The Republican's candidates, minus Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, gathered at a convention center here to talk about poverty on Saturday, only three weeks before voters in Iowa first get to weigh in on the presidential candidates. But still, poverty?
Not even Democrats, who by Republicans’ own admission pretty much own the subject, have dedicated this kind of campaign time to those at the very bottom of the ladder. The votes simply aren’t there. And that’s especially true for Republicans.
What’s going on? Those on the left will argue that Republicans offer nothing more than a poison pill to pre-empt effective actions to help the poor.
But conservatives have a coherent theory about the causes of America’s entrenched poverty that fits well with their underlying worldview: it’s largely the government’s fault.
The War on Poverty, started by President Lyndon B. Johnson half a century ago, failed to end it, they say, even after spending trillions of dollars. Moreover, welfare weakened the poor’s moral spine. It sapped their self-reliance, undermined their belief in family. The fear of losing benefits entangled the poor in a web of dependency, deterring them from seeking jobs.
Moderated by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has made poverty a signature issue, Republican candidates unequivocally proclaimed that conservatism offers a better shot at pulling people up from the bottom. The first, most critical step is to get the federal government out of the poverty business, take the money from federal welfare programs and hand it to the states, which are closer to the problem and will have better ideas.
“From the government standpoint, we have actually been building a trap,” Mr. Ryan said.
Trouble is, the evidence doesn’t much mesh with this view.
Just for starters, the United States has some of the most industrious workers among rich nations, at least measured by the amount of hours they work.
Americans still suffer from poverty rates that would be unacceptable in any other advanced country. Yet, failing to recognize that capitalism by itself does not lift all boats, the United States spends less on the social safety net than most of them.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
It’s true that there are way too many poor Americans. But the conservative argument that the War on Poverty failed because the official poverty rate is stuck where it was 50 years ago is wrong. When the effects of government taxes and transfers, as well as changing consumption patterns, are included, poverty has declined considerably, researchers have found.
There are nuggets worth mining. Mr. Ryan, like President Obama, supports expanding the earned-income tax credit — a wage subsidy largely limited to poor working parents — to make it more generous to childless adults. On another front, the candidates at the forum here in Columbia highlighted how the draconian incarceration policies embraced on both sides of the ideological divide in the last several decades have helped entrench poverty.
Moreover, the standard Republican prescription that government help must be attached to employment could fit a bipartisan antipoverty program, as long as there were a way to exempt those incapable of working and to ensure that there were in fact jobs for the poor to do.
But the chief problem is with the core prescription at the center of Mr. Ryan’s antipoverty strategy. Turning most federal programs into a block grant for the states was already tried, 20 years ago. And it failed, leaving millions of poor people in the lurch when the economy turned sour.
The “federalist” approach is particularly hard to stomach when so many Republican governors are refusing to expand Medicaid even when the federal government offers to pick up the bill. Relieving hardship among the poor does not seem to be a priority.
For Republicans to retake the White House, they need to come up with something more than bromides.
As America becomes more diverse, many Republican strategists recognize that the party must break out of its box of mainly white and mostly wealthier Americans. Democrats hold a consistent edge among nonwhite voters and voters with family incomes up to $50,000 a year, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. Voters only break for Republicans at incomes above $75,000.
“We as Republicans have to go back to campaigning in places where we are uncomfortable,” argued Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who ended his campaign last month, offered brief remarks in welcoming the group to his home state. “We as Republicans have a problem demographically,” he said. “We do not do well with lower-income Americans because they think the Republican Party does not have their interests at heart.”
The growing concentration of income at the top over the last 30 to 40 years is making it increasingly difficult to ignore the lopsided distribution of economic spoils. “The American idea is that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life,” Mr. Ryan said. “There are a lot of people who do not believe it is there for them.”
Republicans will try, but it is becoming hard for them to simply make the case for more growth, supposedly stimulated by more tax cuts, counting on its fruits to be shared widely. They will have a hard time arguing that a growing income gap will naturally spur workers to improve their education.
Unwilling to tackle inequality per se — to view society as pitting the top 1 percent against the rest — the thinkers in the party have turned to poverty as a challenge with which they can more readily engage.
“The conservative movement has not been involved enough in poverty and has given over the entire territory to the left,” said Arthur C. Brooks, president of the nonprofit American Enterprise Institute, which co-sponsored the event, organized by the Jack Kemp Foundation.
“We know that if conservatives capture the traits that are typically associated with liberals — empathy and compassion — that fact will swing independent, persuadable voters by 10 percentage points to the right,” Mr. Brooks argued. “That’s not something that can win. It’s the only thing that will.”
Still, it is going to be difficult to pull this off, because many Republicans, particularly those who are financing the campaign, care more about other things.
Consider the huge tax cuts offered up by most Republican candidates. Jeb Bush’s plan would cost $5.8 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee would also reduce tax revenue by billions, the center estimated, while John Kasich’s proposal would have an indeterminate impact. Of the six who made it to Columbia, only Chris Christie is offering a revenue-neutral plan.
All of them provide most of their benefits to the rich.
Meanwhile, the House Republicans’ 2016 budget plan, drafted largely by Mr. Ryan, includes some $3 trillion, over 10 years, in cuts to programs that serve people of limited means.
As an antipoverty strategy, it’s impossible to square the circle of the largess of Republican tax plans and military spending plans with their parsimony everywhere else. As Senator Rubio of Florida noted: “What the other side is going to say is the Republicans, the conservatives, they are just looking to gut the antipoverty programs.”
