The G.O.P.’s War on the Poor
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A woman leaving a food pantry in the Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in the country.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Last week, Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers issued a new report on poverty, recognizing what most experts in the field have said: The standard poverty measure is badly flawed, and a better measure shows substantial progress. In fact, these advisers went so far as to assert that poverty is no longer a problem. (Do these people ever get out into the real world?)
Anyway, the war on poverty, said the report, “is largely over and a success.” And our response, says the Trump administration, should be to … slash spending on the poor.
O.K., the report doesn’t openly call for benefit cuts. Instead, it calls for the widespread imposition of work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps and other programs. But that would have the effect of sharply reducing those programs’ coverage.
This decline in coverage wouldn’t be the result of large numbers of people earning their way out of poverty. Instead, many poor Americans would, for a variety of reasons — poor health, job instability for low-wage workers, daunting paperwork imposed on those least able to deal with it — find it impossible to meet the requirements, and be denied aid despite remaining poor.
So whatever the evidence, Republicans always reach the same policy conclusion. Was the war on poverty a failure? Let’s stop helping the poor. Was it a success? Let’s stop helping the poor.
And let’s be clear: We’re talking about the whole party, not just the Trump administration. In particular, Republican governors are fanatical about cutting benefits for their lower-income residents.
In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin tried to impose harsh work requirements on Medicaid. When a court ruled that his plan violated the law, he retaliated by abruptly cutting off vision and dental coverage for hundreds of thousands of people.
In Maine, voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. But Gov. Paul LePage has refused to implement the expansion — a vast majority of which would be paid for with federal funds — despite a court order, and has declared that he’s willing to go to jail rather than see his constituents get health care.
So what’s behind the G.O.P.’s war on the poor?
It’s not about incentives. The persistent claim on the right that America is filled with “takers” living off social programs when they should be working may be what conservatives want to believe, but it just isn’t true. Most nondisabled adults receiving aid work; most of those who don’t have good reasons for not working, such as health issues or the need to serve as caretakers for family members. Slashing benefits would push some of these people into the work force out of sheer desperation, but not many, and at a huge cost to their well-being.
And claims that excessively generous social programs are the cause of falling labor force participation can be easily refuted by looking at the international evidence. Europe’s welfare states — or, as conservatives always say, its “failing” welfare states — provide much more generous aid to low-income families than we do, and as a result have much less poverty. Yet adults in their prime working years are more likely to be employed in leading European nations than in the United States.
It’s also not about the money. At the state level, many Republican governors are still refusing to expand Medicaid even though it would cost them little and would bring money into their states’ economies. At the federal level, it would take draconian benefit cuts, imposing immense suffering, to save as much money as the G.O.P. casually gave away in last year’s tax cut.
What about the traditional answer that it’s really about race? Social programs have often been seen as helping Those People, not white Americans. And that’s still surely part of what’s going on.
But it can’t be the whole story, since Republicans are fanatical about cutting off aid to the less fortunate even in places like Maine that are overwhelmingly populated by non-Hispanic whites.
So what is the war on the poor about? As I see it, you need to make a distinction between what motivates the G.O.P. base and what motivates conservative politicians.
Many blue-collar whites still think that the poor are lazy and prefer to live off welfare. But as events in Maine show, such beliefs aren’t central to the war on the poor, which is mainly being driven by political elites.
And what motivates these elites is ideology. Their political identities, not to mention their careers, are wrapped up in the notion that more government is always bad. So they oppose programs that help the poor partly out of a general hostility toward “takers,” but also because they hate the idea of government helping anyone.
And if they get their way, society will stop helping tens of millions of Americans who desperately need that help.
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Why would there be a war on the poor? To what end? The GOP would love to end (or drastically reduce) poverty. It's the party of creating wealth and growing the economy.
Democrats love to think of "the poor" as some loyal voting block (part of identity politics). The GOP would like to get rid of all the poor people - not by making their lives miserable, but by making them less poor so that they aren't dependent on the government and don't live in parks and libraries begging people for money. Isn't that what most regular people want for the poor?
We have spent trillions of dollars on poverty programs and the poverty rate is the same as it was when this progressive war was declared. I have no problem with trying something different.
Some think their way of "reducing" the poor is through reducing the population of the poor.
I think we should put them in work camps.
That way, we wouldn't have to see them any more.
Spent far more than that on war and tax cuts to those who neither need them or deserve them.
What?!
Heresy!
The job-creators deserve everything!
The wealth-creators deserve nothing!
They don’t deserve to be taxed at a higher rate than others.
"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidize non-work." -Milton Friedman
OMG, Dean!!
I agree with you!
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,oh dear,oh dear, ...
