Burnt Orange Report

Byron L,

What about Health Care -- Medicaid, plus generous state programs give health care to the poor.

What about education -- public schools are free, and the Government heavily subsidizes higher education in general, and also the tuition of poor students. Of course, many public schools don't actually teach anything, but I don't see your side supporting vouchers to give poor students a chance to get a real education.

What about jobs -- I'll grant good jobs are harder to find right now than during the '90s Tech boom, but anyone willing to work for $18K a year can get a job at WalMart. $18K is about five times the average income in, say, Mexico, and phenomenal wealth in almost any country in Africa, and many countries in Latin America and Asia. Besides, government efforts to create jobs inevitably destroy more than the create. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and capital markets allocate resources far better than the congress.

Rep. Session's point was perfectly valid. The poor in America are quite well off when their standard of living is compared to just about anyone in the world except middle and upper class Americans. The poor in Mexico or Bangladesh don't have TVs because they can barely afford to eat, much less pay money to spend time doing nothing productive in front of a box. Now, compared to an entrepreneur whose company has succeeded and is making hundreds of thousands a year, or middle income teacher in your average school district, yes, the poor here are not as well off as they are. Compared to anyone else, well, it is hard to make that case. Even compared to the U.S. poor of thirty or forty years ago, they much better off.

Sherk

Ooops. The last sentence should read "...they are much better off."

Sherk

Why do I sometimes find myself agreeing with Sherk recently. I have not wanted to say it. Though it is usually because of different reasons to begin with, it is strange.

Yeah, I think that Pete Sessions is a moron who probably really is very callous towards the needs of poor people, but this statement as it stands really doesn't bug me. Even the poor in America tend to be much better off than the poor or even the average person all over the rest of the world. Still, there are some exceptions. In the depths of appalachia or in the colonias or Indian Reservations or some select inner cities our poor rival that which can be found in the Third World. Also, other wealthy nations tend to not have as staggering a poverty as we do.

Some of you may be satisfied that the poor in this country have a higher living wage than those countries whose citizens mire in absolute wretched poverty. I happen to believe that in the USA, the wealthiest country in the world, our citizens, ALL our citizens deserve better.

Yes, the majority of the poor today have indoor plumbing, a roof over their head, and do not have to worry abouyt dying from a lack to eat. Is this bare mimimum acceptable? NO!!! We CANNOT allow the right wing to destroy the middle class, which is where we are heading.

Do I advocate "big government?" Of course not. Government is a not a handout, rather it is a tool, to be used to allow people to use their own talents to reach their fullest potential. (Don't you get a kick out of the fact that government spending has ballooned under every Republican Administration since WWII)

In his rant, Shrek(lich) (and the rest of his ilk) think all government programs kill jobs. Au contraire moin frere! For example, the GI Bill was the most succesful government program EVER. The multipler effect was enormous - the best form of investment this Nation has ever known. FDR put people to work when we, as a Nation, absolutely needed it.

NEVER let the Republicans get away with the BIG LIE that the Social Safety net from the Depression era, and investment-spurring government programs are "welfare."

Yeah, the US is ranked 7th in the UN's Human Development Index report for 2003, behind Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Australian, the Netherlands, and Belgium. We are certainly not the only country where the poor have color televisions. See http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/indicator/indic_8_1_1.html

For some odd reason, Republicans have long been fixated on color television as a measure of wellbeing.
Here's an exchange between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during the famous "Kitchen Debate" in Moscow on July 24, 1959.

Nixon: There are some instances where you may be ahead of us, for example in the development of the thrust of your rockets for the investigation of outer space; there may be some instances in which we are ahead of you -- in color television, for instance.

Khrushchev: No, we are up with you on this, too. We have bested you in one technique and also in the other.

Nixon: You see, you never concede anything.

Khrushchev: I do not give up.

Nixon: Wait till you see the picture. Let's have far more communication and exchange in this very area that we speak of. We should hear you more on our televisions. You should hear us more on yours.

