Subsidiarity
Here’s an interesting chart I came across in the course of reading about income inequality. This comes from a paper by Brian Nolan and Ive Marx in the Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality (Wiemer Salvedra et al. eds. 2009). I found it interesting because it is so, well, plausible. It suggests that, at least among developed countries, poverty rates (measured as people earning less than one half the median national income) decline as governments spend more on cash transfers. [Suggests, but does not prove. It shows a mere correlation. So it could be, for example, (as Nolan and Marx observe) that countries with high transfers also pursue other policies that limit poverty and that it is these policies we should emulate if we want to help the poor.] I think this at least cuts against the more counterintuitive claim made by people like Paul Ryan that slashing government spending on social programs is in the long-term interest of the poor. Ryan wants to argue that he is not a Randian libertarian who is utterly unconcerned with the well-being of the poor. But if he wants to claim that cutting taxes on the rich and gutting Medicare is good for the poor, the burden is on him to show that this is in fact the case and explain how it works. One way to do that would be to show that countries with less generous social spending actually outperform other countries in terms of eliminating poverty. This chart suggests otherwise. (Some will surely argue that, even if government can effectively reduce poverty, the poor in more dynamic, small-government countries will be better off in absolute material terms because they will, over the long run, produce more wealth, which will in turn trickle down to the poorest, etc.. If you compare the countries in the top left of this chart with those in the bottom right, though, I think you will be hard pressed to argue that the countries in the bottom right are underachievers in terms of wealth-production.)
The doctrine of subsidiarity says that we leave functions with more local communities unless broader communities can do a better job of accomplishing our goals. A few weeks back, Ryan argued that this doctrine leads him to favor private initiative as a means of combatting poverty:
“To me, the [Catholic] principle of subsidiarity, which is really federalism, meaning government closest to the people governs best, having a civil society of the principle of solidarity where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good.
“By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities. Those principles are very very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out into a life of independence.”
This is very confused for reasons others have already noted. The concept of subsidiarity does not map cleanly onto the public/private distinction, since many private communities are not local in any meaningful sense (think WalMart) and some governments are very local. But I think this chart suggests that, even if we took subsidiarity to constitute a preference for private over government solutions, government spending arguably does a very effective job of reducing poverty.
A recent poll published in the WaPost showed a substantial increase among Republicans who hold the view that it is not the responsibility of the government to provide for those who, through no fault of their own, cannot provide for themselves. According to this poll only 40% of those polled thought that the government had such a responsibility. If one acknowledges, as one should, that the government is our agent, then those respondents appear to hold either that private charity can take care of these needy people or that it is of no concern to the rest of us that their needs be met. To defend either of these alternatives in the name of “Subsidiarity” makes no sense. Private charity is manifestly not capable of meeting these needs. And to deny that these needs ought to be addressed is simply barbaric.
If more money is transferred to people below half the median income, then people below half the median income will have more money (and hence some of them might move above half the median income). So that’s not an empirical finding or even a correlation — it’s a tautology.
But the “half of median income” measure isn’t even measuring poverty anyway; it’s measuring equality. In a country where everyone made the equivalent of $1,000 a year (and where starvation was a paramount danger), there would be zero “poverty” by your measure, because no one would be below half the median income. But obviously that would tell us nothing about the quality of life for anyone; the finding of “zero poverty” would really mean that everyone had an equal income.
What would be slightly more interesting would be to replicate this chart with an actual measure of poverty in real dollars. Even then, though, you wouldn’t be finding out anything whatsoever about the effect of “more dynamic, small government” ideology compared to a European welfare-state ideology.
International comparisons are almost meaningless . . . the counterfactual for the United States isn’t Sweden (different size, culture, history, demographics, etc., etc.) but what the United States itself would be with a different set of policies in place. That is, we wish we could know what the real dollar poverty rate would be in the United States if we pursued Policy Package A vs. Policy Package B, and you simply can’t find that out by taking a static comparison of the United States to a bunch of completely disparate countries.
“poverty rates (measured as people earning less than one half the median national income)”
This is a definition that seems to beg the question because, I’d argue, built into the definition is an assumption that what the poor need and deserve is a bigger slice of the national pie. If that is adopted as the definition of poverty, then the virtually inexorable conclusion is that the government should redistribute income.
