In his Wall Street Journal column Daniel Henninger makes the following observation:
Instead of the political vibrancy of the 1960s, young progressives see their world in the grip of political stasis. They weren’t around for the hard work of building the Great Society, brick by brick, amendment by legislative amendment, the way their elders did, such as—just to pick a name— Rep. John Dingell.
No wonder Mrs. Pelosi was agog at the aggression from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and the rest of the progressive “Squad.†They act as if none of this hard work ever happened and barely acknowledge its legacy exists.
Older leftists and liberals revere the alphabet soup of assistance programs and rotely support all of it. The New New Left treats all this pre-existing government as virtually an abstraction.
Note how Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 37, routinely waves off the achievements of Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s generation: “If you’re my age or younger . . .†The pedestrian dailiness of “government†has become a liability for traditional Democrats, despite all they’ve done. Dismissing U.S. history in general, progressive activists and gentry liberals want their own Great Society program. (For a reality check on the original version, read Amity Shlaes’s “Great Society: A New History.â€)
But the left has a problem: The liberal legacy—extraordinarily big government (this year’s spending bill is more than 2,000 pages)—has sucked all the revenue out of the system. Elizabeth Warren’s multiple “plans†financed by beating taxes out of billionaires—like Jeremy Corbyn’s 21st century nationalizations—are the reductio ad absurdum.
IMO their problem is somewhat worse than that. The most effective anti-poverty program of the last 40 years was actually ending a federal program—AFDC. But that’s anathema to progressives.
The federal deficit isn’t being caused by declining federal revenues but by federal spending increasing faster than federal revenues.
And visibly, obviously government at all levels has become a self-licking lollipop. Today its main purposes seem to be occupying other countries, obtaining cushy sinecures for elected officials and raising the wages or paying for the pensions of public employees. These are not the stuff from which a good argument for greatly expanding the role of government can be fashioned.
All of which was so, so predicta………….aw, fuck it.
Link goes to poverty rate by year. The poverty rate was dropping before AFDC was ended in 1996, and it went back up to 1993 levels in 2010. Poverty levels track best with the performance of our economy. If ending AFDC was an effective anti-poverty program, it did not work after 2000.
Which all goes to show that if you are clever enough to end a program during an economic boom, you can claim success. (Besides which AFDC was a program intended to provide support to people with no or inadequate income, not to get them out of poverty per se ie get jobs.)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/200463/us-poverty-rate-since-1990/
Second link goes to annual federal revenue and expenses. Revenue has been an issue, especially in the aughts. It is still a factor but I have to agree that the huge 10% (about ) increase in spending under Trump this year is a big factor. (I didnt realize it was that big of a jump.) Yes he needed that along with the tax cut to make it look like his plan for economic growth is working, and his followers believe him. Lets hope they stop believing and believe the numbers.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/federal-receipt-and-outlay-summary
Steve
AOC+3 and their kind have fallen prey to a common failing of the young and the activist, they think that the political and economic environment they live in is the natural order of things. They also think that money grows on trees, which is why socialism and MMT are so attractive to them. A semester trying to survive in Caracas or working a Han Empire chip making factory might cure them of these notions.
I’ve come around to the thinking that the best way for the federal government to reform poverty programs is to just turn them into cash payments for the poor.
A few years ago they gave an economist the Nobel award in economics (there is no actual Nobel Prize for Economics) for proving that was, indeed, a better way. Note that should include ALL such programs including Medicaid.
I also don’t think it’s dawned on them that they are now “the rich”.
In 2018 AOC had $15,000 in savings and $20,000 in student debt. She earned $28,000 in 2018. As a Congressperson she will earn $174,000/year.
Steve
The average net compensation is $50,000. The median net compensation is $33,000. $174,000 puts her in the top 6% of income earners or thereabouts. That’s almost three standard deviations above the average.
By the standards of most Americans that’s rich. Most people don’t mean four, five, or six standard deviations above average when they say “rich”.
I do not consider my wife and myself rich but I recognize that most people would.
There’s a psychological phenomenon: “the rich” are whoever are one standard deviation or more above you in income. Not only is that a moving target, it doesn’t conform to how most people look at it. For most people $174,000 a year is rich.
You probably don’t think of yourself as rich; Guarneri probably doesn’t either. You’d probably both say “you’re comfortable”. But you’re rich.
Actually, I do think that I am pretty rich, but I think it is a combination of income and wealth. Since I have worked a long time and dont have any really expensive habits we have saved quite a bit. We dont have tons of expenses now.
In the case of AOC she has zero savings. She was making less than $30k a year up until this year. She has significant expenses since she will need to maintain housing in 2 of the nation’s most expensive cities and she needs to dress appropriately. I can see someone feeling like she is kind of rich but I think that anyone aware of how jobs, expenses and money works would not think that she is rich.
Steve
I think that most people know little of how jobs, expenses and money work. Should Rep. Ocasio-Cortez talk refer to “the rich”, most who are aware of her income (few, granted) would think of her as rich.
The great irony is that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are all rich by practically any standard. I suspect that should they refer to “the rich”, they aren’t thinking of themselves.
In my own case we have more savings and assets than most Americans but we are by no means rich. We live in a modest Chicago home in a nice neighborhood and have a fairly modest lifestyle. We have a few luxuries: dogs, the opera, a few others. When I quit working our income and probably our standard of living will take an enormous hit.
I’m not as worried about “the rich” as you are. Most of the expenditures in the federal budget aren’t going to them. Most are going to people in the middle class or upper middle class to enable them to preserve the lifestyles they think they’re entitled to. That’s especially true when you include tax expenditures.
AOC is wealthy in youth. But I don’t see care on her face, I see avarice.
Money and politics, want to see poverty so deeply entrenched people except it as their due without complaint?
Visit an Indian reservation next vacation.
Nobody panders for their votes.
“In my own case we have more savings and assets than most Americans but we are by no means rich.”
So let me get this straight. You have more assets than most people, but you arent rich. AOC has no assets, but income in the 94th percentile for almost one year and she is rich.
“I’m not as worried about “the rich†as you are.”
I have tried to be explicit about it that I am not that worried about those in the 99.9 lower percentile. It is those in the top 0.1 or 0.01 percentile. They have enough clout to have policy crafted just for them. To control media. To influence elections by themselves. In the past they sed to just buy influence. Now they run directly for office too. Since they control media they manage to convince the non-wealthy that they care about them. Sad!
Steve
Steve,
Dave, I think, is in his 70’s and should be at his highest earning potential with a lifetime of earnings behind him. AOC is 30 and in her first (as far as I can tell), steady job. Her House salary is just the start and is probably more that Dave is making. It’s about twice what my family of five makes. Combined with her fame, her Twitter following, her media presence, she will be rich very soon unless she pulls an Edwards or an Anthony Weiner. She’s in one of the bluest seats in the country, so only extreme incompetence or unforeseeable redistricting can threaten her future.
IMO a very lucrative book contract and/or a movie or streamed show are in AOC’s very near future. Future poverty is not one of her worries.
Andy- I agree. She will probably be rich soon, though we should remember that Eric Cantor lost in a very red area. I just find it odd that we are calling someone rich who has no current savings and has been making a salary that isn’t even the top 1% for less than a year. Someone who was working as a bartender a year ago. Rich ought to have some sort of meaning other than they make more than i do right now.
Steve