[HM2Viking]

Originally Posted by BSNDec06

I would like to see data from a respected economist to back up these claims.

This plan would be impossible to implement without steep tax increases, which would negatively impact economic progress. Also, there is no data to suggest that increasing the minimum wage and unionizing industries would do anything more than push more American jobs overseas.

I am all for doing more to help the poor in their time of need, but increased government handouts will not solve the problem. There is a saying that goes "If you give a man a fish, you feed him today. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." The French economy is currently in shambles because their government basically functions as a welfare state.

IMO tax money would be better spent on infastructure, education and economic incentives for small business owners.

Dean Baker is a PhD economist. But I encourage you to follow the links to the articles I excerpted to read the analysis and commentary in its entirety. The CAP data is also based on current economic data and trends.

I am fully in agreement with you about increased investment in education and people as a way to address the very real economic problems of this country. (I specifically reference the following from my original post "And the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program should be reformed to shift its focus from cutting caseloads to helping needy families find sustainable employment." (emphasis added). Sustainable employment means holding a job that requires more skill than tending a cash register at your local big box retailer. I don't know of a single progressive who argues that anyone should sit home. Rather the emphasis is on reducing barriers to achievement, encouraging real job skills and earning a living wage as a result. This is an approach that is consistent with values of fairness, hard work and achievement.

Increased tax breaks for the ultra wealthy will not solve our problems or result in any real net economic growth. Increasing the minimum wage will not shove jobs overseas. (There was actually a study referenced by The Nation done in MD that showed the converse effect of a Minimum wage increase in other words the state with the higher minimum wage had a better overall economy.)


http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/charts/index.html
The above shows the income trends since 1979.

This idea of broadly shared prosperity as being an engine for success has been demonstrated elsewhere:


We have lower economic mobility than the social democracies of Europe.

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/charts/index.html

[Miss_Chybil]

4. Guarantee child care assistance to low-income families and promote early education for all. We propose that the federal and state governments guarantee child care help to families with incomes below about $40,000 a year, with expanded tax help to higher-earning families. At the same time, states should be encouraged to improve the quality of early education and broaden access for all children. Our child care expansion would raise employment among low-income parents and help nearly 3 million parents and children escape poverty.

This is the main one for me. So many single parents can't afford to go to work because of the cost of child care. I got 1 year of child care assistance 15 years ago and it changed my, and my children's, life. One year might not be enough for a lot of people, but it allowed me to get into a job which allowed me to get a better one. Noone could have done anything better for my family than to give me that chance to go to work. I've never lived too high on the hog, but I own my own home and I'm a tax paying citizen. I'd love nothing more than for my taxes to help other single parents go to work instead of being spent to bomb people to death.

[ZASHAGALKA]

1. Tax breaks spur the economy, which creates prosperity, for everyone. The rich can't get richer if you can't afford to buy what they are selling. It's that simple.

2. The gov't has never, not one time in history, been the mechanism of prosperity for anybody other than those at the trough of gov't.

3. The proven, most reliable path to prosperity is and has always been, the free market.

The world, by any objective measure, has enjoyed a wave of prosperity since the free market has swept it over.

The United States is the leader simply because we have invested in the concept of a free market for longer and more earnestly than most. It's that simple.

Socialism leads to poverty. Free markets lead to prosperity. Any other "solution" ignores history. Remember, it is Leninism that is in the ash heaps of history.

The progressive agenda is uncompassionate because it ignores the mechanisms that actually do create prosperity.

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

1. Raise and index the minimum wage to half the average hourly wage. At $5.15, the federal minimum wage is at its lowest level in real terms since 1956. The federal minimum wage was once 50 percent of the average wage but is now 30 percent of that wage. Congress should restore the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average wage, about $8.40 an hour in 2006. Doing so would help nearly 5 million poor workers and nearly 10 million other low-income workers.

