“The Three Biggest Right-Wing Lies About Poverty”: So Why Do So Many Right-Wing Republicans Tell These Lies?
Rather than confront poverty by extending jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed, endorsing a higher minimum wage, or supporting jobs programs, conservative Republicans are taking a different tack.
They’re peddling three big lies about poverty. To wit:
Lie #1: Economic growth reduces poverty.
“The best anti-poverty program,” wrote Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, in the Wall Street Journal, “is economic growth.”
Wrong. Since the late 1970s, the economy has grown 147 percent per capita but almost nothing has trickled down. The typical American worker is earning just about what he or she earned three decades ago, adjusted for inflation.
Meanwhile, the share of Americans in poverty remains around 15 percent. That’s even higher than it was in the early 1970s.
How can the economy have grown so much while most people’s wages go nowhere and the poor remain poor? Because almost all the gains have gone to the top.
Research by Immanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty shows that forty years ago the richest 1 percent of Americans got 9 percent of total income. Today they get over 20 percent.
It’s true that redistributing income to the needy is politically easier in a growing economy than in a stagnant one. One reason so many in today’s middle class are reluctant to pay taxes to help the poor is their own incomes are dropping.
But the lesson we should have learned from the past three decades is economic growth by itself doesn’t reduce poverty.
Lie #2: Jobs reduce poverty.
Senator Marco Rubio said poverty is best addressed not by raising the minimum wage or giving the poor more assistance but with “reforms that encourage and reward work.”
This has been the standard Republican line ever since Ronald Reagan declared that the best social program is a job. A number of Democrats have adopted it as well. But it’s wrong.
Surely it’s better to be poor and working than to be poor and unemployed. Evidence suggests jobs are crucial not only to economic well-being but also to self-esteem. Long-term unemployment can even shorten life expectancy.
But simply having a job is no bulwark against poverty. In fact, across America the ranks of the working poor have been growing. Around one-fourth of all American workers are now in jobs paying below what a full-time, full-year worker needs in order to live above the federally defined poverty line for a family of four.
Why are more people working but still poor? First of all, more jobs pay lousy wages.
While low-paying industries such as retail and fast food accounted for 22 percent of the jobs lost in the Great Recession, they’ve generated 44 percent of the jobs added since then, according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project.
Second, the real value of the minimum wage continues to drop. This has affected female workers more than men because more women are at the minimum wage.
Third, government assistance now typically requires recipients to be working. This hasn’t meant fewer poor people. It’s just meant more poor people have jobs.
Bill Clinton’s welfare reform of 1996 pushed the poor into jobs, but they’ve been mostly low-wage jobs without ladders into the middle class. The Earned Income Tax Credit, a wage subsidy, has been expanded, but you have to be working in order to qualify.
Work requirements haven’t reduced the number or percent of Americans in poverty. They’ve merely increased the number of working poor — a term that should be an oxymoron.
Lie #3: Ambition cures poverty.
Most Republicans, unlike Democrats and independents, believe people are poor mainly because of a lack of effort, according to a Pew Research Center/USA Today survey. It’s a standard riff of the right: If the poor were more ambitious they wouldn’t be poor.
Obviously, personal responsibility is important. But there’s no evidence that people who are poor are less ambitious than anyone else. In fact, many work long hours at backbreaking jobs.
What they really lack is opportunity. It begins with lousy schools.
America is one of only three advanced countries that spends less on the education of poorer children than richer ones, according to a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Among the 34 O.E.C.D. nations, only in the United States, Israel and Turkey do schools serving poor neighborhoods have fewer teachers and crowd students into larger classrooms than do schools serving more privileged students. In most countries, it’s just the reverse: Poor neighborhoods get more teachers per student.
And unlike most OECD countries, America doesn’t put better teachers in poorly performing schools,
So why do so many right-wing Republicans tell these three lies? Because they make it almost impossible to focus on what the poor really need – good-paying jobs, adequate safety nets, and excellent schools.
These things cost money. Lies are cheaper.
By: Robert Reich, The Robert Reich Blog, June 13, 2 014
“Red Flags In His Closet”: Jindal Repudiates His Communist Past
The shamelessness of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is not a topic I have arbitrarily chosen to emphasize at this blog. It’s just that the man provides so many fresh outrages so often.
It’s old news by now that in the course of this year’s Louisiana legislative session, Jindal has flip-flopped entirely on the Common Core education initiative that he and his state once championed. But rather than quietly checking a box on the subject for his vetting by conservative activists once he formally launches his 2016 presidential campaign, Bobby’s now howling at the moon, per this report from the Times-Pic‘s Julia O’Donoghue:
After weeks of ratcheting up the anti-Common Core rhetoric, Gov. Bobby Jindal issued some of his most blistering remarks on the academic standards yet Wednesday night (May 21).
“We support higher standards and rigor in the classroom, but every day, concern among parents is growing over Common Core. The feds are taking over and rushing this. Let’s face it: centralized planning didn’t work in Russia, it’s not working with our health care system and it won’t work in education. Education is best left to local control,” said Jindal through a written statement.
