CR Nation

It certainly meant something different when LBJ embarked on his Great Society program intended to lift many out of poverty. When LBJ talked about poverty he talked about people living in houses with dirt floors and without electricity and heat.

This is not the case anymore, yet we still consider millions to be poor. So the operative question becomes what framework should be used to measure poverty.

Essentially, is poverty a more relative concept which fluidly flucuates with the rich in society; or is poverty more a absolute concept which only flucuates after major societal shifts in wealth coupled with the increasing regularity of consumption of cultural shifting goods or services by greater numbers of people (such as electricity, cars, or the internet)?

Before you answer as to whether poverty is more a relative or absolute concept, take into consideration some facts about those the government considers poor. From the Heritage Foundation:

43% of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

80% of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.

Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31% own two or more cars.

97% of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

78% have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

89% own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

If you think poverty should be measured as a relative concept, then these facts shouldn’t bother you. What determines poverty is whether the rich get richer and not whether the poor get poorer.

This leads me to another rule about Democrats: Their welfare policy is more driven by class division and demonization of the rich (in order to get votes) then it is over concern for the poor or an effort to truly help them.

Within a “relativist” framework of measuring poverty an assumption is that the economic pie is only so big; and as the rich get richer, more of the pie must be taken from them and given to the poor. The situation of the rich drives the framework, not concern for the poor.

But this is not true. The economic pie is not a zero-sum game where the rich win at the expense of the poor. What economists have seen is that while the rich may get wealthier at a faster pace then the poor, this does not mean that the poor don’t get wealthier. The economic wave raises all…

This indicates that an “absolutist” approach to measuring poverty is appropriate because the poor only become truly poor after years of not accruing wealth as quickly as the rich which makes it difficult for them to afford goods like electricity like in the day of LBJ.

Take a peak at the Heritage Foundation video below, which sheds some light on the “fast facts” listed above and on the issue of how to measure poverty.

From Robert Samuelson’s article, When Silence Isn’t Golden:

Consider the outlook. From 2005 to 2030, the 65-and-over population will nearly double to 71 million; its share of the population will rise to 20 percent from 12 percent. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that serve older people—already exceed 40 percent of the $2.7 trillion federal budget. By 2030, their share could hit 75 percent of the present budget, projects the Congressional Budget Office. The result: a political impasse.

The 2030 projections are daunting. To keep federal spending stable as a share of the economy would mean eliminating all defense spending and most other domestic programs.. To balance the budget with existing programs at their present economic shares would require, depending on assumptions, tax increases of 30 percent to 50 percent—or budget deficits could quadruple. A final possibility: cut retirement benefits by increasing eligibility ages, being less generous to wealthier retirees or trimming all payments.

Yesterday, when Rudy Giuliani called the Democrats promoters of a “nanny government” he was right. But we need more than just words to solve our budgetary promises which stem from politicians’ over-eagerness to please constituencies who want everything paid for by someone else and done for them by someone else.

What we need to dialogue, leadership, and values. Things that, as Samuelson points out, everyone seems to be sidestepping.

In regards to Blumentha’s chicken hawk argument, I pointed out that his argument functioned on the premise that one cannot politically support a public policy which one does not directly participate and claimed that what makes an argument as to whether a public policy is bad is not whether or not those who support it directly participate.

Furthermore, and sensing the hypocrisy of Blumenthal’s claim, I stated that it was intellectually dishonest for Democrats and liberals to utilize the chicken hawk premise for achieving the political goal of eroding political support for Iraq, but not apply the same premise to public policies generally supported by liberals, such as food stamps and other social welfare programs; and when the chicken hawk premise is applied it undermines the political support needed to sustain such programs – as those who don’t participate in social welfare programs, as many Americans don’t, can no longer support them.

It was easy to do then, but Blumenthal made it even easier last night on CNN when he said:

It’s possible to absolutely support a war, but at this point, with the military worn thin, I think at this point it is hypocritical, since this country probably needs them to serve.

This is certainly an added twist. Before one couldn’t support a policy unless one directly participated in it, regardless of the national resources (other than political) needed to support the policy. So now, people can’t support policies if they are not direct participants and if the resources needed to support them are “worn thin”.

Like my last post, let’s apply this premise to social welfare policy.

You should quickly see, that if Democrats held themselves to the same standard as they hold war-supporting College Republicans they would have to acknowledge that they could no longer support Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, or SCHIP because they are not direct participants (many of them) and because the resources necessary to support these programs are “worn thin” – as all of the programs mentioned above will become insolvent in the next decade or two.

Democrats would have to do this or risk admitting their thinking is illogical and intellectually dishonest.

In the realm of logic why should conservative proposals be treated differently, and as the case is here, less fairly, then their liberal counterparts?

The short video was produced by, and featured, Max Blumenthal, a blogger for the Huffington Post. The video, titled Generation Chickenhawk: the Unauthorized College Republican Convention Tour says it all, namely that Blumenthal’s motive was to sneak into the CRNC convention to attempt to embarrass College Republicans by exposing their unwillingness to fight in a war they passionately support. Here is but a taste of Blumenthal’s story:

Yet when I asked these College Republicans why they were not participating in this historical cause, they immediately went into contortions. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. “Medical reasons.” “It’s not for me.” These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them “over there.” Like the current Republican leaders who skipped out on Vietnam, the GOP’s next generation would rather cheerlead from the sidelines for the war in Iraq while other, less privileged young men and women fight and die.

…I captured a vivid portrait of the hypocritical mentality of the next generation of Republican leaders. See for yourself.

The argument Blumenthal uses functions on the premise that one can’t support a particular public policy without being a direct and active participant within that policy. The chicken hawk premise essentially argues that if you don’t directly and personally participate in the program or policy you are a hypocrite for supporting it politically.

Blumenthal (and other chicken hawk argument advocates) never include in their chicken hawk arguments a premise for why the chicken hawk premise should be restricted in use only to the Iraq War debate and therefore not applicable outside of the Iraq War policy. So, I will take advantage and apply the chicken hawk premise to social welfare policy.

In doing so, I conclude that those who advocate government housing but don’t live in government housing are hypocrites. I conclude that those who advocate for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, aka, food stamps) but don’t receive TANF aid are hypocrites. I conclude that those who advocate for socialized medicine but instead use their employer paid for HMO are hypocrites.

I would also have to come to the conclusion that the political will necessary for the continuation of social welfare programs has significantly dissipated. The chicken hawk premise becomes problematic to the life of a social welfare policy, or any policy for that matter, when one can only support a policy if he is direct a participant within that policy if you assume that a certain degree of political will is needed to maintain the policy or program (let’s say 41% so cloture can’t be met in the Senate). As 41% voters do not participate in any of the above mentioned social welfare programs, I officially and happily pronounce them dead if analyzed under the chicken hawk microscope.

But that is exactly my point – that no policy should be analyzed under the chicken hawk premise. I hope we all see how ridiculous this chicken hawk premise is, even when applied to social welfare policy. Quite simply, what is wrong with social welfare policy it not that people who don’t directly participate in social welfare programs still decide to politically support them. But rather, what is wrong with them, is the coercive power of the state bearing down on citizens in order to finance social welfare programs that studies show create a generational cycle of dependency on government.

So, let’s take a lesson from our illogical Democrat friends; and when we, CRs, debate let’s use logic and not empty rhetoric or false premises.