Posted 9:33 pm Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Misjudging Poverty, Misreading History
Bless his heart, Sen. Tom Harkin has always been one for speaking his mind — sometimes before he’s engaged the political part of his brain. The Iowa Democrat is famous for such quotes as “Let’s face it, in America today we don’t have a health care system, we have a sick care system.”
Well, yes, that’s right, we suppose. It’s designed to take care of sick people.
Well, yes, that’s right, we suppose. It’s designed to take care of sick people.
And “there is no constitutional or historical precedent for any kind of findings of fact.”
Glad we got that cleared up.
But Harkin’s latest is notable not just because it’s another off-the-cuff puzzler, but because it really does show the basic divide in America today. No, not the 1 percent versus the 99 percent; that’s a quaint fiction invented to fit well on protest signs.
Instead, the divide is in how Americans view success.
Glad we got that cleared up.
But Harkin’s latest is notable not just because it’s another off-the-cuff puzzler, but because it really does show the basic divide in America today. No, not the 1 percent versus the 99 percent; that’s a quaint fiction invented to fit well on protest signs.
Instead, the divide is in how Americans view success.
Here’s what Harkin said last week:
“I just had my weekly breakfast this morning with Iowans,” he said. “Had a big group there from the diocese of Davenport, a Catholic dioceses, and that’s what they wanted to talk about: was not backing off of our support for low-income people who are facing tough times now, with high rates of unemployment, that need the supplemental nutrition assistance program, or as it’s called, food stamps. And I thought one of the statements made there was kind of profound — they said ‘ya know, someone’s accusing this president of being a food stamp president.’ One of them said well he ought to wear that as a badge of honor.”
“I just had my weekly breakfast this morning with Iowans,” he said. “Had a big group there from the diocese of Davenport, a Catholic dioceses, and that’s what they wanted to talk about: was not backing off of our support for low-income people who are facing tough times now, with high rates of unemployment, that need the supplemental nutrition assistance program, or as it’s called, food stamps. And I thought one of the statements made there was kind of profound — they said ‘ya know, someone’s accusing this president of being a food stamp president.’ One of them said well he ought to wear that as a badge of honor.”
And there it is. More Americans depending on government for their very existence is viewed, by Harkin and others, as success.
Harkin said something strikingly similar in 2009.
“Ensuring that our kids have enough to eat during summer months is critically important, especially during these tough economic times,” he said. “Unfortunately, despite repeated efforts, the number of children participating in federally reimbursed summer nutrition programs in 2008 was the same as it was 15 years ago.”
Harkin said something strikingly similar in 2009.
“Ensuring that our kids have enough to eat during summer months is critically important, especially during these tough economic times,” he said. “Unfortunately, despite repeated efforts, the number of children participating in federally reimbursed summer nutrition programs in 2008 was the same as it was 15 years ago.”
It’s unfortunate that in 2008, there weren’t more poor children in need of nutrition assistance?
That’s the gist of it.
There’s a fundamental difference between this and the competing view — that success should be measured in how many people come off welfare, rather than in how many go on it.
Recent statistics are of little help here, because of the Great Recession and the ongoing economic sluggishness, but as two goals, these couldn’t be more different.
Americans agreed in the 1990s that welfare was a mess, that the War on Poverty had long ago been lost, and that welfare reform was a good idea.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, crafted by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic president, was a step in the right direction. It fundamentally changed how welfare would be perceived; no longer as an entitlement, but rather as a safety net.
Recipients, if able, would be required to eventually start working and free themselves from that net.
Everyone agrees it worked; by every measure, welfare and poverty both decreased in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Even the (liberal) New Republic acknowledged in 2006, “a broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster — and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped.”
But in the years since its passage, the other view seems to have come back into vogue. Harkin’s words demonstrate that.
That doesn’t bode well for any of us, particularly for the poor themselves.
That’s the gist of it.
There’s a fundamental difference between this and the competing view — that success should be measured in how many people come off welfare, rather than in how many go on it.
Recent statistics are of little help here, because of the Great Recession and the ongoing economic sluggishness, but as two goals, these couldn’t be more different.
Americans agreed in the 1990s that welfare was a mess, that the War on Poverty had long ago been lost, and that welfare reform was a good idea.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, crafted by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic president, was a step in the right direction. It fundamentally changed how welfare would be perceived; no longer as an entitlement, but rather as a safety net.
Recipients, if able, would be required to eventually start working and free themselves from that net.
Everyone agrees it worked; by every measure, welfare and poverty both decreased in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Even the (liberal) New Republic acknowledged in 2006, “a broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster — and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped.”
But in the years since its passage, the other view seems to have come back into vogue. Harkin’s words demonstrate that.
That doesn’t bode well for any of us, particularly for the poor themselves.