Russia? Russia?
This is so over the top that even Louisiana Republicans who have long supported Jindal are protesting, like his staunch ally as head of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Chas Roemer:
Common Core backers say Jindal’s remarks about the academic standards have become more about national politics than local education policy. The governor is expected to launch a 2016 presidential campaign and he has his eye on Iowa caucus goers more than Louisiana citizens, said Chas Roemer, president of state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“This is presidential politics,” said Roemer, a Common Core supporter, about the governor’s statement. “This is the politics of our governor, who is running for president.”
Jindal was a Common Core backer as recently as a year ago. Louisiana became one of over 40 states to officially adopt Common Core back in 2010. The academic benchmarks were developed through a collaboration of governors and education officials from states across the country, including Jindal.
So if Common Core is indeed part of a commie plot, Jindal has some red flags in his own closet, along with an exorcism.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, May 23, 2014
“Brokenhearted On Mother’s Day”: This Isn’t A Nice World For Some Children — Or Their Mothers
Eight-year-old Martin “Marty” Cobb of Virginia won’t be with his mother on Mother’s Day.
On May Day, Marty was playing with his 12-year-old sister near their home in South Richmond when a 16-year-old boy appeared. According to media accounts, the teenager attempted to assault Marty’s big sister. When Marty tried to protect her, the teenager allegedly hit the little boy in the head with a rock, killing him. Marty, said to be small for his age, is being praised by his relatives and neighbors for standing up to the older boy. “He’s a hero,” his mother said.
An ocean separates Marty’s family from 300 girls at the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School in northeastern Nigeria. As with Marty and his sister, though, the girls were where they belonged when unrestrained horror entered their lives.
The girls were preparing to take final exams three weeks ago when armed men in uniforms burst into their dormitory.
A local official had received a warning that 20 pickup trucks and more than 30 motorcycles carrying men with weapons were headed to town, and he alerted the 15 soldiers guarding the school. But the soldiers, like Marty, were outmatched. They ran out of ammunition and couldn’t fend off the assault.
About 250 girls were abducted, driven away into the woods. Forty or 50 more reportedly escaped.
You have to think of the mothers.
All of those empty arms. All of those broken hearts. The misery, the sorrow, the desolation.
Who was it that separated Marty from his mom?
The 16-year-old charged in Marty’s death also was charged in an attack on a 3-year-old boy in 2010, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
According to court documents obtained by the newspaper from the victim’s family, the teen, who was 12 at the time, hit the 3-year-old in the head with the back side of a hammer. The little boy had been lured into a home with the promise of a hot dog, a family member told the newspaper, and then was choked and struck. The boy underwent an emergency operation in which a metal plate was placed in his skull, reported the Times-Dispatch. A law enforcement source, the newspaper said, confirmed the details.
The older child was scheduled to receive mental health treatment in connection with that incident.
One of Marty’s neighbors told the newspaper that the teenager’s mother had tried to get help for her troubled son but had a hard time doing so. The neighbor said the teenager’s mother has apologized to Marty’s family.
A juvenile-court judge has ordered the 16-year-old to remain in custody and set another hearing for May 20.
And so it goes on the streets of South Richmond this Mother’s Day.
It goes even worse in northern Nigeria.
The kidnappers operate under the name Boko Haram, which means, roughly, “Western education is sinful.” Given that belief, it follows that the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School is a sinful place and that the students studying inside are sinners. So simple, so sinister, so stupid.
So Boko Haram took the girls captive and set fire to their school dorm. Boko Haram’s leader, Abubaker Shekau, called the girls “slaves” and threatened to sell them in a marriage market.
As we celebrate Mother’s Day on these shores, think of the parents of the kidnapped girls who pooled their money, bought fuel for their vehicles and launched a search of their own for their daughters.
Put yourself in their place as they learn from villagers that some of the kidnapped girls have been forced into “marriage” with their kidnappers or have been sold for a bride price of $12.
“She is my first-born, the best,” one anguished mother told the Associated Press. “What am I to do as a mother?”
This isn’t a nice world for some children — or their mothers. And most, like the mom in South Richmond and mothers of the missing Nigerian girls, don’t have the luxury of falling to pieces. They can’t just drop back, go out like a light. They have other children to raise; they have to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. For them it’s all in, waging everything.
Oh, how we honor motherhood.
By: Colbert I. King, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, May 9, 2014
“Only One Of Many”: Missouri Keeps Tumbling Rightward
The Missouri legislature had no trouble passing a big tax cut today over the veto of Gov. Jay Nixon. As a Missouri native, I’m probably more irritated by this than most Times readers are, but my state is only one of many that have been sharply pulled to the right in the last few years. What’s happening in Jefferson City is already familiar to residents of Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, North Carolina, and many others.
The main difference is that Mr. Nixon is a Democrat, a relic of the days when his party dominated the state. But Republican leaders are working on that. Last month, they had a serious debate in the House on whether the governor should be impeached for allowing same-sex married couples to file joint tax returns. Gay and lesbian people can’t get married to each other in Missouri, which has a constitutional amendment prohibiting it, but Mr. Nixon had the temerity to allow the joint returns for couples married elsewhere.
