“Creating Straw Politicians”: Scott Walker And The GOP Are Wrong About The Safety Net
It’s back and Democrats are going to have to deal with it. I’m talking about the political argument that they want to lure as many people as possible into government dependency.
This is a staple of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s incipient presidential campaign, and he frames it as simple common sense. “Oftentimes when I think about the president and people like Hillary Clinton, I hear people who I think measure success in government by how many people are dependent on the government. By how many people are on food stamps and Medicaid and unemployment,” he said this week at the Florida Economic Growth Summit in Orlando. “I don’t know about all of you, but my belief in America is that we should measure success by just the opposite.”
Walker added: “I don’t remember any of my classmates saying to me ‘Hey, Scott, someday when I grow up, I want to become dependent on the government.’ Nobody signed my yearbook ‘Dear Scott, Good luck becoming dependent on the government.’”
Very funny, and a lot more appealing than Mitt Romney’s assertion that 47 percent of the electorate is dependent on government and will never take responsibility for themselves. The problem with Walker’s formulation, however, is that he’s creating straw politicians. President Obama and Clinton and practically everyone in their party — in fact both parties — talk incessantly about education, job creation, income inequality, and how to increase wages. That doesn’t sound like a yearning for Handout Nation. It sounds like people obsessing over how to make America a country of tubs standing on their own bottoms.
I’m not saying that Democrats haven’t given Republicans ammunition. The 2012 Obama campaign’s “Life of Julia” cartoon slideshow was a parody waiting to happen. From Julia’s enrollment in Head Start as a preschooler to her retirement aided by Medicare and Social Security, the sequence gave off a distinctly Soviet, cradle-to-grave vibe.
As pediatric neurosurgeon-turned GOP candidate Ben Carson put it in his announcement, “We’re not doing people a favor when we pat them on the head and say ‘there there, you poor little thing, we’re going to take care of all your needs. You don’t have to worry about anything.’ You know who else said stuff like that? Socialists.” That was less than a week after a real socialist — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — announced he was running for the Democratic nomination.
Obama came into office amid the worst recession since the Great Depression. The rolls of the three programs Walker named swelled as people lost jobs, income and health insurance. Job losses climbed to a terrifying 818,000 in January 2009, the month Obama was inaugurated. Another 2.2 million jobs were gone by the end of April. The unemployment rate was at or near 10 percent for eight months. So yes, there were a lot of people relying on government programs, for good reason. The private sector had completely failed them.
Obama’s chief economic message for years has been about sustained job creation and an unemployment rate nearly down to half its recession peak, not high enrollment in safety-net programs. Democrats do try to educate people about benefits for which they may qualify. But the goal is to get them on their feet, not lock them into dependency.
There is one area of government “dependency” that Obama and his party are proud of, and that is health insurance. The Department of Health and Human Services said this week that 10.2 million people bought private health coverage this year under the Affordable Care Act, and 85 percent of them receive federal subsidies to help pay for it. Millions more have been able to enroll in Medicaid as a result of the ACA expansion of the program to people with incomes slightly above the official poverty line. For those who believe health coverage should be universal, the numbers justify a victory lap.
People who receive insurance help, or food stamps or unemployment benefits, do indeed depend on the government — just like farmers, homeowners, corporations, and anyone else who receives subsidies or tax breaks, as well as companies that don’t provide health insurance or living wages. And just to be clear, if they are not children, disabled, or elderly, people who use the safety net often have jobs. Nearly 43 percent of all food-stamp recipients live in a household with earnings, according to the Department of Agriculture. The Kaiser Family Foundation, in a study of states that haven’t adopted the Medicaid expansion, found there are workers with full- or part-time jobs in 66 percent of the families eligible for it.
Jeb Bush has called the safety net “a spider web that traps people in perpetual dependence.” We are going to hear a lot of statements like that in the next 18 months. But that doesn’t make them true.
By: Jill Lawrence, The National Memo, June 4, 2015
“Walker Pushing Drug War Testing Scheme”: And He Doesn’t Care That The Courts Say That’s Unconstitutional
According to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, what American employers are really looking for these days is “someone who can pass a drug test.”
