Sam: “The reason intelligent people can disagree about all this is because there are a lot of variables, and it’s really going to depend on your philosophical viewpoint as to how you weight them.”
There are indeed a lot of variables but what I’ve sometimes found frustrating in debating with you is that you tend to use this complexity as a defense against holding your logic accountable to any demonstrable standard of the facts as they are. I have no problem admitting that the conditions we are discussing are complicated and multi-dimensional. I do have a problem when someone repeatedly attempts to dodge the same logical flaws over and over again.
“For example, you are assuming that making it harder on single mothers is a bad thing. But is it? I don’t think that’s necessarily clear. Because if single motherhood is easy, more people will choose it as an option.”
Well, this is an interesting point but also a new admission on your part. That is, before you’d suggested that the 1996 welfare reforms were good b/c they liberated people (including single mothers) to enjoy economic opportunities that were ready and waiting for them but for their welfare check. Now you seem to be suggesting that a punitive approach to single motherdom might be a good thing in itself: a deterrent as it were. This was the attitude towards unwed mothers more than a century ago. Although I myself would never support the policy for several reasons, I’m certainly willing to acknowledge that if society chooses to adopt a punitive atttitude towards single mothers that it may have an effect in reducing the number of single mothers (though how much of an effect I would question; in the nineteenth century punitive treatment didn’t wipe out single motherhood any more than it’s likely to do today). But, when people bring up this kind of approach, I like them to admit, as you have just done, that the strategy in question involves punishment pure and simple, and not some reputed economic benefit.
“I just read an interesting article about a single mom over on Slate. Welfare reform caused her to get a job, and now she worked days as a cop and evenings doing something else. As a result, she makes a middle-class income, but she’s working her fingers to the bone. Now she’s worried about the supervision (or lack thereof) that her kids are getting. As well she should.”
Precisely. So one thing to conclude from an anecdote such as this is that even in the very best case–where a woman is competent to earn a decent wage in exchange for “working her fingers to the bone”–the problem is only partly solved. Both the woman and society in general still have her children to worry about. That’s why I would support the kind of welfare reform that provided single mothers (and possibly others) with quality daycare. This would be a very good investment on the part of taxpayers: a way to help the child and the mother to help themselves at the same time. Also, mothers who wanted to remain with their children could do so by become trained daycare workers.
“But the point is that life isn’t that easy for her, which is sad, but HER kids might think twice about following in her footsteps and making such destructive mistakes, so they’ve perhaps got more of a chance than they’d have if her poor choices had had lesser consequences.”
This is a completely unsubstantiated conclusion to draw from this anecdote. What evidence do we have that seeing a mother work hard is more of a deterrent to becoming pregnant than seeing a mother live a stagnant life on a welfare check? The children of alcholics see their parents suffer a great deal from alcoholism but, statistically, they are much more likely than the children of non-alcoholics to drink excessively. I think we can both agree that in an ideal situation, the child is in the hands of trustworthy daycare, and the welfare “reform” is not so draconian that it prevents the mother from spending any time with her children.
“I grew up in a poor housing project, and most of the people there were on welfare. Almost every familoy there was a kid or two and a single mother, mine included. And I can tell you that there were a lot of mothers there who’s days consisted of watching soap operas and chatting with the other single moms in the area. Now, to a kid contemplating years of homework and no income, the alternative of just partying and going on welfare probably looked pretty sweet. As a result, a LOT of those kids I grew up with are now second generation welfare families.”
Yet your own mother was, we can infer, able to use the boost of the housing project to get on her feet. Is it possible that had she been deprived of health insurance for you that it might have been the last straw for her?
I’m certainly not blind to the fact of second generation welfare; or the “culture of poverty” as its sometimes called. For these reasons I do, as I’ve said, support welfare reforms of various kinds. But I still don’t see how you address the problem simply by kicking women off of welfare, providing no assistance whatever with daycare or training, and then not even bothering to find out how they’re doing. Of course, if your only social goals are a punitive strategy towards unwed motherhood and the reduction of welfare rolls, you might have some kind of policy. But you are on records as having much more high-minded and pragmatic goals: you claim to be for boosting the economy, strengthening the social fabric, and encouraging upward mobility. Basically what you’ve been shown again and again is that you need some kind of social policy beyond tax-cuts for the rich to do this. And basically what you’ve repeatedly done in reply is to dodge behind the complexity of multiple variables and the questionability of statistical analyses. At bottom, however, you’ve shown us nothing to suggest that the typical poor person can lift him/herself out of poverty with a regressive tax system simply by cutting welfare and giving tax cuts to the rich. Even your mother presumably benefited in various ways from a more generous safety net than exists today (just as my father benefited from the very low tuition made available through well-funded public higher ed in the 1960s).
“That’s the tradeoff with your social safety net. Make it too easy to stay where they are, and people will never leave. Protect the kids too much, and they will accept your protection and just do whatever they want.”
And so does that mean you have to leap immediately to the opposite extreme? Can’t you see that the logical extension of your own position is to seek an effective social welfare policy; not just to abandon social welfare and leave people, including children, to the vagaries of the free market (particularly with a recession looming).
“Back to the technical points: While I have agreed that income inequality is not of itself a good thing, it’s still not clear just what can be done about it without bringing down the economy in general.”
How about cutting payroll taxes to begin with–in lieu of the kind of tax cut that just passed?
And how about the kind of daycare-inclusive welfare reform I described. Why assume that’s cost-ineffective? Neglected children who end up going afoul of the law could end up far worse, from a social standpoint, than unemployed; they could end up in jail. Are you aware that it cost more to keep a person in jail than it does to send them to Yale?
“Also, when the gap between the poorest and richest is smaller, there is less incentive among the poor to try and become rich. So economic growth suffers.”
Say what? Sorry, Sam, but this is an insult to your own intelligence. Last time I looked Bill Gates grew up the son of a millionaire and had no problems finding the incentive to become a billionaire. Same goes for Howard Hughes and many others I can think of. Are we really meant to believe that poor people don’t wish to become as wealthy, say, as a $60,000/year manager, or a $150,000/year lawyer, and will only strive for greater wealth if they can model themselves after Gordon Gecko? Also absurd is the assumption that “economic growth” is attributable largely to the efforts of the poor to become rich. Talk about underestimating variables!
“Anyway, I’m glad to see that this thread stayed as civil as it has, with some decent give and take on both sides. I’m getting tired of the polarized web world, in which one person is always right and everyone else is a blithering idiot.”
You may be certain that I have too much respect for you to think you a blithering idiot, or to wish to become uncivil. That said, I do find it extremely frustrating when you dodge the difficult questions.