If 8.40 is a fair wage, then why not 20? Or, 40? You can reasonably expect what would happen if the minimum wage is 40/hr, but, why can you not apply that to a dollar, or 2? Do you think those evil businessmen that progressive love to complain about are going to eat this cost? No, they are going to pass it on. The results: less job opportunities and creeping inflation that eliminates the gains.

So, if we are going to be invested in a minimum wage, I’m all for 65.00/hr.

In reality, the MW is designed to aid those higher up the food chain, because it creates the need to re-scale wages, especially in unions. So, it DOES help some, who make enough more than MW that the added income offsets the inflationary creep it causes (and besides, their jobs aren’t as likely to be eliminated because of the increase.) The results: some benefit, but do so directly on the backs of MW earners. It is the not so poor taking from the poor.

MW is an anti-poor reform.

2. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. As an earnings supplement for low-income working families, the EITC raises incomes and helps families build assets. The Child Tax Credit provides a tax credit of up to $1,000 per child, but provides no help to the poorest families. We recommend tripling the EITC for childless workers and expanding help to larger working families. We recommend making the Child Tax Credit available to all low- and moderate-income families. Doing so would move as many as 5 million people out of poverty.

Using the tax code to redistribute wealth cannot create wealth. It can only redistribute it. The free market creates wealth, for everybody. This thesis is supposedly about “from poverty to prosperity”. No gov’t giveaway program can create prosperity. Not a single one. This isn’t about creating prosperity but an attempt to redistribute it.

I’m not complaining about the concept of EITC, per say. Just pointing out that it doesn’t meet the supposed goal of the thesis: it doesn’t create prosperity. The gov’t just can’t do that.

Besides, let me point out that this original idea was the brainchild of Milton Friedman, the original modern free market, anti-Keynesian economist. It’s nice to see progressives give a nod to Friedman.

3. Promote unionization by enacting the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act would require employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation and establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights. The increased union representation made possible by the Act would lead to better jobs and less poverty for American workers.

The employee free choice act is a lie. It is about coercion. It is universally accepted that secret ballots are a key to ensuring un-coerced voting. This idea is a ridiculous as it is anti-Democratic. The goal is nothing short of sanctioning coercion in the workplace.

Unions are decreasing every year because they are increasingly ineffective. If unions want to change that, they need to come up with a better mousetrap, not petition Congress for the proverbial gun to point at the head of potential new members.

4. Guarantee child care assistance to low-income families and promote early education for all. We propose that the federal and state governments guarantee child care help to families with incomes below about $40,000 a year, with expanded tax help to higher-earning families. At the same time, states should be encouraged to improve the quality of early education and broaden access for all children. Our child care expansion would raise employment among low-income parents and help nearly 3 million parents and children escape poverty.

How about the novel concept of not having kids if you cannot afford to raise them? Oh wait, that’s just me being silly, to suggest that anybody be responsible for their actions. You’re right, the gov’t should insure that every irresponsible act meets with no consequence. In that way, we will greatly discourage irresponsibility. Right?

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

5. Create 2 million new “opportunity” housing vouchers, and promote equitable development in and around central cities. Nearly 8 million Americans live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty where at least 40 percent of residents are poor. Our nation should seek to end concentrated poverty and economic segregation, and promote regional equity and inner-city revitalization. We propose that over the next 10 years the federal government fund 2 million new “opportunity vouchers” designed to help people live in opportunity-rich areas. Any new affordable housing should be in communities with employment opportunities and high-quality public services, or in gentrifying communities. These housing policies should be part of a broader effort to pursue equitable development strategies in regional and local planning efforts, including efforts to improve schools, create affordable housing, assure physical security, and enhance neighborhood amenities.

People don’t respect what they don’t earn for themselves. Previous HUD vouchers are the creation of some of the very problems cited here. It’s a simple fact that, when HUD moves in with force, property values go down and there is a middle class flight from those neighborhoods.