............

Perhaps because Sherk grew up in Canada, he can be forgiven for thinking that Medicaid is just an American poverty program version of Canada's national health insurance system.
In fact, Medicaid is underfunded, ridden with fraud, unevenly administered by the states, and provides, at best, third-rate healthcare for the poor. With Medicaid, as with other programs (except food stamps), the working poor and the underemployed fall through the cracks.
Even lower middle class individuals in the US frequently end up receiving less than adequate medical care.

It's interesting that so many American municipalities and even states are trying to take advantage of Canada's health system, at least in the area of prescription drugs.
............

Poverty stricken Americans don't look at people in Burma, Congo, or Bolivia and exclaim, "it's just wonderful that we are so much better off than those folks!"
Instead, they compare their situations with fellow Americans' and wonder why the great Republican trickle down has still left them dry.
............

BTW, except for my computer monitor, I do not own a color TV.

Even the poor in America tend to be much better off than the poor or even the average person all over the rest of the world.

It's reasonable comments such as that which make it worthwhile to interact with you guys at BOR. I salute you.

The issue of "poverty" in America is indeed one of relative wealth. Sometimes devolving into envy:

Instead, they compare their situations with fellow Americans' and wonder why the great Republican trickle down has still left them dry.

America has the greatest socio-economic mobility of any nation in history, and even within that mobility, the standard of living continues to rise all along the line, at relative rates.

Those who disagree really need to explain that to the millions beating down our dorrs to get in.

By the way, if Pete Sessions really wanted to make the point, he could have asked how truly "poor" can the poor in America be when their greatest problem is, in fact, obesity.

Tim Z, et al,

Being ex-Canadian, I can tell you about the wonders of socialized medicine. It killed my Grandfather, forcing him to wait a year to see a specialist and then get surgery on his hip. By that point he had deteriorated so much that far more extensive surgery was required, and he didn't survive the operation. I know what I'm speaking of when I oppose it with every fiber of my body. Its not because I don't care if people die, its because I don't want them to die needlessly, which is what national health care causes.

Shreklich

Why does it have to be government's responsibility to ensure people stay above the poverty line? Whatever happened to INDIVIDUALS being responsible for themselves?

Perhaps if you took off your I-hate-the-Republican-party blinders, you'd see Session's point here.

Well, perhaps if Mr. Sessions were not a millionaire's son, I could take his dismissal of poverty more seriously. Portions of his district are quite poor, and I would prefer not to blame children for the failings of their parents, as others appear quite willing to do.

Of course, one could argue that the failure of six-year-olds to prostitute themselves to feed their families makes them culpable for their family's poverty.

Mark: are you really stating that the greatest problem facing america's poor is obesity? Greater than lack of jobs or healthcare? Can you back up that assertion with any evidence?

I too think that Canada/UK style socialized medicine is probably a bad idea. I much prefer a system of tax credit vouchers scaled to income for uninsured Americans to use to buy health insurance. This would keep the efficiency of the market while insuring all Americans and it'd be a good sell for both parties- Republicans get to tout their huge tax cut and Democrats get to tout their universal healthcare package. A truly American solution if you ask me.

Americans are much better off than most of the rest of the world and we have greater mobility than any other nation previous to ours in the history of the world. Still, while researching stuff on this I found that while those 7 nations that have better standards of living than the US have higher taxes (though Australia is very close to the US) they also have higher employment (with 1 or 2 exceptions). How is it that these nations have high taxes, big social spending and yet keep unemployment down?

