is catching up.
But all that simply makes billing possible. It does nothing to remove the massive overheard related to the generation of revenue and patient billing.
Fr. Hans: “Further, I don’t see how socialization of health care solves the problem of rising insurance.”
It helps to solve it through eliminating non-value-added activities — activities that constitute a huge financial overhead, but do absolutely nothing toward the provision of health care.
Frankly, I don’t even like the term “socialized” health care, because it presumes that we end up with one giant government bureaucracy that pays for everything. It doesn’t have to be like that at all. There are all sorts of options and all sorts of steps in between that we could consider.
For example, a couple of months ago I wrote a guest column on a web site in which I present a concept that, in my view, socializes the opportunity for health insurance, even as it retains the system of private funding: http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/12/a_new_health_in.html
There are many options; we need not be tied to a single model.
RE: no. 27: I can cite an article entitled “Primary Care and Health System Performance: Adult’s Experience in Five Countries” from Health Affairs magazine, October 2004.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w4.487/DC1
“Across multiple dimensions of care, the United States stands out for its relatively poor performance. With the exception of preventive measures, the U.S. primary care system ranked either last or significantly lower than the leaders on almost all dimensions of patient-centered care: access, coordination, and physician-patient experiences.
These findings stand in stark contrast to U.S. spending rates that outstrip those of the rest of the world. The performance in other countries indicates that it is possible to do better. However, moving to a higher-performing health care system is likely to require system redesign and innovative policies.”
This is a real academic peer reviewed study, and not propaganda manfactured by a corporate-funded institute to promote a political agenda.
Dean are you aware of the Commonwealth Fund’s reputation? It’s not surprising that they would have a study out that shows nationalized healthcare great and the American system as the worst.
And from personal experience having lived in the UK for several years, the UK portion of the study is bunk.
Note 30: The phrase “institutionalization of poverty” has been tossed out a bit here. I’m assuming this means that social programs might not only be ineffective in sustaining people and providing for their material needs but that these programs keep people in poverty and dependent on the government for these needs.
Again, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the number of people who leave welfare and return within two years is only around 20% (based on 2002 data). Thus, I don’t see how poverty is being “institutionalized”. On what basis is this statement being made? What is an acceptable rate of recidivism for welfare recipients? 15% within 2 (or even 10) years? 5%? 0%?
I’m not denying that a lack of family structure plays an important role in those who do return to welfare, and here the Church can play some role. I also don’t deny that the motives of some politicians who support welfare may be less than noble. Nevertheless, the accusation that welfare keeps people in poverty seems a false one based on the facts. I’m willing to re-assess this should other more compelling data be presented.
Note 34. James, for some introductory background, start here:
Full article on the Manhattan Institute website.
JamesK, government benefits shape behavior
I reported on this forum that a neice of my husband became pregant out of wedlock. She and the father planned to marry UNTIL they investigated the welfare benefits available to the neice as a single mother. Those benefits would have been reduced had she married the father of her child. The couple decided to forego marriage.
I was shocked because although the young couple was not affluent there are four grandparents living in the same community, who are solvent and in good health. It wasn’t truly necessary for this young couple to rely on welfare, but, they CHOSE a course of action which MAXIMIZED government benefits.
This is a clear demonstration of the THE EXISTENCE OF GOVERNMENT BENEFITS promotes behavior which mitigates against marriage, which tends to loosen family ties, and which, in the long run, perpetuates poverty. The child of this marriage is likely to spend less time with her father, she will have the example of unwed motherhood in her own family and it will be difficult to teach her not to follow her mother’s example.
This is what happened to the black family. I have close friends who are social workers in the inner city. The government supports the household of the unwed mother and the male has become like a semi-detached, loosely associated member of the household headed by the female. It is has lead to the de-socialization of men. Men who marry and assume the duties of husband and father MOVE towards civilized and responsible behavior, men without strong ties to a home and children tend to de-socialize and move towards more destructive and anti-social behavior. This effect is the same regardless of race, but, in America, is it 100 times more likely to happen to black families.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those well-cared for liberals, such as the Kennedy family, for bringing this about.
