So the socialist rag, the New York Times, had an op-ed today on how to solve poverty by a man who don’t understand it at all. So, next on my agenda I’m going to create the pill for men. I think it would be awesome to have so naturally that makes me qualified to do it, right? Oh, not the logic we’re using. My bad.
Alright, so one Gary MacDougal (adviser to former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar), starts by talking about the VP debate coming up tonight. He points out poverty will more than likely continue being ignored through the campaign cycle.
Then he lays out some Cato Institute figures. For those of you unfamiliar with Cato, congratulations. Cato believes it is a libertarian research group, but libertarians don’t exist in nature. They are just conservatives who recognize how crazy the rest of their party is getting. So what is the figure?
“Each year, American taxpayers spend nearly $1 trillion trying to help the poor, according to a recent study by the Cato Institute. It’s easy to miss that headline number, though, because the money flows into and out of scores of federal, state and local government programs. In April, Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at Cato, a libertarian research group, compiled a list of 126 federal programs for low-income Americans, which together spend $668 billion of taxpayers money annually. State and local governments allocate an additional $284 billion, he estimated.”
So you see wasteful government spending on 126 different programs. So you’re asking yourself where is this guy going? Bad big government or the need for centralized non-state run programs.
Next MacDougal points out some of these programs help those who are “more than just ‘the poor.’” He never bothers to define the poor though, which is poor writing for the NYTs. He does define who doesn’t cut though, those who benefit from Medicaid for the elderly and disabled also Pell grants for young people in college. He acknowledges that some of us (you can’t see it by I’m pointing at myself) see the Pell grants as attempts to allow low-income young people to go to college.
Finally, he asks his question, “Are we spending this money in truly the best way to help the poor?”
And provides a thought experiment: “Consider a thought experiment: Divide $1 trillion by 46 million and you get around $21,700 for each American in poverty, or nearly $87,000 for a family of four. That’s almost four times the $23,050 per year (the federal poverty line for a family, he doesn’t note, but that is a family of three 1 adult and 2 children). It’s intriguing to think about converting all of this to a cash payment that would instantly lift everyone in poverty up to the middle class.”
Ok, so you follow that, cash payments directly to poor people to lift them out of poverty. Except, he’s not advocating that because it wouldn’t be logistically or politically ok. I actually like that plan. Here, MacDougal advocates Ryan’s Medicaid plan, which I’m pretty sure includes systematic execution of old people, jk, and Clinton welfare reforms. Because the Clinton reforms were good so positive?
Ok, Dems, cover your ears. These reforms lightened the welfare rolls, they didn’t lift people out of poverty. They also introduced a group of people who were dropped from the rolls and still lacked employment. So poverty got worse, TANF recipients were pushed into low wage employment, and the limit results in people receiving no cash assistance. And I’m back.
He cites a Institute for Education Leadership study that identifies 7 Senate committees and subcommittees, 11 House committees and subcommittees, 7 cabinet departments, and 8 other agencies that oversee some aspects of anti-poverty programs. The study claims a typical family is eligible for 20 separate programs, which each has their own rules. MacDougal argues that some fragmentation is necessary, we’re too fragmented. And because of this poor people don’t receive assistance…not backed up with evidence though which is problematic for a generalization like that. It is probably true that people aren’t helped, but a little evidence would be nice, like former welfare recipients who no longer qualify for cash. Though most people who do not receive benefits lack knowledge about the programs themselves not the edibility requirements. MacDougal is arguing for one centralized program to deal with all aspects of need.
Then he starts on advocates. You see we don’t want to do this because we are greedy and power hungry.
Finally he calls for outcome measurements vs. input measurements. I don’t think he actually wants these. We have these at my job, and they show we’re not helping people enough. There isn’t enough money even in Maryland that reluctantly enforces the federal time limit. Also, one of my colleagues is studying the wages of welfare to work, and it is bad. Real bad. Like not making enough to live on and still requires assistance they no longer qualify for bad.
MacDougal says, “Our effectiveness should be assessed, in part, by the per-person cost of moving individuals from dependency to self-sufficiency.”
Maryland and Minnesota are the only states that monitor and assess their welfare programs. More states should do it, but I doubt he’s going to get the results that he’s angling for. It disturbs me MacDougal wrote a book on poverty, though on Amazon there is only one review so there is that. I feel like I’ve been having this argument over and over since Romney and Ryan decided to push the poor are lazy gimmick again. The poor are not dependent because they want to be. They are dependent because the system is broken. And I’m not just talking about the “welfare system” but all social and institutional structures that keep women and people of color in poverty. I wish there was a quick fix, but there isn’t unless we’re going to give the $87k to each family, which by the way is probably an inflated number, but I don’t have time to check the Cato Institute’s findings today. After all I <3 and="and" biden="biden" i="i" joe="joe" must="must" p="p" watch.="watch.">