Yes, they will. And Republicans’ priorities are helping the other side make its case.
Source : New York Times
Not even Democrats, who by Republicans’ own admission pretty much own the subject, have dedicated this kind of campaign time to those at the very bottom of the ladder. The votes simply aren’t there. And that’s especially true for Republicans.
What’s going on? Those on the left will argue that Republicans offer nothing more than a poison pill to pre-empt effective actions to help the poor.
But conservatives have a coherent theory about the causes of America’s entrenched poverty that fits well with their underlying worldview: it’s largely the government’s fault.
The War on Poverty, started by President Lyndon B. Johnson half a century ago, failed to end it, they say, even after spending trillions of dollars. Moreover, welfare weakened the poor’s moral spine. It sapped their self-reliance, undermined their belief in family. The fear of losing benefits entangled the poor in a web of dependency, deterring them from seeking jobs.
Moderated by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has made poverty a signature issue, Republican candidates unequivocally proclaimed that conservatism offers a better shot at pulling people up from the bottom. The first, most critical step is to get the federal government out of the poverty business, take the money from federal welfare programs and hand it to the states, which are closer to the problem and will have better ideas.
“From the government standpoint, we have actually been building a trap,” Mr. Ryan said.
Trouble is, the evidence doesn’t much mesh with this view.
Just for starters, the United States has some of the most industrious workers among rich nations, at least measured by the amount of hours they work.
Americans still suffer from poverty rates that would be unacceptable in any other advanced country. Yet, failing to recognize that capitalism by itself does not lift all boats, the United States spends less on the social safety net than most of them.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
It’s true that there are way too many poor Americans. But the conservative argument that the War on Poverty failed because the official poverty rate is stuck where it was 50 years ago is wrong. When the effects of government taxes and transfers, as well as changing consumption patterns, are included, poverty has declined considerably, researchers have found.
There are nuggets worth mining. Mr. Ryan, like President Obama, supports expanding the earned-income tax credit — a wage subsidy largely limited to poor working parents — to make it more generous to childless adults. On another front, the candidates at the forum here in Columbia highlighted how the draconian incarceration policies embraced on both sides of the ideological divide in the last several decades have helped entrench poverty.
Moreover, the standard Republican prescription that government help must be attached to employment could fit a bipartisan antipoverty program, as long as there were a way to exempt those incapable of working and to ensure that there were in fact jobs for the poor to do.
But the chief problem is with the core prescription at the center of Mr. Ryan’s antipoverty strategy. Turning most federal programs into a block grant for the states was already tried, 20 years ago. And it failed, leaving millions of poor people in the lurch when the economy turned sour.
The “federalist” approach is particularly hard to stomach when so many Republican governors are refusing to expand Medicaid even when the federal government offers to pick up the bill. Relieving hardship among the poor does not seem to be a priority.
For Republicans to retake the White House, they need to come up with something more than bromides.
As America becomes more diverse, many Republican strategists recognize that the party must break out of its box of mainly white and mostly wealthier Americans. Democrats hold a consistent edge among nonwhite voters and voters with family incomes up to $50,000 a year, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. Voters only break for Republicans at incomes above $75,000.
“We as Republicans have to go back to campaigning in places where we are uncomfortable,” argued Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who ended his campaign last month, offered brief remarks in welcoming the group to his home state. “We as Republicans have a problem demographically,” he said. “We do not do well with lower-income Americans because they think the Republican Party does not have their interests at heart.”
The growing concentration of income at the top over the last 30 to 40 years is making it increasingly difficult to ignore the lopsided distribution of economic spoils. “The American idea is that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life,” Mr. Ryan said. “There are a lot of people who do not believe it is there for them.”
Republicans will try, but it is becoming hard for them to simply make the case for more growth, supposedly stimulated by more tax cuts, counting on its fruits to be shared widely. They will have a hard time arguing that a growing income gap will naturally spur workers to improve their education.
Unwilling to tackle inequality per se — to view society as pitting the top 1 percent against the rest — the thinkers in the party have turned to poverty as a challenge with which they can more readily engage.
“The conservative movement has not been involved enough in poverty and has given over the entire territory to the left,” said Arthur C. Brooks, president of the nonprofit American Enterprise Institute, which co-sponsored the event, organized by the Jack Kemp Foundation.
“We know that if conservatives capture the traits that are typically associated with liberals — empathy and compassion — that fact will swing independent, persuadable voters by 10 percentage points to the right,” Mr. Brooks argued. “That’s not something that can win. It’s the only thing that will.”
Still, it is going to be difficult to pull this off, because many Republicans, particularly those who are financing the campaign, care more about other things.
Consider the huge tax cuts offered up by most Republican candidates. Jeb Bush’s plan would cost $5.8 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee would also reduce tax revenue by billions, the center estimated, while John Kasich’s proposal would have an indeterminate impact. Of the six who made it to Columbia, only Chris Christie is offering a revenue-neutral plan.
All of them provide most of their benefits to the rich.
Meanwhile, the House Republicans’ 2016 budget plan, drafted largely by Mr. Ryan, includes some $3 trillion, over 10 years, in cuts to programs that serve people of limited means.
As an antipoverty strategy, it’s impossible to square the circle of the largess of Republican tax plans and military spending plans with their parsimony everywhere else. As Senator Rubio of Florida noted: “What the other side is going to say is the Republicans, the conservatives, they are just looking to gut the antipoverty programs.”
Yes, they will. And Republicans’ priorities are helping the other side make its case.
Source : New York Times
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