Of course, you can imagine cases in which people need help for problems which are totally beyond their control. The presence of these worthy cases, in no way, negates the negative effect of government programs. They can be distinguished and administered separatetly. I have said many times on this blog that I fully support a much, much greater effort to help the mentally ill, whom we tend to leave to walk the streets without help. However, the barrier there comes from our good friends the libertarians who have made involuntary committment laws so restrictive you cannot force a schizophrenic to take their meds and they are beyond the ability of their families to control or care for. Hence they end up on the street to the chagrin of their families.
Fr. Hans writes: “The result of these mutually reinforcing developments was catastrophic: Poverty became engrained and intergenerational among the ‘underclass’ a predominantly black subgroup of the poor . . .”
From the historical poverty tables, Census Bureau.
Black poverty rate every ten years, starting with 1959 data (first year that poverty data are available:
1959: 55.1%
1969: 32.2%
1979: 31.0%
1989: 30.7%
1999: 23.6%
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html
Now that really is an interesting catastrophe. Look at infant mortality and life expectency for blacks, and you’ll see the same positive changes as well.
Fr. Hans: “The magisterial 1984 classic . . . ”
No, it’s another one of these manfactured right-wing books, popular not as a result of the soundness of its ideas but because of the marketing hype.
“The great book of the New Right’s assault on traditional forms of knowledge was Charles Murray’s antiwelfare tract Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (1984). Two years before his book became the handbook on handling welfare, Murray was living in obscurity in Iowa, having written nothing more than a few pamphlets. According to Michael Joyce, Murray sent an article to Kristol at Public Interest, whereupon Kristol immediately called Joyce, who was then running the Olin Foundation, and scared up the money necessary for Murray to turn his article into a book. . . . The Manhattan Institute inaugurated an extraordinary campaign to sell Murray to the public. Once the book was published, Hammett sent 700 copies to journalists, politicians and academics and hired a PR expert to turn the unknown author into a media celebrity. He paid journalists $500 to $1,500 each to participate in a seminar on Murray and his thought. In addition, Hammett wrote, “any discretionary funds at our disposal for the next few months will go toward financing Murray’s outreach activities.” Once again the model worked flawlessly. The book itself proved to be the prototype of The Bell Curve: Murrayite ideology mixed with pseudoscience and killer public relations. Sociologist Christopher Jencks and economists like Robert Greenstein, Jared Bernstein and Nobel laureate James Tobin, who took the time to examine Murray’s data, found the book contradictory, solipsistic, intentionally misleading and often wrong.”
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=19991122&s=alterman2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, that’s just typical liberal junk from The Nation. Ok, then YOU look at the historical census data and explain how an almost 60 percent drop in the poverty rate for blacks is a “catastrophe.”
More on Murray’s Losing Ground
Here’s Eric Alterman’s take on the “magesterial” book:
“Trained as a Ph.D. in political science but without any formal credentials in economics or psychometrics –the two fields in which his work managed to incite national debates–Murrayâ??s work has met with little but vituperation and disgust among those experts competent to judge its scientific merits. Yet owing to a series of brilliant and extremely well funded marketing strategies, and an unarguable genius for locating the g-spot of the political/intellectual marketplace, Murray somehow managed to transform public debate on issues where he lacked what most in the field would consider basic professional competence. . . .
“Unfortunately, Murrayâ??s assertions were based on a series of internal contradictions, specious arguments and outright phony claims unsupported by his data. For instance, his assertion that that the hope for welfare payments was the main source of illegitimacy among black teenagers posited no evidence for this claim, and failed to explain why the rate of illegitimacy rose for everyoneâ??and not just welfare recipients–after 1972, while the constant-dollar value of those welfare benefits declined by twenty percent. While continually insisting on the impotence of the Great Society programs of the Johnson administration, Murray never once explained the development of the Black middle class during this period. Moreover, why blame the welfare policies of the late sixties and early seventies on for the decline in participation of Black males in the labor market when the decline actually dates back to the late fifties? It turned out that Murrayâ??s calculations relied on the highly disputed figures of an obscure economist named Timothy Smedding. Using more traditional and widely-accepted measurements, Christopher Jencks calculated that contrary to Murrayâ??s central claims, the percentage of the population defined as poor in 1980 was only half the size it was in 1965, and one third the size it was in 1950. . . .