Neither exists. SSE forbids it.
That's an excellent question. What motivates a person to do harm to someone who is already in difficulty?
What is going on in the minds of people who want to push a drowning person's head under the water?
The only "difficulty" a lot of people on welfare have is a lack of work ethic and self sufficiency.
And you know this... how?
Have you known lots of people like you describe? Have you known enough other poor people to be able to situate the two populations?
Are you maybe perhaps possibly just makin' stuff up?
I have in laws that have gamed the system for years. I know all the scams- selling food stamps for cash, charging somebody for staying as a guest in a section 8, going to various ERs with vague "symptoms" just to get painkillers, living off kids disabilities with their SSI and spending the money on themselves.....
OK.
How do you justify generalizing the behavior of your in-laws to all poor people?
There are over 40 million poor.
I trust my own eyes over misleading and one sided statistics. The fact is these "workfare" programs are aimed at childless able bodied adults. There is no justification for them not to be employed or doing community service type work.
Only a certain segment of them. Like the ones that live in the inner cities. They'll gladly keep paying those that suck a larger portion than the rest that vote Republican...like in Applacia, West Virginia, farmers in Iowa...etc.
Yes, how dreadful that the government should subsidize farmers! They do nothing for the country. /s
Yes. Thank gawd for the bible, gays and guns. Keeps em' straight, ya know.
Not like I said that but you can imagine it if you like.
I remember Joni ernst getting flack for her successful family operation getting subsidized....Reagan getting "Green belt" relief...
Farmers do quite a bit...I live in cattle country here in Florida, these guys are filthy rich and sucking the government just the same.
Supply Side Economics is working perfectly. No war on the poor, the poor are poor because they're...…….just poor. And the rich just don't have enough.
Oh.
Gosh.
I thought economics was complicated, but you've just clarified it all brilliantly: "the rich just don't have enough"
That explains everything!
If the War on Povery was working there wouldn't be massive spending programs still in place. Welfare has incentivized poverty and discouraged people from educating themselves or learning a skill. Liberals can cling to their myths but those who actually see the abuse of the system know better.
You recite your articles of faith very nicely.
Whereas, you're welded to your rightwing ones complete with the hoary mantras that always accompany them.
I'll disagree with right wing ideas when they don't make sense. For instance I see no reason to defund Planned Parenthood when lack of birth control just leads to more money spent by taxpayers on kids whose parents didn't even want to have. I'll always side with what's the best deal for taxpayers.
"While critics still like to use old arguments of rampant abuse to lambast a program that feeds millions of Americans, the fraud rate has decreased from “about 4 cents on the dollar in 1993 to about 1 cent” by 2006.
And this decline has only continued, with the 3.5% rate of fraud in 2012 reducing to less than 1.5% today ."
Claiming abuse of the system and fraud to claim we should do away with the benefits for those who really need it to survive is idiotic without actually looking at the fraud statistics. What you're saying is that we should get rid of a program that is really needed by 98.5% of the recipients because 1.5% of them are cheating and stealing our tax dollars. The reality is the programs work well and are very needed but most conservatives are opposed on ideological grounds. Which is really funny when you look at who use Federal entitlements most.
" when the lens shifts to political ideology, the survey finds virtually no difference in the share of conservatives (57%) , liberals (53%) or political moderates (53%) who have been assisted by at least one entitlement program ."
Maybe they hate it so much because they're using it and it makes them feel so dirty. They want the temptation of being able to apply for welfare taken away from them because apparently when they think they should be letting their kids starve while pulling themselves up by the boot straps their ideological resolve breaks down and they've been taking the handout.
Even when welfare is being used as intended it is done with dishonest intentions. It strips away the incentive to do anything for ones self. There are kids starving now whose parents are on welfare. That's because the parents sell the food stamps for drug money. If Trumps plan for a Blue Apron style program where actual food is sent to someone's door there would be a lot less to sell for cash and less starving kids.
Bullshit. No one enjoys being on food stamps. Yes, 1.5% of recipients are frauds, but the rest actually need it and most of the families who receive it are working families who simply can't afford to feed their families on the minimum wage jobs available to them.
"That's because the parents sell the food stamps for drug money."
Prove that's occurring on a widespread basis and you might have a point, as it is you're just regurgitating a baseless opinion. And as for the "Blue apron" idea, I'm all for feeding needy kids so if it works and is financially viable I'm all for it. There are currently nearly 17 million children living in the US who live in households that lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis, so if they get fed through welfare or blue apron, I don't care as long as we're feeding them.
Overpopulation is main cause of this and many other problems
How so? We have always had poor people.
overpopulation just multiplies problems.
Todays poor are not as bad off as poor during the depression