Sherk--

So, you're saying that, if your grandpa had lived somewhere other than Canada, he'd have purchased his own health insurance policy rather than relying on the national plan and that health policy wouldn't have required him to wait? Or, are you saying that, if there hadn't been a national plan, he'd have purchased private insurance in Canada and that health policy wouldn't have required him to wait or pay for the treatment himself? Or, he should have gone ahead and gone to the U.S. and paid for his own treatment out of his own pocket when he got sick rather than wait his turn, since health care is effectively rationed by the amount available to be spent on it, and Canada wasn't spending enough as a nation? Or, he was entitled to having all his health care needs attended to, without anybody paying for it? Or, the Canadian government (via taxes) should have fully funded the health plan's costs so he wouldn't have to wait?

While I feel badly for him, he had options other than waiting for treatment, assuming he wasn't in prison or too sick to travel. Many wealthy Canadians do in fact travel to other countries for treatment rather than wait for complex care; the fact that there is a waiting list for treatment indicates that demand exceeds supply, which (assuming you believe in supply-and-demand) would seem to indicate that perhaps the government is underfunding health care. That, or the average Canadian is using too much of it, which does not appear to be your point.

And, as to your assertion that "anyone who wants one can get a job at WalMart for $18k" (my paraphrase), you should bear in mind that, first of all, WalMart only pays $13k to start (the minimum wage), and that's only if you get to work 40 hours a week, which WalMart prefers not to let you do, since it exposes them to possible overtime, and might eventually make you eligible for the meagre benefits they offer hourly workers, such as healthcare that costs over 25% of your takehome pay.

It also assumes you have reliable transportation to get you to a suburban WalMart, since so few of them are actually in inner-city areas, and that, if you have children, you can find somebody to take care of them for less than you're being paid to work.

Any way you slice it, there are still more unemployed people than there are available jobs (otherwise, unemployment would be at zero percent, not upwards of 5 percent as reported, or 9 percent, as some economists define it).

What do you propose for those people?

I too think that Canada/UK style socialized medicine is probably a bad idea.

Andrew, "socialized medicine" is a longtime GOP buzzword. It's like accepting their expression "pro-life".
Of course, no two countries which have national health insurance have identical systems. The anti-healthcare conservatives always point to the UK's as an example of bureaucratic dysfunctionalism. It's certainly not the most efficient system, though the vast majority of Britons would not want to scrap it. Even Margaret Thatcher didn't dare go beyond very minor tinkering with it. For some reason, we never hear about the more successful systems in Germany, France, Scandinavia, and Holland.

I have long felt that healthcare is a basic right like clean air, pure drinking water, and safe food.
Treating healthcare as if it were an optional service like cable TV, gives us a system where only those who can pay for premium services are able to receive premium care.

Two responses to two posters here, Andrew and precinct1233,

First, Andrew, the way the U.N. measures "standard of living" is rigged to favor government spending. Things like the proportion of GDP spent by the government on health care get you points, private spending doesn't, so of course Canada, Sweden, etc. rank higher.

Secondly, I don't know which nations are the 7 you are referring to this year, although Canada was #1 for quite some time, and I assume is above place #7, and I think Australia is on there too. I can't speak to all seven nations, but I know you are wrong claiming that Canada has lower employment than the U.S., and I am pretty sure Australia doesn't either. Canada's unemployment is running around 7-8% right now, 1-3 points higher than the 5-6% U.S. employment rate. Australia's finance Minister has been bragging recently about aiming for 6% Unemployment in Australia, a historical low by Aussie standards. We have 5.7% now, which we consider on the slightly high side, so it is wrong to say that Australia has lower unemployment.

Also, Canadian per capita GDP is about $8-$10k a year less than America's. So there are fewer Canadians working (as a % of workforce, of course, not just in raw terms) and they earn a fair bit less. Given that the top tax rate kicks in on income over $60k Canadian (~$46k US) a year, and is approx 47-8%, plus or minus depending on the province, Canadians are quite a bit poorer than Americans. What is considered lower to middle middle class in the USA are upper middle class incomes in Canada. Look, I've been to the socialist dreamland you want to create in the U.S., and it doesn't work.