“Well-known columnists and other members of the media were paid between $500 and $1,500 a piece to participate [in a discussion on the book], something that was unheard of at the time, and remains extremely rare. Taking advantage of the economic illiteracy of the punditocracy, Murray was able to sell his idea to these opinion-makers without having to respond to difficult queries that might have been posed by a competent economist. . . .
“In spite of the bookâ??s errors, or because his readers were oblivious to them, Losing Ground quickly became a cause celebre for pundits and politicians alike. . . . Even once the bookâ??s obvious weaknesses had been identified, as experts began to weigh in from professional journals, they barely made a dent in its effectiveness as a weapon in the ideological wars. A decade or more later, conservatives were still wielding Losing Ground like a sword against the scourge of more money for the poor.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9040792/#050829
Note 38. I tried to find out what Alterman thinks of Sen. Patrick Moynihan who, in his “The Moynihan Report,” warned of the same things Wilson examined. I can’t find anything although I see a lot of reminders that Moynihan was Democrat. Looks like Alterman can’t bring himself to attack Moynihan’s warnings but he sure is unsparing of Wilson.
For the record, James Q. Wilson is also the author of the “broken windows theory,” the intellectual basis of Rudolph Gulliani’s restoration of New York City. Having lived in New York under the progressivism of Dinkins and the conservativism of Gulianni, I can assure you Gulliani’s conservatism was a whole lot better. Lot’s of New York liberals agree, BTW.
Note 37. You are attributed Myron Magnet’s quote to me. Not to be too picky here, but accuracy counts.
As for the poverty rates, this needs more examination. The Black middle class grew impressively, especially with the Reagan economic expansion, but the inner city blacks, the group that Wilson addressed, were continually mired in poverty. My hunch is that the rates you cited don’t make this distinction.
As for the “Nation,” well, they are not known as a research institute. It functions as the mouthpiece of the progressive left — as their untiring support of Marxist regimes during the Cold War revealed.
As for the poverty rates, this needs more examination. The Black middle class grew impressively, especially with the Reagan economic expansion, but the inner city blacks, the group that Wilson addressed, were continually mired in poverty. My hunch is that the rates you cited don’t make this distinction.
If the black middle class was growing impressively, a lot of black were moving out of poverty, as the stats indicate. Why does Reagan (etc) get the credit for what went right while the “liberals” get the blame for what didn’t, during the same period of time?
Because an expanding economy is what makes increasing incomes possible. The economic expansion that started with the Reagan tax cuts carried forward into the Clinton administration, and was jumped started again by President Bush.
The liberal welfare policies, to the extent that they undermine the traditional family structure, also remove the means by which people can participate in the expansion. Today, for example, the most reliable indicator of childhood poverty is single motherhood.
Comparing Equivalent Households
When equivalent black and white households are compared, there is NO income disparity. YUP, NONE. Take the class of black families that have a married couple living with their children with at least one parent with a high school degree. Their income as a group is comparable to the equivalent white household (that is,a white married couple living together with their children with at least one parent with a high school degree.) Black married couples with at least one spouse with a college degree do 2% BETTER than the equivalent white couple, when group statistics are measured. This comparison holds through through any comparison of equivalent families. See John McWhorter’s Losing the Race.
Conversely, white single mothers are just as poor as black single mothers.
If a young person in America avoids unwed parenthood, avoids a criminal record, and graduates from high school, the odds a very, very high that he will live above the poverty line whether white and black.
Lastly the most embarrassing statistic is that CURRENT DAY immigrants from Africa, people who have just arrived from Africa and become citizns DO MANY TIMES BETTER than the average African-American. Maybe because they appreciate their vastly increased opportunities and just get busy and prove themselves (just my opinion) However, this is a difficult statistic for liberals to accept because it shows that blacks can succeed in America if they try.
Liberals cannot admit that character, self-control, moral conduct conduce to economic self-sufficiency and the absence of good character, self-control, moral conduct conduce to poverty. If they did, they would lose jobs promoting the welfare plantation for minorities. False kindness but very addictive.
The poverty rate among black Americans dropped more drastically in the 60s than in the 80s – does Reagan get the credit for that?
Missourian, you referred to “the welfare plantation for minorities.” How do you address the stats posted above by James, indicating that about 75% of those receiving welfare at a given time do so only for one limited period and never return to the welfare rolls? The “welfare plantation” image doesn’t apply to them (ie, to most welfare recipients).