Walker made that remark in a question-and-answer session in Washington, D.C., Friday following his remarks at the American Action Forum’s inaugural Fred Malek lecture series, which are named after the GOP powerbroker who served as Richard Nixon’s “Jew counter”). The Wisconsin governor is expected to formally unveil the drug testing proposal in his budget next week.
The imitative would require drug testing for recipients of government benefits like food stamps and Medicaid. Walker says his plan is justified because there are many open jobs waiting for people who can pass drug tests and know “how to show up [for work] everyday five days a week.”
Walker first touted the idea while running for re-election last year, and pledged to “require a drug test for those requesting unemployment and able-bodied, working age adults requesting Food Stamps from the state.” But, sadly for Walker, the plan is almost certainly unconstitutional.
Federal courts have found that laws that require all recipients of welfare benefits to be drug tested violate the 4th Amendment as an unconstitutional search and seizure. However, states have recently passed laws that only require drug tests for those on government assistance for whom there is “a reasonable suspicion” of illegal drug use. This is considered far more likely to pass constitutional muster than blanket drug testing of everyone who applies for public assistance.
Walker did seem aware of these obstacles at the event, describing the pushback from the courts as “a classic example where the federal government pushes back and says you can’t do that.”
But even if Walker does manage to require drug testing for welfare recipients, the plan would likely be quite expensive for taxpayers. Before it was overturned in federal court, Florida’s mandatory drug test law ended up costing the state more money than it saved.
In the meantime, it does make for good political rhetoric. Very few candidates have won election on a platform giving more money to drug addicts. But Walker’s plan is unlikely to turn into effective or lasting legislation.
By: Ben Jacobs, The Daily Beast, January 30, 2015
“The Facts Aren’t On Mitch McConnell’s Side”: Sorry, GOP, Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves
As they prepare to take control of Congress, Republicans are looking to change the rules of the game. To lend budget-busting tax cuts the illusion of fiscal responsibility, conservatives would codify the notion that these cuts pay for themselves into congressional accounting rules.
Democrats should not allow this to happen. But if conservatives insist on fudging the numbers, liberals shouldn’t shy away from making creative budgetary arguments of their own.
The accounting device promoted by the right is known as “dynamic scoring,” and it’s politically significant because of the basic policy positions of the two parties. Conservatives tend to favor tax cuts, which come at the expense of social services. Liberals tend to support increasing social services, which come at the cost of higher taxation.
But conservatives have an end-run around this dynamic. They point to the Laffer curve, an economic theory proposing that we can cut tax rates without sacrificing tax revenue, thus avoiding cuts to social services. This is because tax policy has dynamic effects on the macro-economy — that is, cutting tax rates incentivizes people (and particularly high-earners, who gain the most from tax cuts) to work harder, invest more, and generate more economic growth. As the economic pie grows larger, tax revenue can remain constant even as tax rates fall.
Though logical in theory, this idea hasn’t really been borne out in practice. The Bush administration repeatedly predicted that tax cuts would boost overall revenue, but they assuredly did not. And they still don’t, as Kansans have learned during Gov. Sam Brownback’s “real live experiment” in conservative economics, which has only blown a hole in the state budget.
This is because any potential dynamic effects of tax cuts take a long time to materialize, which makes these future benefits extremely difficult to quantify today. And as Congress’ authoritative accountant, the CBO is in the business of attaching hard numbers to would-be laws.
Understandably, the CBO has resisted the uncertain and speculative math of dynamic scoring. But the underlying argument still infuses and skews our political debate. Republicans feel less constrained when proposing tax cuts, while Democrats struggle to shore up revenue sources for government service proposals.
Ostensible fiscal conservatives like Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and John Kyl (Ariz.) argue that tax cuts need not be paid for at all because they are inherently good for the economy. “[T]here’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue,” McConnell contends, in spite of overwhelming evidence that these cuts diminished revenue at historic rates.
Yet these same Republican leaders still insist that spending on unemployment benefits be accounted for by cuts or tax increases elsewhere, even though there’s little compelling economic reason to treat tax cuts and social insurance transfers like unemployment benefits differently. Both policies promote economic growth by increasing disposable income and thereby boosting consumption.