But Is that the best definition of poverty? I suppose my intuition in this respect is ipolitically conservative (and informed by Catholic social teaching), and I’d argue that a better and more useful definition of poverty is a level of income that doesn’t allow a poor person to partake of goods and services to which all people have a right – things like adequate nutrition, adequate shelter, adequate health care, adequate education and so on.
If the data from this source is to be relied on,
http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/04/median-earnings-higher-in-us-than-in.html
… the median national incomes vary quite significantly from one country to another. Here is some data I quickly pulled together from this source that compares median national income of the United States to five countries at the other end of Nolan and Marx’ graph: Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and France. The first number next to each country is (according to the compilers of this data), “median income in PPP adjusted dollars in the “mid-2000s” by the OECD”. The second number is that country’s median national income, expressed as a % of the US median national income. The third number is the % difference between that country and the US. What I think these numbers illustrate is that, because of substantial differences in median national income from one country to another, the bar for keeping citizens out of poverty is set pretty significantly lower for these European countries (except Luxembourg – does anyone want to propose that we adopt a Luxembourger model?).
US $27,768.00 100% 0%
Denmark $22,796.00 82% 18%
Sweden $19,895.00 72% 28%
Czech Republic $10,760.00 39% 61%
Luxembourg $35,200.00 127% -27%
France $19,047.00 69% 31%
Please don’t construe this comment as a defense of the Ryan plan, or as an apologetic for the state of poverty in the US. Clearly, we have room for improvement in the US, arguably in every factor I listed above and in more besides, and I don’t doubt that government, at every level, needs to contribute to the solution to at least some extent.
“This is a definition that seems to beg the question because, I’d argue, built into the definition is an assumption that what the poor need and deserve is a bigger slice of the national pie. ”
Jim P. –
Doesn’t “a bigger slice of the national pie” mean “more money”? In other words, aren’t you saying that what the poor need is more money? And would you dispute that? (Talk about tautologies!!!)
Jim –
Look at it this way — Jesus was a Keynesian :-)
Ann Olivier: Did you read Paul Krugman’s column about how Ronald Reagan was a Keynesian?
“In other words, aren’t you saying that what the poor need is more money? ”
Hi, Ann, it does seem pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Part of the reply was addressed in Studebaker’s comment: simply giving a person more money doesn’t tell us whether basic needs are being met.
Another part is just based on experience. If giving the poor more money solved the problem of poverty on a massive scale, then the War on Poverty would have been a smashing success. I do think that government should help people avoid the worst ravages of poverty, and I support transfer payment programs for that purpose (which certainly include the major federal entitlement programs). I’m extremely skeptical that government transfer programs can permanently eradicate poverty. We know what that creates: The Dole. Humans are called to more than subsistence via permanent enrollment in government transfer programs.
FWIW – my three prescriptions for ending poverty in the US would be a growing and well-functioning economy (especially an economy that features strong demand for unskilled/semi-skilled labor); effective education; and strong families. Government can help with any or all of those to some extent, but none of them seem amenable to “throwing money at the problem.”
@Jim Pauwels (6/8, 2:01 pm) Without spinning off into a side debate about the War on Poverty and its effectiveness or lack thereof, I’ll just note for the record that the federal government spending for the “War on Poverty” was relatively small.
The most striking success in reducing poverty in the 1960s came from the creation of Medicare which caused a dramatic, and almost immediate reduction in poverty rates among the elderly.
From reading some of the posts here, I would conclude that the chart is not a good measure, America is not Europe, and there’s not much poverty in this great land of ours, but if there is, be sure not to give them money.
Gosh darn it, I referred to “Studebaker”, and now I see that comment is attributed to “Stuart Buck” :-)
JIm P. –
I suspect we don’t really disagree on the question of poverty, except perhaps on how to make the poor capable of supporting themselves. You agree that sufficient eduction is needed. I think, however, that the education that is needed depends on poor parents becoming functionally literate so that 1) they can earn more than the minimum wage (which I view as an apprentice wage of sorts, and 2) they can read well enough to read to their children. The latter is necessary because if children don’t observe their parents reading they are not going to learn to read themselves. But that would cost a tremendous amount of money. Are you willing to spend it?
One of the main reasons that families are disfunctional is because the parents do not both work, and, of course, because so many families have only one parent. As I see it, the disadvantages of one parent families are not seen correctly. It is true that many single parents raise fine children, but that is far, far from typical. But society tolerates it these days. If a single woman who can afford a child chooses to have one, society says, “That’s OK, she loves the child and can afford it”. But society cannot afford the bad example that that gives. (No, abortion is not the solution — the only solution is not to have a child in the first place.)