Why? Blatant racism? No. People don’t respect what they don’t earn. When people that haven’t earned what they have been given move into neighborhoods, they don’t respect it and so, those neighborhoods go downhill. The goal here is to help people move into ‘opportunity rich’ neighborhoods. Right. As the gov’t moves in people that don’t respect what has been given to them, the “opportunities” available in those neighborhoods take flight. This has been repeated in neighborhood after neighborhood for 40 yrs.

It’s not all the fault of voucher holders. In fact, normally, those vouchers will only be accepted by owners in neighborhoods where the value have already fallen. So, “opportunity rich” was an illusion, from the start.

I believe that every gov’t asst program should be coupled with the incentive to get off that program. As such, the gov’t should get out of the business of providing single family dwellings to anybody. Everybody, regardless of proof of need, should be able to get gov’t housing. That housing, however, should be in 20 family dorms with community bathrooms, kitchens, and living areas. If you want a single family dwelling, better your lives.

You don’t create prosperity by eliminating every need to excel. Excellence creates prosperity. THAT is what the gov’t needs to encourage, more than handouts. Handouts do not create prosperity. It’s that simple.


6. Connect disadvantaged and disconnected youth with school and work. About 1.7 million poor youth ages 16 to 24 were out of school and out of work in 2005. We recommend that the federal government restore Youth Opportunity Grants to help the most disadvantaged communities and expand funding for effective and promising youth programs—with the goal of reaching 600,000 poor disadvantaged youth through these efforts. We propose a new Upward Pathway program to offer low-income youth opportunities to participate in service and training in fields that are in high-demand and provide needed public services.

That will create prosperity: let’s spend millions to get these people “service” jobs. Ummm, Mickey D’s is hiring, now! How about actually trying to improve their lives. This reminds me of the D.C. liberal movement that was going out of their way to provide shopping carts to homeless people in the ‘90’s. Wow, that solved the homeless problem!

This doesn’t sound like a pathway to prosperity. This sounds like a gov’t funded program to ensure that the poor stay poor.. Stay out of our economy: here are your service industry jobs!

7. Simplify and expand Pell Grants and make higher education accessible to residents of each state. Low-income youth are much less likely to attend college than their higher income peers, even among those of comparable abilities. Pell Grants play a crucial role for lower-income students. We propose to simplify the Pell grant application process, gradually raise Pell Grants to reach 70 percent of the average costs of attending a four-year public institution, and encourage institutions to do more to raise student completion rates. As the federal government does its part, states should develop strategies to make postsecondary education affordable for all residents, following promising models already underway in a number of states.

Student loans are the reason why colleges get more expensive, year after year. With every increase in available loans, tuitions rise to match. The result: massive debt for all too many. THAT is the ticket to prosperity: let’s make sure all our college grads start out tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Any aid that allows schools to increase tuition, be it grants or loans, is anti-prosperity.

A better solution: dissolve the dept of education and end all its funding. Within 10 yrs, schools will re-align to become affordable. Why? Because, without the gov’t asst to outrageously price, their prices would have to be what people could actually afford in order to actually get people to come.

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

8. Help former prisoners find stable employment and reintegrate into their communities. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. We urge all states to develop comprehensive reentry services aimed at reintegrating former prisoners into their communities with full-time, consistent employment.

There are plenty of programs to better yourself while in jail. In reality, the biggest problem with re-integration is recidivism. Full time consistent employment should be earned. Period. The gov’t cannot do that for anybody.

No gov’t promised jobs would lead to prosperity. They would be of the ‘service’ type jobs recommended above. If not earned, those jobs would hold no promise for their potential beneficiaries. The result: an increase in recidivism as individuals become despondent over the gov’ts definition of ‘prosperity’ for them.

Ultimately, you cannot give a man, no matter how hard you try, the self-respect to earn his keep. That is an internal fortitude.

9. Ensure equity for low-wage workers in the Unemployment Insurance system. Only about 35 percent of the unemployed, and a smaller share of unemployed low-wage workers, receive unemployment insurance benefits. We recommend that states (with federal help) reform “monetary eligibility” rules that screen out low-wage workers, broaden eligibility for part-time workers and workers who have lost employment as a result of compelling family circumstances, and allow unemployed workers to use periods of unemployment as a time to upgrade their skills and qualifications.

