Poverty as a Political Issue? Ha, Give Me a Break!

Legal Fiction (Publius) makes a good observation that even Democrats have avoided talking about poverty for many years now.

Focusing the attention on Bush-the-individual serves two purposes. First, it makes everything easier to understand. It’s sort of like individual-centric sixth-grade history that kids learn – George Washington caused America to be free; the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand caused World War I, Bush caused the Katrina deaths, etc. Second, it allows liberals to ignore their own culpability. With the exception of John Edwards, not a single major Democratic
presidential candidate talked about poverty, much less risked any political capital to address it. And the much ballyhooed netroots don’t seem to give a shit either and I indict myself in that as well). We have all forgotten about poverty and thus we are all to blame for Katrina – and the next Katrina. But focusing on Bush-the-individual is convenient because he plays the role of scapegoat very well. http://lawandpolitics.blogspot.com/

Remember how every Kerry policy that would have addressed the lowest part of the income scale first was phrased in terms of helping “the middle class”? I am not being critical of it as politics, since almost everyone considers themselves to be middle class. No doubt, Democrats think talking about poverty is a loser with the “real” middle class, who see it in simple-minded terms as taking their money and giving it to poor people. (Who labeled policies to address poverty as “re-distribution” policies? Why, I think you would find it was primarily Republican economists and their dupes in the profession and the media, who found a $2 word for repetition and continuing focus on the desirability for ongoing tax reduction.) We have Reagan and his “welfare queen,” most memorably, to thank for a lot of this, although there certainly have been many to share the blame. Indeed, the Republican Party is built on opposition to “re-distribution” -- take away the taxes used to do it -- heavily tinged with the racism that has never left us and that most African-Americans have spotted quite easily.

The unfortunate reality, after decades of Republican ideological ascendancy, is that everything must be framed in terms of the voters’ self-interest. It least we all believe that. So be it, and it really should not be that difficult. Somehow we need to get across to all voters, middle class and upwards, some simple arguments for eliminating poverty: (1) poverty drags down YOUR wages (the lower the bottom is, the more it allows employers to hold down wages all the way up the scale – duh!!!); (2) poverty drags down the ECONOMY (it slows down economic activity because poor people don’t have as much to spend and live in constant fear of running out of money – duh!!!); (3) Washington can follow policies that either increase poverty or decrease it (under Bush and the Republicans, poverty has increased despite good economic times for the well-off, while under Clinton it came down dramatically – duh!!!).

That’s pretty easy to say, don’t you think? We need to be constantly on the lookout to find simple, few (countable on one hand), Anglo-Saxon, non-Latin-based words to express Democratic principles – something the Democratic consultants in Washington who dominate the party’s messages seem unable to do. Yet, when they are reminded of such simple dot-connections, I would guess that millions of voters instinctively recognize it to be the truth: yes, I guess now that you say it, poverty among millions of people is actually bad for me, too. But if the Democratic Party won’t say it loud and clear, then how can anyone know that Democrats actually get it?

So let’s repeat it: besides being the “right thing to do,” POVERTY DRAGS DOWN YOUR WAGES, POVERTY DRAGS DOWN THE ECONOMY. And if you want to get all moral-values about it, what about the Christian reminder that you get back ten-fold (or at least “bountifully") what you give to the needy? Have the Republicans who claim to be holier than the rest of us conveniently forgotten about that one?