Liberals have largely failed to point this out and haven’t effectively countered conservative attacks on these transfer programs. Contrary to what Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) says, there’s no evidence that unemployment benefits reduce work ethic. And other transfer programs can be carefully structured to minimize any potential work disincentives.
Liberals can do more than play defense in these debates. They, too, can conjure creative arguments for how targeted spending programs can “pay for themselves.”
Take liberal proposals for new or expanded transfer programs like refundable tax credits, child allowances, and other income subsidies. These relieve some of the strain on the budgets of low-income and middle-class Americans. More disposable income means more consumption, which generates higher economic growth and higher overall income, producing more tax revenue. By this logic, transfer programs could pay for themselves, too.
In fact, targeted transfers to the poor and middle class would likely give a stronger immediate jolt to the economy than would tax cuts for the wealthy. Compared with the wealthy, the poor spend a much higher share of each additional dollar of disposable income that they receive, providing greater stimulus to the economy. Policy measures that alleviate inequality are thus a boon for economic growth.
This isn’t to say that liberals should sit back and let dynamic effects fund their policy priorities. Any responsible party must provide revenue sources for new tax or spending programs. But drawing on this rhetoric would level the playing field of our skewed politics. The parameters of our current debate — where liberal proposals must be paid for while conservative ones don’t — are stacked against the interests of average Americans in favor of the wealthy.
Conservatives want to muddy the numbers for our lawmaking process. For the sake of a fair debate, liberals can and must show that two can play at that game.
By: Joel Dodge, The Week, December 19, 2014
“Those Lazy Jobless”: The Urge To Blame The Victims Of A Depressed Economy Has Proved Impervious To Logic And Evidence
Last week John Boehner, the speaker of the House, explained to an audience at the American Enterprise Institute what’s holding back employment in America: laziness. People, he said, have “this idea” that “I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather just sit around.” Holy 47 percent, Batman!
It’s hardly the first time a prominent conservative has said something along these lines. Ever since a financial crisis plunged us into recession it has been a nonstop refrain on the right that the unemployed aren’t trying hard enough, that they are taking it easy thanks to generous unemployment benefits, which are constantly characterized as “paying people not to work.” And the urge to blame the victims of a depressed economy has proved impervious to logic and evidence.
But it’s still amazing — and revealing — to hear this line being repeated now. For the blame-the-victim crowd has gotten everything it wanted: Benefits, especially for the long-term unemployed, have been slashed or eliminated. So now we have rants against the bums on welfare when they aren’t bums — they never were — and there’s no welfare. Why?
First things first: I don’t know how many people realize just how successful the campaign against any kind of relief for those who can’t find jobs has been. But it’s a striking picture. The job market has improved lately, but there are still almost three million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months, the usual maximum duration of unemployment insurance. That’s nearly three times the pre-recession total. Yet extended benefits for the long-term unemployed have been eliminated — and in some states the duration of benefits has been slashed even further.
The result is that most of the unemployed have been cut off. Only 26 percent of jobless Americans are receiving any kind of unemployment benefit, the lowest level in many decades. The total value of unemployment benefits is less than 0.25 percent of G.D.P., half what it was in 2003, when the unemployment rate was roughly the same as it is now. It’s not hyperbole to say that America has abandoned its out-of-work citizens.
Strange to say, this outbreak of anti-compassionate conservatism hasn’t produced a job surge. In fact, the whole proposition that cruelty is the key to prosperity hasn’t been faring too well lately. Last week Nathan Deal, the Republican governor of Georgia, complained that many states with Republican governors have seen a rise in unemployment and suggested that the feds were cooking the books. But maybe the right’s preferred policies don’t work?
That is, however, a topic for another column. My question for today is instead one of psychology and politics: Why is there so much animus against the unemployed, such a strong conviction that they’re getting away with something, at a time when they’re actually being treated with unprecedented harshness?
Now, as anyone who has studied British policy during the Irish famine knows, self-righteous cruelty toward the victims of disaster, especially when the disaster goes on for an extended period, is common in history. Still, Republicans haven’t always been like this. In the 1930s they denounced the New Deal and called for free-market solutions — but when Alf Landon accepted the 1936 presidential nomination, he also emphasized the “plain duty” of “caring for the unemployed until recovery is attained.” Can you imagine hearing anything similar from today’s G.O.P.?