Basically, a redistribution program. Instead of using this program as an “insurance’ against unemployment, this idea would use this program as an excuse to avoid employment. THAT is certainly a pathway to prosperity!

Just another feel-good solution that ultimately is nothing more than “here’s your check, now, stay out of our economy.”

Why not offer solutions that help people rise up instead of solutions designed to keep them where they are at? I never understand how this is considered to be compassion.

10. Modernize means-tested benefits programs to develop a coordinated system that helps workers and families. A well-functioning safety net should help people get into or return to work and ensure a decent level of living for those who cannot work or are temporarily between jobs. Our current system fails to do so. We recommend that governments at all levels simplify and improve benefits access for working families and improve services to individuals with disabilities. The Food Stamp Program should be strengthened to improve benefits, eligibility, and access. And the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program should be reformed to shift its focus from cutting caseloads to helping needy families find sustainable employment.

Get rid all these programs and apply the funding to the increase in tax credits you advocated for above. Make the credits monthly installment checks. End all these programs. After 40 yrs and trillions of dollars, they have not decreased the poverty level. I can safely say that experience has proven that these programs do not move people from being poor to prosperity.

So, they are a burden. End them all. Or, actually restructure them so that within each there is an incentive to get off the programs. Community, dorm, housing. Food stamps that only cover nutritious foods: cheerios, skim milk. You want frito lay and coke? Earn the money.

I also think that all aid should be given regardless of marital status and should decrease with increasing income in such a way that increasing income ALWAYS outweighs, by at least twice as much, the decrease in benefits: an incentive to earn more because earning always outweighs subsistance. Also, by not penalizing marriage, we allow the social systems in place that have TRADITIONALLY decreased poverty: intact families.

Without incentives to improve your lot, these programs merely entrench poverty by making it sustainable.

11. Reduce the high costs of being poor and increase access to financial services. Despite having less income, lower-income families often pay more than middle and high-income families for the same consumer products. We recommend that the federal and state governments should address the foreclosure crisis through expanded mortgage assistance programs and by new federal legislation to curb unscrupulous practices. And we propose that the federal government establish a $50 million Financial Fairness Innovation Fund to support state efforts to broaden access to mainstream goods and financial services in predominantly low-income communities.

This is so general as to not be able to respond to it. Let’s make goods cheaper by having the gov’t subsidize them? How socialist! But, it doesn’t work. That only reduces supply, making demand for the same goods and services all the more high. Instead of interfering with the free market, the gov’t should get out of the way. THAT is the best way to move from poverty to prosperity.

12. Expand and simplify the Saver’s Credit to encourage saving for education, homeownership, and retirement. For many families, saving for purposes such as education, a home, or a small business is key to making economic progress. We propose that the federal “Saver’s Credit” be reformed to make it fully refundable. This Credit should also be broadened to apply to other appropriate savings vehicles intended to foster asset accumulation, with consideration given to including individual development accounts, children’s saving accounts, and college savings plans.

A flat sales tax would greatly encourage savings because savings wouldn’t be taxable. THAT would be the ultimate ‘saver’s credit’. The only way this program could work if it the credit was limited to certain uses, like a home, or education, or a small business. Otherwise, the program wouldn’t encourage savings and as a result, wouldn't encourage prosperity. But, that makes the program a failure. Ultimately, people are not going to save if savings has the strings of the gov’t dictating its use.

The gov’t shouldn’t be in the business of telling people how they should spend their money. This is just another boondoggle program that, if you want to give this kind of money away, should be rolled into the EITC and not vested in the creation of yet another wasteful program.

It's just shouldn't be the gov't's business how people spend their money.