Precinct,

First, don't assume that my Grandfather was well off enough to just move down to the States to get it done. He spent his entire life paying those Canadian tax rates I just described, which left him with enough to retire on but not much more. He didn't buy U.S. insurance because he believed that he could get Health Care when he needed it in Canada. He was wrong, and of course you can't buy insurance to pay for an operation you know you need. He discussed going down to the States to get it done ASAP, but was concerned he wouldn't have enough left in savings to live off of if he did so.

So I am saying that if he had lived in the States, and not paid the absurd income taxes Canada has, he would have had enough left over in savings to buy American health insurance. In the American system, they don't ration care. If you can afford it, or have insurance, you get it pronto. No %#$@#!! six month waiting lines for essential surgery, and no waiting months to see a specialist, either. So he could have seen a specialist in a few days, not six months, and gotten surgery shortly there afterwards, which he probably would have survived at that point.

Government can NEVER allocate resourced as effectively as the market. It has no idea how many doctors are needed in what field, or how much needs to be spent each year on Health Care. In many cases, when the government allocates resources it just makes people poorer, but when government centrally plans medical care, the results are fatal!

As for unemployment, Precinct, the "natural" rate of Unemployemnt in the US is 5%. This corresponds to basically everyone who wants a job having one, but with some people quitting their jobs, or getting fired, and looking for new ones. This is called frictional unemployment, and it is inevitable in a growing economy. You could abolish it if everyone by law worked at the same firm for life, and firms could never fire anyone, but that would greatly increase other forms of unemployment (as firms would be very very reluctant to hire anyone). Look, technology changes, and it is creating computer/tech related jobs while destroying manufacturing jobs. Workers have to switch between sectors, and given the structure of the US economy, it works out to about 5% UE. In Europe it is around 9-10%, as the most European nations give tons of UE benefits, so there is less incentive to work at a less than ideal job.

Also, the WalMart point could be applied to McDonalds, or any other low paying restaurant/retail job. You are still far wealthier there than in a lot of countries around the world. If WalMart won't let you work 40 hrs a week, you could work two jobs. But besides, these are entry level positions that give people the experience they need to get higher paying jobs ... something that are really unattainable in much of the third world.

Sherk
The Jolly Green German Ogre

"I have long felt that healthcare is a basic right..."

Tim Z,

That's wonderful. Where does this "right" come from? The fact that Health Care is good, that it would be great if everyone had health care? Seriously, what basis do you have for declaring that everyone has a "right" to health care, besides your own personal feelings?

This "basic right", unlike the right to free speech, freedom of religion, private property, other fundamental freedoms, etc. doesn't involve giving your personal freedom. It is a claim on the labor of others. It implies you have the right to take from others to satisfy your own wants/needs. You might need health care, but you have no "right" to take someone else's income to get it. Especially not when creating this "right" leads to needless death and suffering.

Cordially,

Sherk

This "basic right", unlike the right to free speech, freedom of religion, private property, other fundamental freedoms, etc. doesn't involve giving your personal freedom.

Tim Z is expressing the Marxist conflation of political rights with social rights.

Sherk--

So, what you're saying is that there are enough jobs around for every single adult in the U.S. who wants one to work full time? Then, perhaps you can explain why the Dallas Morning News has far fewer than 500 positions advertised in "Help Wanted" every day when there are more than 128,000 officially unemployed people in the DFW Metro area? Can you suggest where the other 127,500 people should pack up and move?

Again, you don't address the fact that "McJobs" don't pay enough to support a family, unless both parents work two full-time jobs, given the cost of living in the U.S., including the cost of healthcare and childcare, which the government does not subsidize except through tax credits, most of which accrues to those with higher incomes.

What has the fact that we, as a group, are better off than most other groups in the world got to do with the fact that some of those in our group are desperately poor? While putting you, me and Bill Gates in the same room would technically make us, on average, billionaires, it wouldn't, in and of itself, improve my personal wealth (unless I mugged Bill, emptied his pockets, and sold his jewelry. Such an outcome would probably be temporary, since you'd probably rat me out).

