It's been a busy morning with a few personal things, but I've gotten around to reading some news and I have to say it's disappointing to see how people on Facebook and many blogs are treating Mitt Romney over his comments about the "very poor". The full statement is provided here.
What he's clearly saying is that the very poor have a lot of initiatives designed for and directed at them. Poverty is always going to be a problem, but it's a problem that we address. And over the last twenty years, we've tweaked out programs for the very poor by structuring them in a way that makes it less likely for the poor to get trapped in a cycle of poverty through perverse incentives that discourage work. As Romney says - we have a safety net. Romney also notes that he'd fix the safety net where it needs fixing (and there are always fixes to consider).
His point was clearly that he wants to focus on those who aren't very poor or very rich and who therefore have less of a net to catch them when hard times come. That's an eminently reasonable position to take, particularly if you explicitly say you're going to pay attention to any frays in the safety net for the very poor! Most Americans, who are not very poor or very rich, really need two things. Once they have these two things they can do most things for themselves. They need:
1. Dependable access to a solid education, and
2. A job
Romney isn't the best candidate to help them achieve those things, but he's better than most of the other GOP options.
We should be glad that Romney even recognizes (1.) that it's good to have a safety net, (2.) that it's good to fix that safety net, and that (3.) there are things a president can do to help the middle class. I don't know if you could get Ron Paul to say any of those things, and I'm not sure you could get Newt Gingrich to say the first two.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
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You do realize tweaking those programs while increasing the chance people wont be trapped in a cycle of poverty because of "perverse incentives" it increases the already high probability the poor will be trapped in a cycle of poverty because those programs don't actually help people get out of poverty.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that this country takes the problems of the "very poor" seriously is nonsense.
Romney also downplayed the seriousness of poverty by acting as though you could lump the very poor in with the rich as only 5% or 10% of the population. Poverty rates are at 16% and rising.
I think you could be accused of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" by congratulating Romney on paying lip service to the idea of a social safety net.
Notice there is no actual plan there. It seems safe to assume any Romney driven repair to the saftey net will have a whole lot more to do with making sure people don't game the system. I doubt Romneys repairs will focus much on actually getting people educated and getting people jobs that are worth having.
It's about time I'm criticized for what I say about a Republican other than Ron Paul!
DeleteI believe I noted in the post I don't think Romney is up to the task.
This is far too expansive a claim: "You do realize tweaking those programs while increasing the chance people wont be trapped in a cycle of poverty because of "perverse incentives" it increases the already high probability the poor will be trapped in a cycle of poverty because those programs don't actually help people get out of poverty."
TANF job subsidies, for example, are fantastic way of disrupting these perverse incentives and helping people get out of poverty. We can look at various demand side subsidies like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit too. Those demand-side policies are a particular favorite of mine.
But you're right - others just propose cutting the program itself as a way of eliminating the perverse incentives. That's obviously no solution.
This hasn't turned into a Romney campaign blog - obviously. I'm simply noting that:
1. He didn't really say what people are acting like he said, and
2. What he did say demonstrates he's much better than the other GOP candidates.
Is there any data on these programs and their success? I have been under the impression that all TANF does is getting people off of welfare.
DeleteI just think Romney's statment was a slightly less offensive version of calling obama the food stamps president. The idea that the very poor are perfectly fine given rising poverty rates and stagnating employment is absurd and so we dont need to worry about them is absurd. There is still a lot of dog whistling in there even if it is more subtle than Newt.
I simply think that when you quote the entire passage rather than the one sentence, it's clear he's not saying they're "perfectly fine".
DeleteDon't get me wrong - I recognize why this isn't good enough and why it frustrates people. I just don't think we should turn it into something it wasn't. We also should marvel at the fact that he could even acknowledge what he did acknowledge. He clearly thinks there is an important and legitimate role for a social safety net. Do you know any other leading GOP candidates that thinks that?
Im not willing to give romney credit for this one statement any more than I'm willing to give paul credit for wanting to leave Afghanistan. Within the matrix of who these guys are and who they are pandering to one can only assume they are right for the wrong reasons.
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