And, yes, good example is a necessity in a well run, just society. What society approves of or even just tolerates morally is a tremendous factor in a well-functioning, just society. But with the rampant individualism in American culture conformity to strict moral standards not seen as a value. Rather, “conformity” to certain moral standards is seen as a disvalue, sort of like being “politically correct”. (Yes, in some ways I’m a conservative. Don’t tell.)
A few truisms about subsidiarity and transfer of money:
1. Transfers of money go on all the time and are often regulated by some laws. Apart from personal gifts, these transfers regularly move from us to some agency of government or of civil society and thence to the ultimate recipients.
2. Laws of some sort, e.g., the tax code, regulate who can or must give how much to these agencies.
3. Through their policies, the agencies encourage some activities of the recipients, e.g., subsidies, tax breaks, etc. They also discourage some other activities.
4. In the case of agencies of civil society, the donors often have some say about the agencies’ policies and practices. The recipients usually have much less say. For example, foundations decide what they will support and by how much and what they won’t do.
5. By contrast,in democratic society, at least in theory (leaving aside the problem of lobbying) the recipients have some significant say in the policies adopted by governmental agencies.
6. Today, in complex modern society, there are regularly substantial gaps between what the needs of the recipients are and the resources available to the agencies of civil society. Accordingly, the role of government as provider of last resort has to be substantial.
By way of example, let me mention this experience of mine. I have no reason to think that it is unusual.
During 2006 and 2007, (before the recent deep recession) I was a volunteer with the local parish church’s charitable program. We provided no cash, but some checks for utilities or some medical prescriptions. In no case did we give more than $200 to any person. No person could receive help from us more often than once every three months. We didn’t have the resources to do more. Our situation was much like that of other church and civic agencies, e.g. the food bank. For a client to have his or her direct and immediate needs met, he or she had to visit several of these agencies and piece together as best he or she could enough to cover these basics. Obviously, this was time consuming and difficult, especially for people with small children or substantial medical problems. In short, what we did was good, but far from enough. Governmental help, over sustained periods of time is what was necessary for these people to function even passably well, to look for work, to care for their children’s health and shelter, etc.
It’s certainly proper, as Jim Pauwels says, to be concerned about efficiency and avoiding promoting dependency. Our resources are limited and have to be used prudently. But protecting against these risks cannot be such a priority that one fails to respond adequately to the pressing needs that are always abundant in our society. As Christians, we we have to risk sacrificing some efficiency to avoid depriving as many people as we can of what they need for their basic subsistence.
While its very new and a work in progress, the supplemental poverty measure the Census Bureau began releasing last year validates Eduardo’s point that government social programs move people out of poverty.
The poverty rate in the US is established by the Census Bureau, and Health and Human Services generates annual poverty guidelines for entitlement programs. The 2011 poverty guidelines for a family of 4 in the continental US is $22,350.
The Census Bureau has been working on something called a”supplemental poverty measure” which maybe better reflects people’s real circumstances. My understanding (and I’m no expert) is that the official poverty rate only looks at cash income. The supplemental rate tries to capture certain core expenses and also certain kinds of non-cash income (like some government assistance programs).
The supplemental measure shows that more people are living in poverty overall (than as reflected by the official measure), especially a much, much higher percentage of senior citizens, but it also shows that government assistance substantially reduces the number of people who would otherwise be living in poverty; government social programs reduce the poverty rate by as much as 2 percentage points. (4 percentage points for children).
49 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010.
Ann Olivier: I wholeheartedly agree with you that poor people in the United States need to become functionally literate, just as the children of poor parents need to become functionally literate when they attend school. However, at the present time in the United States, the political will to do anything meaningful to promote functional literacy among the poor does not exist.
Here’s a little CNN Money article on the Supplemental Poverty Measure
http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/07/news/economy/poverty_rate/index.htm
The Census Bureau website has a lot of info on poverty levels.
“Our resources are limited and have to be used prudently. But protecting against these risks cannot be such a priority that one fails to respond adequately to the pressing needs that are always abundant in our society.”
Bernard – I agree wholeheartedly.
“The 2011 poverty guidelines for a family of 4 in the continental US is $22,350.”