Mark: are you really stating that the greatest problem facing america's poor is obesity? Greater than lack of jobs or healthcare? Can you back up that assertion with any evidence?

Link

Link2

Although you mistate my assertion. The context was the discussion regarding the fact that what America considers "poor" would be a standard of living ardently desired by most citizens of the Third World. In this wider context (and considering the health and welfare assistance available, both governmental and private) it is not at all incorrect to say there are no "poor people" in America.

unless I mugged Bill, emptied his pockets, and sold his jewelry

Can you spell "Progressive Income Tax"?

Look - I'm not going to maintain that there is not a single person in the United States who is undeservedly poor. But the more government raises taxes and uses other hidden forms of wealth redistribution to enact a misguided, utopian/egalitarian ideal, the more likely that such a discredited economic approach WILL substantially increase the number of poor in this country. So, I'm like you: I don't want Americans to be poor. The difference is, the capitalist approach I support has worked, whereas socialist approaches have failed miserably.

Oh, and by the way, the "natural rate" of unemployment (a term later disowned by its coiner Milton Friedman because he felt it implied that there was a level of unemployment that was "normal"), was last believed to be between 3.7 and 4 percent (see "ask the expert" on Google), not 5 percent, let alone the current 6-point-whatever or 9-point-whatever, depending on how you define it. Further, properly used, it specifically refers to the minimum rate of unemployment that can be achieved without causing persistent inflation due to employers' bidding up pay levels to fill positions, not to inefficiencies in the employment process. It is accepted that this number varies over time, due to conditions that are neither fully understood nor, apparently, quantifiable.

No reputable economist is currently making the claim that we are at "full employment".

Which still leaves the question: how do we support people when there are not enough jobs for them to make a living, even cobbling together multiple low-paid positions?

Mark - I think you should actually read the links before posting them as evidence supporting your claims. To whit, from your own link:

"Even as childhood obesity rates are on the rise, the latest federal data on food security finds that 14 million American children live in homes where there is not always enough food to eat. This apparent paradox has led some analysts to misconstrue the trends, arguing that childhood obesity is greatest among poor children; thus, they cannot be hungry. This report examines the latest data on hunger and obesity among children.
Obesity trends are not higher among poor children, though some low-income children are classified as overweight and others are at risk for high weight. Poor children may be mildly undernourished and still avoid weight loss if their diets are insufficient in nutrients but not total energy. Many children from food-insecure homes show signs of poor nutrition, like stunted height or low levels of iron in the blood, and poor families have many disadvantages that lead to sub-optimal food choices and limited access to physical activity. It is for these reasons that some poor youngsters, even those who experience food insecurity, may be classified as overweight."

A significant reason for this is the lack of access to good nutrition sources (in particular quality fruits and vegetables) in poorer areas, while access to nutritionally poor food (snacks from 7-11, MacDonalds, etc) are more likely to be readily available.

In other words, these kids aren't obese because they're eating so much, they're obese because all they're eating is fattening crap.

I'll hand it to you that ppl spend money better than government. The reason is that when the government takes a dollar in taxes and then redistributes it elsewhere, the administrative costs of government drain a portion of that dollar and therefore the recipients do not get the full benefit of the money. In the market this does not happen.

Still, there are some things the market simply cannot do. Education and health care are not universal in a pure market system and while these are not necessarily "rights" they have unbelievable benefits to the society as a whole that cannot be measured in mere dollars and cents. Educated, healthy ppl work harder and better than ignorant, sickly people. This means that the overall efficiency of the system rises.

The question then arises, if we don't want huge, inefficient, capital draining bureaucracy but we do want well-funded universal education and health care, what are we to do? My solution is one embraced by Milton Friedman himself- tax credits for low income Americans for the purposes of education and health care. If we let Americans write off their kids' college tuition from the taxes and give ppl health care vouchers we have lower taxes, lower bureacracy but higher levels of education and health care. Everyone walks away happy and our society is much better off in the end.

