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The Problem with Liberalism
Dec. 29th, 2003 10:00 amTed Rall, a liberal cartoonist and political commentator, recently wrote this article about Bush's notion of an "ownership society."
While I agree with much of what Rall says in the article I feel compelled to take apart this paragraph in particular:
Bush says he wants Americans to adopt a "responsibility culture." But his Ownership Society concept requires more responsibility than most folks should be asked to bear. The health insurance tax credit, for example, would come in the form of a big refund check after taxpayers file their 1040s. Many workers, hit hard by stagnating wages and unexpected expenses, will spend the government windfall on other bills. The same thing goes for reemployment accounts. If a guy blows his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender, he and his family could end up out on the street. You and me, we might spend the money on computer classes. But for too many people, it's too big a temptation.
In this paragraph, Rall makes the classically paternalistic liberal argument that the American worker cannot be trusted to handle his money, while completely missing the opportunity to point out the REAL problem with Tax Credits as an approach to funding anything for the working poor: namely that in order to get the tax credit at all, one must be able to come up with the money to lay out in the first place.
Because of that, most working poor are never going to see a "government windfall [to spend] on other bills" because they will not have been able to afford the outlay in the first place. The result? They remain uninsured while the administration can make the claim that it has "done something for them." In short, tax credits are a cynical ploy to appear to be solving a problem while doing nothing, because the administration can rest assured that food and rent will take a higher place in the budget of the working poor than an individually held health insurance policy.
The second half of the paragraph is even worse, since it assumes that the American worker will blow "his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender." Now if I were a conservative political commentator in the tradition of Rush Limbaugh, I would take this paragraph, read it on the air, and then say "see that folks, liberal intellectuals think that you're too stupid to manage your own finances." And I'd be right. This paternalistic attitude is symptomatic of liberalism's most significant problem - the feeling of superiority over the very people they claim to advocate for. To liberals like Rall, the poor are a type of "noble savage," deserving of compassion and protection, but certainly not of respect.
William Blake wrote of John Milton that he "was of the Devil's party, and didn't even know it." With Rall handing such tasty morsels as this to conservative political commentators, one wonders if something similar can be said of him.
And welcome,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athelind and makovette. I hope you find my pratings both edifying and amusing.
While I agree with much of what Rall says in the article I feel compelled to take apart this paragraph in particular:
Bush says he wants Americans to adopt a "responsibility culture." But his Ownership Society concept requires more responsibility than most folks should be asked to bear. The health insurance tax credit, for example, would come in the form of a big refund check after taxpayers file their 1040s. Many workers, hit hard by stagnating wages and unexpected expenses, will spend the government windfall on other bills. The same thing goes for reemployment accounts. If a guy blows his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender, he and his family could end up out on the street. You and me, we might spend the money on computer classes. But for too many people, it's too big a temptation.
In this paragraph, Rall makes the classically paternalistic liberal argument that the American worker cannot be trusted to handle his money, while completely missing the opportunity to point out the REAL problem with Tax Credits as an approach to funding anything for the working poor: namely that in order to get the tax credit at all, one must be able to come up with the money to lay out in the first place.
Because of that, most working poor are never going to see a "government windfall [to spend] on other bills" because they will not have been able to afford the outlay in the first place. The result? They remain uninsured while the administration can make the claim that it has "done something for them." In short, tax credits are a cynical ploy to appear to be solving a problem while doing nothing, because the administration can rest assured that food and rent will take a higher place in the budget of the working poor than an individually held health insurance policy.
The second half of the paragraph is even worse, since it assumes that the American worker will blow "his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender." Now if I were a conservative political commentator in the tradition of Rush Limbaugh, I would take this paragraph, read it on the air, and then say "see that folks, liberal intellectuals think that you're too stupid to manage your own finances." And I'd be right. This paternalistic attitude is symptomatic of liberalism's most significant problem - the feeling of superiority over the very people they claim to advocate for. To liberals like Rall, the poor are a type of "noble savage," deserving of compassion and protection, but certainly not of respect.
William Blake wrote of John Milton that he "was of the Devil's party, and didn't even know it." With Rall handing such tasty morsels as this to conservative political commentators, one wonders if something similar can be said of him.
And welcome,
athelind and makovette. I hope you find my pratings both edifying and amusing.