Note that this is an “absolute” measure: it is what it is, regardless of the overall income of the US population. It says, regardless of how many middle-class Americans or how many multi-billionaire Americans there are, regardless of how much money anyone else makes, This is the poverty threshold. (I happen to believe that the poverty threshold number understates the problem of access to goods and services to which all humans are entitled, but perhaps we can set that aside for now).
By contrast, the measure used in the Nolan and Marx graph in the original post uses a “relative” measure: it expresses poverty as a relationship to the median income which, as I noted in a previous comment, varies pretty widely from one country to another.
Here is another way to think about this in regard to the Nolan and Marx graph: that poverty-threshold figure of $22,350 in 2011 would have been about $19,800 in 2005 if we adjust backward for inflation according to an inflation calculator I found via Google, and according to US Census Bureau data for 2005. (I’m picking 2005 because the data I produced in my earlier comment is from the “mid-2000s”). Note that $19,800 would be just about the *median* income for Sweden and France in those years – countries which I believe are often held up by progressives as models for how the US should order its society and economy. It’s *way* higher than the median income in the Czech Republic. Does that mean that what we consider poverty here is considered normal there? Do half of the people in France and Sweden, and way more than half the people in the Czech Republic, live in poverty?
All this is to wonder about the basis for measurement used in that Nolan and Marx graph. Please understand that the last thing I want to do is dismiss the problem of poverty in the US.
Jim, $19800 will go a much longer way if your country fully provides for health care, free education even at the university level, and retirement…
Leaving aside the issue of whether or not I think Prof. Penalver (and others) have accurately portrayed Ryan’s arguments with respect to spending (I do not, but the arguments have been made repeatedly on this topic), I think the chart as described here (I have not seen the chart in the original source book) doesn’t accurately account for various factors. I want to point out two in particular: population size and homogeneity, and cultural issues.
Regarding the population size, it strikes me as no accident that the three countries in the uppermost left corner are three of the top 20 most populated countries, and by a long shot. Indeed, I would imagine (doing the rough figures in my head) that the combined population of those three countries is vastly larger than the combined popular of the 5 or 6 countries in the bottom right.
Related to population size are questions of culture, and these questions, it seems to me, complicate generalizations about “government spending.” For example, take Mexico and the US. One couldn’t imagine more different cultural attitudes with respect to government corruption, waste, etc. And of course Americans are famous for having wildly different attitudes towards work, and vastly more tolerance for risk associated with entrepreneurism, etc. than do the Scandinavian countries grouped in the bottom right. And of course even as our economy has slowed, polling showings larger numbers of Americans becoming more economically/fiscally conservative, etc.
Just some random thoughts that muddy these waters, for me at least.
One of the biggest transfers of money comes in the form of tax deductible mortgage interest and charitable contributions. These deductions put more money in the pockets of those lucky enough to have mortgages and the ability to make charitable contributions. The transfer comes in the retention of money and is paid for by the taxes of those not lucky enough to have these deductions.
That, friends, is middle class welfare. But that’s OK, I guess, because the mortgage paying, charity contributing “middle class” is making a contribution to society and the lower-than-middle classes who don’t/can’t do that are just a drain on society, so shouldn’t be coddled.
And for Lord’s sake, do NOT give them Obamacare! Or even Medicaid. The next thing you know is that they’ll start to expect good health as a right. Can’t have that, either: good health belongs to their betters who can pay for it, or get their employers to pay for it.
Promoting functional literacy among poor people and schoolchildren in the United States would probably be the most effective way to fight poverty in the United States.
But the political will to do this does not exist at the present time.
Any thoughts about how to turn the tide on this?
Not to take away from the serious poverty issues we have in this country, but the flip side of that is our over consumption. Some of us (I was one), always thought the goal was to bring everyone else up to our standard of living here.
I followed an online Lenten practice this year, Lent 4.5. The “4.5″ is the number of acres each person would have to meet all of their needs if we divided up the Earth equally; according to the website, Americans on average consume 22.3 acres, much more than our fair share.
I have no idea where those figures came from, so can’t defend them, but it does make a lot of sense to me, that we are consuming way too much. In addition to trying to see that those who lack can get what they need, I think we will need to also give some things up, and I imagine the latter is a much harder sell.
Irene –
Irene –
The accelerating draining of energy sources is the greatest practical problem facing this country. But can you imagine the average American giving up his/her 2,500-3,00 pound, energy-guzzling car? Americans have known for decades that these monsters are doomed. Yet we do not insist on laws limiting the size and energy efficiency of personal vehicles.