“This is such a blatant and serious violation of Missouri’s constitution and Missouri law that the governor should be removed from office,” said Nick Marshall, a state representative from Parkville.
In case that didn’t work, there was another impeachment resolution filed that would have ousted Mr. Nixon for failing to properly discipline state workers who released a list of concealed gun permits to the federal government. The resolution began, “Whereas, the people of the State of Missouri cherish their right to bear arms…” and went downhill from there.
A few weeks ago, the legislature approved a measure that would nullify all federal gun laws and allow residents to sue federal agents for enforcing them. It carries no legal weight, and Mr. Nixon vetoed something similar last year, but the true believers apparently feel the need to re-establish their credentials repeatedly.
Although the impeachment efforts were dropped today, Republicans have managed to push through their agenda. As a Kansas City Star editorial noted, today’s tax cut doesn’t even benefit the people who could use the money the most. A family making $44,000 a year will get a $32 break, while one making $1 million will get $7,800. Most of the benefits, in fact, go to one special-interest group.
“It is a gift to businesses whose owners declare their business incomes on their personal tax forms,” the Star wrote. “Up to one-fourth of their income could eventually be tax-free if the bill becomes law, whether or not they create jobs.”
Naturally, Missouri isn’t coming close to fully funding its public school and university system, and is one of 20 states that refuses to expand Medicaid, turning down $2.2 billion from the federal government because that would mean accepting the reality of the Affordable Care Act. But when businesses raise their voices for a tax cut, they are answered.
It’s not the state I grew up in, which is exactly the way a new generation of leaders like it.
By: David Firestone, Editors Blog, The New York Times, May 6, 2014
“Hot Air Is Cheap”: Paul Ryan’s Culture Attack Is An Excuse To Do Nothing About Poverty
Blaming poverty on the mysterious influence of “culture” is a convenient excuse for doing nothing to address the problem.
That’s the real issue with what Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said about distressed inner-city communities. Critics who accuse him of racism are missing the point. What he’s really guilty of is providing a reason for government to throw up its hands in mock helplessness.
The fundamental problem that poor people have, whether they live in decaying urban neighborhoods or depressed Appalachian valleys or small towns of the Deep South, is not enough money.
Alleviating stubborn poverty is difficult and expensive. Direct government aid — money, food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance and the like — is not enough. Poor people need employment that offers a brighter future for themselves and their children. Which means they need job skills. Which means they need education. Which means they need good schools and safe streets.
The list of needs is dauntingly long, and it’s hard to know where to start — or where the money for all the needed interventions will come from. It’s much easier to say that culture is ultimately to blame. But since there’s no step-by-step procedure for changing a culture, we end up not doing anything.
This is what Ryan said in a radio interview: “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”
What exactly does he mean by culture? In the context of “our inner cities,” Ryan can’t be talking about rap music and baggy pants. If so, he ought to visit any high school in any affluent suburb, where he will find kids listening to the same music and wearing the same clothes — kids who will grow up to be doctors and lawyers.
Is he talking about the breakdown of family structure? To me, that’s looking suspiciously more like effect than cause. As President Obama has noted, the rise in out-of-wedlock births and single-parent households seen years ago among African Americans is now being seen among whites, especially in communities hit hard by economic dislocation.
Ryan surely can’t be talking about the use of illegal drugs, since most surveys indicate that young blacks and Hispanics are no more likely to be drug users than are young whites.
Ryan refers specifically to “the value and the culture of work,” and he may be onto something — almost. His description of “just generations of men not even thinking about working” is ridiculous. That would be like demanding to know what cultural shortcoming keeps me from spending time thinking about sailing my mega yacht to my private island.
In depressed urban and rural communities, there is an acute shortage of meaningful work. There was a time when young men who didn’t plan to go to college could anticipate finding blue-collar work at “the plant” nearby — maybe a steel mill, maybe an assembly line. There they could have job security, enough income to keep a roof over a family’s head, a pension when they retired. Their children, who would go to college, could expect lives of greater accomplishment and affluence.
This was how the “culture of work” functioned. How is it supposed to happen without work?
Confronting the devastation suffered by what used to be working-class communities is hard; adjusting to post-globalization economic realities is harder. Say the word culture and you sound erudite and concerned, especially if you drop the name of the Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington, who described world affairs as a clash of civilizations with different cultural values.
My problem is that when you identify something so amorphous as culture as the fundamental issue, you excuse yourself for not proposing concrete solutions.
As you might have gathered, I’m suspicious of the cultural hypothesis as a way to explain who succeeds and who doesn’t. I believe outcomes mostly depend on opportunities and that people are much less likely to engage in self-destructive behavior if they see opportunities that make sense to them.
If we had universal pre- kindergarten that fed all children into high-quality schools, if we had affordable higher education, if we incentivized industry to invest in troubled communities — if people had options for which they were prepared — culture would take care of itself.
But all of that is expensive. Hot air, as Paul Ryan knows, is cheap.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, March 24, 2014
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