Detroit has it. They paid for it, fair and square. Councilwoman JoAnn Watson says so.
After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, DC, and came home with some bacon. That’s what you do. That’s what you do.
Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that.
We exist. We’re entitled. Pay up, Suckah.
I’ve written elsewhere of the trap for Americans that is welfare in the form of handouts. The CBO’s Nov 2012 report, Effective Marginal Tax Rates for Low- and Moderate-Income Workers, makes this explicit. Here are two examples from the report:
[T]he single parent who moved from not working to working part-time would face a marginal tax rate of 36 percent because even a modest level of earnings would result in the reduction or loss of several transfer benefits [the tax]. Earnings from part-time work would result in a loss of eligibility for assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, some reduction in the housing voucher, and a decrease in benefits available through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
And
The marginal tax rate associated with moving from part-time to full-time employment…would be higher—47 percent. Earnings from full-time work would place the single parent in the EITC’s plateau range and would allow him or her to claim the maximum EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit] amount ($3,169 in 2012). However, because moving from part-time work to full-time work does not increase the EITC as much as does moving from not working to working part-time, marginal tax rates in this scenario would be higher than in the first scenario.
The disincentive to get work is large, but by remaining in her current situation, the single mother (yes, I’m assuming) is foregoing opportunity to improve her economic situation: there is potential for advancement, pay raises, and so on with a paying job. Remaining on the government’s dole leaves this woman dependent on her government for her livelihood. And doing so makes it even harder for her child(ren) to move up the economic ladder in his own time. Upward mobility is severely handicapped, if not foreclosed altogether.
In another demonstration of the Obama administration’s support for our Middle East allies, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy last Friday that Israel is suspicious of Palestinians and doesn’t care enough about their plight.
Passing up no opportunity to demonstrate the administration’s support, Clinton added
I’m not making excuses for the missed opportunities of the Israelis, or the lack of generosity, the lack of empathy that I think goes hand-in-hand with the suspicion…. So, yes, there is more that the Israelis need to do to really demonstrate that they do understand the pain of an oppressed people in their minds, and they want to figure out, within the bounds of security and a Jewish democratic state, what can be accomplished[.]
Not a word about the “lack of generosity, the lack of empathy” from the terrorists whose only goal is to butcher Israelis and their children. Not a word about there being “more that the [Palestinians] need to do to really demonstrate that they do understand the pain of a people [who are the objects of their terrorism] in their minds.”
And this Progressive administration insists, with a straight face, that they fully support Israel. And they cynically elide the fact that with the UN’s recent vote, the Oslo accords have been abrogated, and so there is no one with whom to negotiate for the Israelis.
From The Federalist No 10:
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
…
But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other…. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
Whence the modern Liberals’ (in stark contrast to this view, typical of 18th Century Liberals) disdain for the equality of opportunity that allows each man to show the best that there is in him—and so necessarily leads to unequal outcomes? Whence the drive of our modern Liberals to render unequal our access to opportunity that, aside from being at the foundation of our country are central to our society’s overall prosperity, by capping every man’s final success and driving us to equal (and impoverished) outcomes?
Hmm….
Casey Mulligan has a book out that looks hard at the Panic of 2008 and explores its causes. The book is called The Redistribution Recession, and I strongly recommend it. Here are some highlights.
In this way, the simple supply and demand model…explains 81 percent of the labor market contraction from 2007-Q4 and 2009-Q4, as long as it incorporates the labor supply effects of the expanding social safety net. The remaining 19 percent of the contraction is “explained” by unmeasured market distortions—that is, still unexplained by the measured factors present in the model.
And
The (theoretical) effects of the reward to working can also be seen from the perspective of wages. The more that the safety net pays for not working, the less reason people in low-wage jobs have to keep their job and the less reason unemployed people have to accept a low-wage job. In this way, the safety net raises wages, to which employers respond by hiring less.”
And
When food stamp or unemployment programs pay more, the sacrifices that jobs require do not disappear. The commuting hassle is still there, the possibility for injury on the job is still there, and jobs still take time away from family, hobbies, sleep, etc. But the reward to working declines, because some of the money earned on the job is now available even when not working.
Note that, as long as the government involves itself in the economy through its penchant for social engineering/safety nets, this creates a feedback loop. The safety net (the parts of which Mulligan enumerates, but which I use here expansively to include the entire suite of components) reduces the incentive to work by replacing monies lost from not working, thus driving up costs to employers of attracting workers he otherwise would be interesting in hiring, reducing employers’ hire rates, leading the government to try to further expand the safety net, further reducing work-seeking incentive, driving up labor costs,….
And
…studies: Hoynes and Schanzenbach (2012) show how potential participants stopped working or reduced their work hours when the food stamp program was introduced. Studies of unemployment insurance find that program rules have a statistically significant effect on how many people are employed, and how long unemployment lasts. Yelowitz’s research (2000) shows how a number of young single mothers found employment exactly when, and where, state-level Medicaid reforms increased their reward from working.
And so on. Note that none of this is to disparage people who make use of the safety net; they’re behaving entirely rationally in an economic sense. Mulligan’s purpose is only to show how incentives of safety nets work.