Is it race? That’s always a hypothesis worth considering in American politics. It’s true that most of the unemployed are white, and they make up an even larger share of those receiving unemployment benefits. But conservatives may not know this, treating the unemployed as part of a vaguely defined, dark-skinned crowd of “takers.”
My guess, however, is that it’s mainly about the closed information loop of the modern right. In a nation where the Republican base gets what it thinks are facts from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, where the party’s elite gets what it imagines to be policy analysis from the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation, the right lives in its own intellectual universe, aware of neither the reality of unemployment nor what life is like for the jobless. You might think that personal experience — almost everyone has acquaintances or relatives who can’t find work — would still break through, but apparently not.
Whatever the explanation, Mr. Boehner was clearly saying what he and everyone around him really thinks, what they say to each other when they don’t expect others to hear. Some conservatives have been trying to reinvent their image, professing sympathy for the less fortunate. But what their party really believes is that if you’re poor or unemployed, it’s your own fault.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, September 22, 2014
“An Ugly GOP Ideology”: Boehner Blasts America’s Unemployed As Lazy
After the 2012 elections, it was tempting to think Republicans would be a little more cautious about economic elitism and callous indifference towards those struggling to get by. But in 2014, many GOP officials have thrown caution to the wind and embraced elitism with both arms.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for example, recently defended cuts to student aid by saying, “Not everybody needs to go to Yale.” As McConnell sees it, the nation’s elite institutions of higher ed should be within reach for students from rich families – and no one else. Soon after, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a leading U.S. Senate candidate, called those who rely on the safety net as “addicts.”
And then there’s House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who appeared at the American Enterprise Institute last week to discuss the economy. Asked about Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) anti-poverty plans, Boehner was quite candid about his thoughts on the unemployed.
“I think this idea that’s been born out the last – maybe out of the economy last couple of years that, ‘You know, I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this, I think I’d just rather sit around.’ This is a very sick idea for our country.”
The Speaker’s perspective is bizarre as a matter of public policy, but I’m glad he made these comments because his candor sheds light on an ugly ideology.
When GOP lawmakers cut off extended jobless aid, on a substantive level, it seems bewildering. In recent decades, neither party even considered such radicalism with high unemployment, if for no other reason because cutting jobless aid hurts economic growth. But Boehner has offered a peek behind the curtain – the Republican argument isn’t about economics, so much as it’s about personal animosity. The Speaker and his allies seem to think there’s something wrong, and perhaps even offensive, about families struggling to get by.
It’s part of the same phenomenon that leads GOP officials to demand drug tests for those relying on the safety net. If you need a hand keeping your head above water, it may very well be the result of a drug addiction. If you want a job and can’t find one, the argument goes, the problem is almost certainly your fault – it’s because you’d “rather sit around” than work.
It stems from a school of thought that says many social-insurance programs shouldn’t exist because struggling Americans are lazy and simply don’t deserve public assistance.
I realize that evidence and substance has very little effect in this debate, but Igor Volsky explained that laziness isn’t the real problem.
Currently, there are more than two job seekers for every job opening in the country and the severity of the recession has created a long-term unemployment problem that has made many job seekers almost unemployable. Research shows that being unemployed for nine months has the same impact on your odds of getting hired as losing four full years of experience from a résumé. As a result, many people who lost their jobs have gone back to school, retired early, or continue to look for work without success.
In fact, millions of unemployed people are having a harder time finding a job since Congressional Republicans allowed the long-term unemployment benefits program to lapse. Research – and real world experience – has found that the program’s job search requirements encourage people to spend more time job hunting and helps cover essentials like internet service for job applications or gas money for interviews.
In theory, Boehner and his allies would be taking a huge risk by making comments like these in an election year. After all, if every unemployed and underemployed American turned out in the fall, furious by the implication that they’re lazy, Republicans would be in pretty big trouble.
But the Speaker and his party are confident that those struggling most probably won’t participate in the elections – and those assumptions are probably correct – so remarks like these won’t come with any consequences.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 22, 2014
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