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by DeeAngel

I would like to see strong emphasis on birth control and have free sterilizations available to people who desire it. I do not feel it is my responsibility to take care of the children born to people who cannot afford to care for them. People MUST be strongly encouraged to NOT have children they cannot afford or care for. I just don't hear ANYONE in government coming out and saying this. I planned and had two children because that is what I knew I could care for and afford college and graduate school for. I could have had more but that would not have been the responsible thing to do. When I see women with no education and 5 children complain about how hhhhaaaaarrrrrrddd it is to pay for everything I don't have much sympathy. Closing their legs, using birth control and trying to get more education will go a TREMENDOUS way in getting people out of poverty. Many children combined with poor education will almost guarantee you a lifetime of poverty and doing without. Children take a tremendous amount of resources to raise to adulthood.

Ah, but the entitlement agenda is a pyramid scheme. In order for it to work, there has to be an exponential supply of future workers.

Far from encouraging the reduction of children, our gov't, by necessity, encourages the procreation of children. THAT is why I sometimes refer to my crumbcrunchers as my 'tax credits'.

The gov't is desperate for more bodies in the workforce. It's why it turns a blind eye to illegal aliens. It is also why you will NEVER hear about reducing births as gov't policy.

~faith,
Timothy.

[Miss_Chybil]

Originally Posted by ZASHAGALKA

1. Tax breaks spur the economy, which creates prosperity, for everyone. The rich can't get richer if you can't afford to buy what they are selling. It's that simple.

You're exactly right. That's why in places where the minimum wage is higher, the economy is better because, like you said, when everybody has more money to spend, they spend it - be it a Wal-Mart, or Chico's. So, let's raise the minimum wage - the rich will get richer because the poor will be able to buy more of what the rich are peddling.

Originally Posted by ZASHAGALKA

2. The gov't has never, not one time in history, been the mechanism of prosperity for anybody other than those at the trough of gov't.

I'm sure you're including trough feeders such as Halliburton, Bechtel, The Carlyle Group and others who eat at the "Milltary Industrial Complex Diner," right? Especially, those guys who like to order the "No-bid Special," and the "Over-priced Plate." That's free-market at it's best.

Bottom line for me - when more people do well, more people do well. It's really not that difficult a concept, I don't believe.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by Miss_Chybil

You're exactly right. That's why in places where the minimum wage is higher, the economy is better because, like you said, when everybody has more money to spend, they spend it - be it a Wal-Mart, or Chico's. So, let's raise the minimum wage - the rich will get richer because the poor will be able to buy more of what the rich are peddling.



I'm sure you're including trough feeders such as Halliburton, Bechtel, The Carlyle Group and others who eat at the "Milltary Industrial Complex Diner," right? Especially, those guys who like to order the "No-bid Special," and the "Over-priced Plate." That's free-market at it's best.

Bottom line for me - when more people do well, more people do well. It's really not that difficult a concept, I don't believe.

The inflationary offsets of MW, combined with fewer jobs at the bottom rung, make the poor more poor. In effect, it is aid to those that make about 10-16/hr off the backs of those at the lowest rung: reverse robin hood. Take from the poor and give to those not quite so poor.

If you want to REALLY help the poorest of the poor, a better proposition would be to close the border and access to millions of workers that undercut the lowest rung of the work ladder.

There is NO job Americans won't do: there are just jobs they won't do for 3 bucks/hr.

MW is anti-poor.

And I'm not a fan of the corporate relationship to gov't, at all. That's not free market. It's neo-mercantilism. Google it, there is a distinct difference. Yes, cut the whole monster of gov't down, including those monster corps that feed off of it. The king is a tyrant, and so are his courtisans.

~faith,
Timothy.

[HM2Viking]

I think the above data is a rather stunning commentary on the failures of conservative economic policy. I have not seen a convincing alternative hypothesis to explain these failures of policy. The data on economic mobility from Europe is rather compelling about the results of a social democracy in producing shared economic growth. I invite you to read the article in total and not just the bullet points to see the details of the proposals.

See:

The increased inequality from 2001 to 2005—during a recovery no less—caused the bottom 90% of households to lose income (-$2,071) while the best-off 1% of households gained $183,902 on average.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfe...shots_20070801