In other words, these kids aren't obese because they're eating so much, they're obese because all they're eating is fattening crap.

...which is the fault of: Rich People?

...and the solution is: give them more money so they can buy even more fattening crap?

Liberal condescension toward the poor is seldom displayed so blatantly.

Uh...what? Sorry, I was speaking English, I don't know what the hell planet you're on.

No one said it's "rich people's fault" but you. Not one said the "solution was giving them more money" but you.

And somehow to turn that around into my "liberal condescension toward the poor" is probably the most convoluted contortion I've seen since I went to Cirque du Soleil last year.

Amazing! You give the term "partisan hack" new meaning.

Now, to provide the actual gist of what I said:

You asserted that poverty-level kids' obesity is proof that they are eating just fine (and a reasonable interpretation might draw the conclusion that you implied that they ate MORE than fine).

I asked for evidence.

You provided a link.

I pointed out that the very link you provided indicated just the opposite of what you say it did.

In your typical way, you have your prejudiced idea of what each and every liberal believes in and stands for and you engaged in your typical irrational argument, one that had nothing to do with reality.

Do some Canadians have to wait for medical care under their system? Yes, and in other systems, the uninsured and poor wait FOREVER and never get any health care. One of the myths of the "socialized medicine" lie is that all health care is rationed. The point is, health care is no more "rationed" in Canada than it is in the "USA."

Under single payer systems, (to any lassaiz fair advocate's dream), if you can pay for an operation out of your own pocket, you can buy it. For example, in Israel, which is fairly typical of single payer health care systems, doctors treat "private pay" patients "on the side."

Some individual sick Canadians may not get all the health care they need (Utopia exists only in our minds), but would they get it in America? Probably not. Would they have an employer that offered insurance, would they be able to afford the high insurance premiums, would they have coverage for the catastrophic losses they may need. If they did have all these things, they very well may have been in a position to "private pay" in Canada.

Any focusing on an individual scenario to indict an entire system is faulty indictive reasoning. Look at the big picture. The USA spends more per capita on health care than any civilized country. Yet, by and objective measure (life expectancy, infant mortality rate, incidents of disease, number of hours missed in the workforce due to illness, etc.), we lag way behind every other civilized nation. Obviously, they are doing something right and we are not.

We deserve better.

Tim Z is expressing the Marxist conflation of political rights with social rights.

The Rush Limbaughs and Tom DeLays of the 1930s tried to paint Social Security as "communistic".
Now the Republicans have to give lip service to Social Security, even while they divert Social Security funds to their rich buddies in the form of huge tax breaks. And when critics dare to complain about this massive redistribution of the wealth, the neocons, paleocons, and just plain cons shriek, "CLASS WARFARE! CLASS WARFARE! CLASS WARFARE!"

I thought that "red scare" tactics died with the Soviet Union. If the Republicans are still so obsessed with communism, it's no wonder they don't have the time to track down Osama.

FYI, I'm a free-marketer in the same mold as Bill Clinton or Robert Rubin. Anybody who thinks that those two are Marxists is indeed in dire need of acute mental healthcare.
I just don't think that health is a market commodity in the same way that Hostess Twinkies or iPods may be.
To me, this is one of the key issues that separates Democrats from the social Darwinists in that other party.

"social Darwinists"? !?! Who are you calling a Darwinist?

Shrek(lich)

"social Darwinists"? !?! Who are you calling a Darwinist?

Shrek(lich)

:)

Just to elevate the dialogue a notch...
Best 5 bumper stickers I have read in the last year...

1. Keep working! million on welfare are depending on you
2. Vote Kerry! Terrorists need a break too.
3. Liberal Chicks are easy.
4. I think therefore I am conservative
5. Screw a greedy trial Lawyer, Vote Republican

enjoy!
MDs for BUSH!