We are the ones who deserve what our young people are going to have to suffer, and that’s why they are going to hate us when the consequences of our greed come to pass. It can only get worse.
And the energy problems can be solved only by the federal government. No state can afford to support the R&D necessary to develop alternate energy sources. Fracking is only a partical solution, and it’s only a stop-gap, plus an ecologically damaging one at that.
But, again, Americans have great trouble investing large amounts of money in what is needed to maintain our standard of living. It has already deteriorated severely — just as any old person who remembers what quality products really are.
“Jim, $19800 will go a much longer way if your country fully provides for health care, free education even at the university level, and retirement…”
Claire, that is very true, and the supplemental poverty measure that Irene called to our attention takes some of those programs into account.
It may also be worth noting that Americans below the poverty threshold, generally speaking, do qualify for full health care via Medicaid, free primary public education, and need-based scholarships for college – in fact, that poverty threshold is used by at least some programs as a qualifier. I don’t doubt that Europeans, at least some countries, deliver more comprehensive benefits in this regard and at a lower cost. And most retirees in the US are expected to save for their own retirement, with perhaps some contribution from the employer(s) and some help from the federal government via Social Security.
But we learned during the health care debate that, in the US, it is the next step up from full-blown poverty that is “gapped out” for health care: self-employed workers, part-time workers and employees of small businesses frequently don’t receive health care benefits from their employer, can’t afford private insurance, and don’t qualify for government assistance. And folks in these income brackets may need to take on substantial debt to fund their college educations.
“I followed an online Lenten practice this year, Lent 4.5.”
Irene, this sounds like a great way to practice solidarity. Can you point us to the site?
Hello Jim- Lent 4.5 is run by the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center, Louisville KY. The website has the materials from Lent just passed. http://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/lent45/
Jim P., Just a quick point about your 12:05 pm comment today. I can’t give details, but the Medicaid program is in trouble in a number of states, in large part because of the financial problems states are facing. Similarly, need-based college scholarships are also in trouble. It’s al;so worthy of note that Social Security funds have largely, if not entirely, come from workers and their employers, not from general tax revenues.
In short, our “safety net” is a mess and only increased taxes will repair it. The notion that wealth growth for the well off is going to “trickle down” to solve these problems requires not mere faith but a willingness to gamble with the well being of the poor for years to come.
Let me say again that whatever money any of us has has been made possible by the political society in which we live. We could neither earn it nor keep it without the organized society that provides the necessary infrastructure, something that could not happen without the contribution of the working poor, not the least of which are immigrants, legal and otherwise. Fairness demands that we not fail to recognize, and properly compensate the huge contributions made by migrant farm workers, sanitary workers, janitors, etc.
Tangent:
For you econ wonks, here’s another chart I”The 10 things Economics Can Tell Us About Happiness”) that will help you understand how much happiness money can buy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-10-things-economics-can-tell-us-about-happiness/257947/
“Any thoughts about how to turn the tide on this?”
Simple: School choice. Minority parents, by and large, thirst for this.
Now, what are you doing to get “your” party moving?
I do not recall who said this, but I like it. Regarding who actually helps moves the economy along via hiring and new construction etc., years ago one savvy and humorous commentator quipped that he “Never made much money working for poor folks”
In a sense that is true. Primarily, either directly of indirectly, wealthy folks are the ones who hire people. Middle class folks paint their own houses; rich folks hire that out. They are the ones who either build new houses or provide the money for middle class folks to build houses.
The poor will always be with us of course, and we need to tend them accordingly. Also, keep in mind that when you give a man a fish, you feed him for one day, and when you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.
Too many folks it seems have jumped into the “I am working for the poor” – by working for the federal government – bandwagon.
To take two simple examples of “helping the poor” that seem to be just too much, in California we have things like “free” telephones with big buttons and amplified headsets for hearing impaired folks. Those phones probably cost about $50 in the store or on-line, but by the time they are waltzed through the CA state bureaucracy, they probably cost more like $300.
We also have “free” breakfast in the public schools. Now of course, if grandma needs a special phone, her family should buy her one, and wasting time during the school day serving everyone free breakfast is nonsense.
My son’s school day starts at 8 am and ends at 2:15 pm, during which time they serve breakfast (around 8 am) and lunch around 11:30 am. He always has some snack to get him going beforehand and so does not need extra breakfast.
