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New York City Republicans
By JBC | September 22, 2006
The Republican Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has the answer to poverty. He has proposed a 42 billion dollar program to alleviate the scourge of economic deprivation in the Big Apple. His program will include tax breaks for families with children under the age of three. Additionally, he has proposed incentive payments for families whose children stay in school, seek medical care, and score well on standardized test results. Nothing says New York City like socialism, huh?
Now, leaving aside pure uncut socialism, I have two major problems with the reporting on this proposal. We are being fed the line that similar “cash transfer” programs have reduced poverty in Brazil and Mexico. Hmmm, these kinds of programs have worked in Mexico? If these kinds of programs are working in Mexico, why the hell are we being invaded by these people that are doing so well in Mexico? Why would they come to America, if these kinds of programs are so great? Hopefully, the program will work just as well in New York City, and all the liberals will begin to invade Canada.
Secondly, the program will cost 42 BILLION, not million, BILLION dollars. Are you kidding me? 42 BILLION? BILLION? Now, Mr. Bloomberg (did I mention that he is a Republican?) says that the cash incentives will not be paid with government funds, but will be paid with private donations. Now, this is a better way to do things, but the tax breaks are still a redistribution of taxpayer money. Additionally….42 BILLION….just for this program, is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of Libya, greater than the GDP of Croatia, TWICE the GDP of Costa Rica, THRICE the GDP of Estonia…should I go on? Why not cut through the crap, all the bureaucratic garbage, and pay these poor people directly? You want to eliminate poverty? Take this 42 BILLION dollars and divide it among the 8 million residents of New York. That would be a payment of $5,250 for each resident of New York City. Now, if you say that only a THIRD of New Yorkers are poverty-stricken, that means that each person would receive a nice fat check of $15,000.00 apiece. Even if you include the entire metropolitan NYC area, a population of 18 million, you could write checks for around $7,000 for each poor person (based on a generous estimate that 1/3 are poor). But, even with direct payments of cash, you would not do away with poverty, because you cannot will people to make good decisions, can’t force them to be intelligent, and can’t pay them to do the right thing. You can only provide the opportunities for them to help themselves.
Well, I take that last statement back. The Soviet Union eliminated poverty. They eliminated poverty by making everyone equally destitute and hopeless, and therefore nobody felt less fortunate than their neighbors. Are Republicans like Bloomberg, Guliani, and Bush proponents of such programs? Not yet, but give the party a few years to evolve, and they will soon see the wisdom of Howard Dean, Jessie Jackson, and Karl Marx.
JBC
Topics: Liberals, The Welfare State, Political Philosophy, Republicants, Economics |
September 25th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Wonderful that a republican is thinking about poverty and coming with ideas and not the usual empty slogans of a Cobbtown poster.
September 30th, 2006 at 11:38 am
James,
It is wonderful that a Republican is “thinking about poverty and coming (up) with ideas”. I am not critical of the process, but only critical of the particular plan that he has created. His idea, unfortunately, is nothing new. It is just the same old socialist idea of the past…throw money at the poor. We have been throwing money at America’s poorest since the days of LBJ’s Great Society. That was more than 40 years ago, yet the problem of poverty remains. Shouldn’t we try a different tack, James?
My question is this: is America’s poverty problem better, worse, or about the same as it was during LBJ’s reign? If it is the same or worse, that can only mean that the tired old socialist plan of redistribution does not work. If, on the other hand, poverty has decreased, we must decide if our efforts have been sufficient, or if we need to adopt socialism on the European scale. However, my belief is that poverty exists, and part of the reason that it exists to the extent that it does, has much to do with the breakdown of the traditional family (ie more one-parent households equals more economically depressed Americans), welfare dependence (ie those families that become accustomed to the benefits of the state find it hard to remove themselves or their offspring from its addictive nature), and, most recently, America’s decision to outsource our industrial and manufacturing base to third world countries.
Thanks for dropping by! I will add your weblog to my roll, and look forward to hearing from you again.
JBC