Our state is quite short of money – tens of billions of dollars short each year – and that cannot continue. During these tough, tight money days, “free” phones and “free” breakfast cereal for kids (many of whom are too chubby anyway) do not seem like wise expenditures. In these two cases anyway, subsidiarity means the family or the local church or some civic group buys grandma a special phone, and parents give kids something to eat at home before heading off to school.
Ken –
You seem to have no idea what it means to be poor in the U.S. And you have no idea of how many poor people there actually are here. You have a rosy, formed by TV commercials/movies image of America. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a great movie. It does not portray the American poor. Try “The Grapes of Wrath” instead.
You almost make my point for me Ann; we have so many programs that in fact do not “tend the poor”. Handing out special telephones and serving breakfast cereal at school are things communities can provide locally. Those sorts of government programs are not “for the poor”. Rather, some government types use that phrasing in order to get tax money allocated to nonsensical federal and state programs that only help government bureaucrats and bureaucratic kingdom builders.
That new article about Padre Alejandro Solalinde (by Matthew Boudway) is an example of someone really helping poor people.
Those who are really, truly poor, are not helped by government waste and nonsense.
And you are correct Ann; one cannot form any sort of accurate view of a country (USA or otherwise) via TV and/or the movies. It must be more real than anything Hollywood can produce.
@Ken (6/11, 2:40 pm) So if you’re opposed to giving the poor goods and services (e.g., telephones and school lunches), what do you support? Giving the poor cash? (Serious question.)
Adding, virtually nobody is helped by government waste and nonsense…or corporate waste and nonsense…or ecclesial waste and nonsense…or…well, you get my point.
On the other hand, children who had water for supper last night are, arguably, helped by eating breakfast at school. (And there are quite literally millions of children in our country who fell into that category during the current school year.)
Ken –
Do you not realize that millions of American children go hungry? When I was a child in the depression many children were skinny as rails because they didn’t get enough food, and their lunch at school was their only real meal of the day. That’s the sort of think that earned FDR the admiration of the poor and the Democrats their votes. And there are still millions of poor kids here.
I do think that a distinction has to be made between helping the poor and making life better for millions. The question becomes: what sort of common good services are good ideas if not requirements? As a deaf old woman I can appreciate the need for a special phone. And I can see where they help keep frail old people who can’t afford them out of nursing homes. If you’re very deaf and very frail, but don’t have a phone to call the doctor or emergency help, you can easily end up in a nursing home sooner than need-be. So I think such programs are for the common good — they delay the necessity to put some old folks in homes, not to mention reducing the stress of the old folks’ children who worry about their parents without phones. (Unless you’re very old, you probably don’t realize how important phones are for many reasons.)
Luke charged, and asked; “So if you’re opposed to giving the poor goods and services (e.g., telephones and school lunches), what do you support?”
One thing “I support” is not putting words into other people’s mouths. If you actually read my post, “…we have so many programs that in fact do not “tend the poor”. Handing out special telephones and serving breakfast cereal at school are things communities can provide locally. Those sorts of government programs are not “for the poor”. Rather, some government types use that phrasing in order to get tax money allocated to nonsensical federal and state programs that only help government bureaucrats and bureaucratic kingdom builders.
That new article about Padre Alejandro Solalinde (by Matthew Boudway) is an example of someone really helping poor people.
Those who are really, truly poor, are not helped by government waste and nonsense.”
That is what “I support”.
Luke, you and others like you fall into emotive decision making by falling for any Huey Long type politico who claims to be “worried about the poor” when in fact they are just handing out jobs to their chronies or feathering their own nests.
You and others like you are well-intentioned, but in your naiveté you seem to fall for any public spending scheme. Then you pout when those like me take a cold, logical look at the matter and point out that in fact, nonsensical or wasteful public spending does not help the poor; you start bawling that I and those like me are “opposed to giving the poor goods and services”.
Wow – where to start with that one?
Per Ann “Do you not realize that millions of American children go hungry? When I was a child in the depression many children were skinny as rails because they didn’t get enough food, and their lunch at school was their only real meal of the day. …”
Please Ann, kids are fatter now than ever. FDR was president more than 70 years ago and the country has changed a lot since then. Very few Americans are “skinny as rails” due to lack of food, and there simply is no need for all children to be served breakfast cereal during school hours.
Rather than wasting a half hour serving breakfast, the schools would do better to have a half hour of reading, math, or physical exercise.
As for the phones, I understand the need for them; I just think that individual families can buy them rather than the government.
Ken, it seems to me that you don’t want the government to provide any social services, but (if I understand correctly) you want instead individuals and private charity to be in charge of that. I don’t know why you are so confident that things would work out better that way. Certainly, whenever there is a gap in social services, what I see is primarily people in need who are not provided for, rather than their neighbors stepping in to fill the gaps. Sure, some people do step in, but not enough by far to fulfill basic needs. I don’t see what warrants your confidence.
@Ken (6/12, 9:43 am) Thanks for your response. Do I understand you to say you support, for example, school lunches for the poor, but only if the lunches are paid for by local taxes?
If so, what do you propose for communities that have a low tax base and a high percentage of children from impoverished families. Should those children have free meals at school, and if so, who should pay for them?
If not, what do you propose for how hungry, impoverished schoolchildren in the US should be fed?
P.S. I apologize for misreading your earlier statement (6/11, 2:40 pm).
Luke and Claire, I think it best for government to focus money where it does the best. The two things I cite are only examples of spending gone awry.
Years back (again for example), I think it was in the early-mid 1990’s, someone dug up some old wool subsidy program that was started back in WW1 or WW2 for make sure the military had enough wool for uniforms. The wars ended, but the government program lived on well into the 1990’s, with USDA wool expert bureaucrats mindlessly going through their routine of processing wool production reports and doling out federal checks to sheep herders. Likewise there was a helium or hydrogen reserve, to be used for military dirigibles, when in fact nobody flew them much after WW2!
CA schools and free phone programs are not alone; the federal government reeks with this sort of nonsense. The military is chock full of idiotic expenditures.
Like old Reagan said more than once; “The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program.”
The government should first cover the thing for which they are obviously responsible; the obvious common good. Governments are good at roads, and bridges, and they should responsibly provide for a standing army. The federal government should administer national vaccination programs. Local government should properly tend local roads and water and (in some cases) lighting & power systems.
The federal government should tend to large hydro projects and managing the national parks system. The feds are responsible for social security and Medicare systems, but it does not quite have the hang of it yet. State governments should tend school – without the “help” of federal monies.
Once the government gets back to properly – and within budget – tending the things for which they are obviously responsible, only then can we reasonably consider adding to its workload.
@Ken (6/12, 4:18 pm) Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful response. And thanks for listing some of government’s core responsibilities, as you see them.
Returning now to the issue of impoverished children arriving at school having had water for supper the night before (a real-life example). What, if anything, do you think government (federal, state, or local) should do?
(By the way, helium reserves? It turns out that helium is a key element used for cooling MRI machines and there’s now concern that—having sold off so much of the reserve supply—we’re running out.) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/07/17/117738/last-us-federal-helium-reserve.html
The problem today is children tend to be heavy, not skinny. In fact I hard Mrs. Obama on NPR this morning talking about her efforts aimed at addressing the growing problem of childhood obesity.
For the relatively few children in the USA who have water for supper and breakfast, and arrive at school famished, of course some provision should and most likely can be made locally to provide for them.
Keep in mind however, that the fact that 2 kids in a thousand (for example) do not have enough to eat, that does not justify spending the sort of money and wasting the amount of school time serving breakfast to all the school children as they do in our (CA) schools.
Give the breakfast to the kids who need it; not to everybody.
As for the listing of government’s core responsibilities, you are correct in that it is only a partial listing. The government has much to do (e.g. FAA, ICC, USDA, etc.), but it should not be tasked to do everything, and where we do employ government, it should be limited done wisely.
Oops
“… limited and done wisely.”
Thanks for another fine answer (although currently the numbers of hungry children, over the course of a school year, are closer to 1 in 10 than 2 in 1,000).
If the school lunch program were a state-funded program, as opposed to a federally funded program, that probably wouldn’t make much difference for hungry children in my state. Mississippi and Texas are another story, I imagine, but we probably don’t need to get into that at this late point in the day.
Also worth nothing for another conversation: some of the federal functions you identify (e.g., USDA food safety program), as well as some others we’d likely agree on (e.g., investigating and prosecuting financial crimes) are under-funded…and not because we’re spending too much on school lunches ($2.77 per meal is the cap, last I knew).
Ken –
My brother is a sheep-farmer (or, as he likes to style himself, a shepherd :-) How can he get that government subsidy? I’ve never heard of such a thing.