Word Games
I don’t know Nathan Newman, but here he does the classic old-school partisan thing (you see it on both the left and the right) of recasting my argument in classic conservative terms, and then assailing it as any good liberal would. He lists the tenets of CAP’s poverty plan and then proceeds to point out that none of these proposals constitutes a “handout.” Well, no. Who said they did? Did I call them handouts? When did I become Rush Limbaugh? In fact, I specifically noted that all of these ideas require their beneficiaries to work—which is a central platform of both CAP’s plan and John Edwards’s plan and a widely accepted approach across the political spectrum, but which Nathan apparently equates with cruel and unusual punishment.
My point was not, of course, that anyone is championing handouts. (Let us not use the odious term again, demeaning as it is to the people who need assistance.) In fact, Nathan’s list proves my actual point; every one of those proposals is based in the idea that if people have more cash in their bank accounts, however they get it, they will be less poor and their children, therefore, will escape poverty. Decades of scholarship simply say this isn’t so. Yes, enabling people to earn more money is a big piece of alleviating poverty, which is why something like an expansion of the earned income tax credit would likely have an impact. But the most dynamic academic discussion around poverty has to do with all these other factors in people’s lives and parenting—including what some experts call “human capital”—and how you address them. (There’s also a significant amount of work suggesting that job-training programs don’t do much to curtail sustained poverty.) In other words, money is part of the equation, but to continue to insist that it is the entire equation is to cling to old dogmas at the expense of reality.
Now, again, I like CAP and a lot of the people who do great work there, and I don’t know why its panel ignored something new like the Harlem Children’s Zone and its more holistic approach. I suspect it’s because, like Nathan, a lot of their experts come to the table with a set of ideas about poverty and repel anyone who dares to suggest anything else.
This is far afield of the discussion about my book, in some ways (thanks again, Schmitt), but it’s too important to let slide. Nathan’s mischaracterization of my point isn’t just intellectually dishonest, but it does a grave disservice to the people he purports to be championing.
I don’t have much to add to Joan’s post, just because I think she makes some valid points. Her contention that I gave too little attention to the “wonkosphere” is a fair criticism. I might argue that such blogs contributed a very small piece of the conversation during the time I was reporting, and that even inside the so-called wonky blogs, a lot of the policy discussion was more anti-Republican than pro-something else. But even then, Joan may have a point that I didn’t take the time to even mention something like Energize America, which is very cool.
Joan’s other main point is that the book should have said more about the media, because—if I’m paraphrasing fairly here, and I think I am—the media is one of the reasons that Democratic leaders can be so lame. I don’t know that I buy that premise (we can’t be held responsible for everything, can we?), but in any event, the book is what it is and is not what it is not, and it is not a discussion of the media. Someone should write that book. I’d vote for Joan.
Comments (20)
the media is one of the reasons that Democratic leaders can be so lame. I don’t know that I buy that premise (we can’t be held responsible for everything, can we?)
Actually, in politics, you can. What is politics today, if not a politics arrived at through the lens (literally) of the news media?
You don't think, for example, the press played a crucial role in the lead up to the war in Iraq? In actually getting us into the war? Or that 50% of the public arrived at the belief, years after proven otherwise, that Saddam had WMD without the help of the news media?
I think the lameness of our political leaders has at least something to do with the failures of the press.
Not everything, though. Cause many of them are pretty lame.
September 27, 2007 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
But as he pointed out, that is another book. Yours maybe?
Jack
September 27, 2007 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah. I'm a lover, not a writer.
September 27, 2007 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
lol , where as I'm just a general hell raiser. If I could string two sentences together I probably post more.
Give you a chance to slap me down
Jack
September 27, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nathan's not against work. None of us are. I think we're all against the notion that people are poor because they're lazy or refuse to work. I think we all know that in a lot of ways the working poor work harder than the middle class. It's all in "Nickel and Dimed."
The emphasis on work skews the debate, it makes it seem as if a person's poverty is caused by a personal failing. Maybe sometimes it is. But the classic liberal response has not been to make policy based on that assumption.
People will work if they're offered well paying and meaningful jobs. Practically speaking, working and career building should be part of an antipoverty program. On that we can all agree.
But it shouldn't be work for work's sake. It should be work for the advancement of the person. That means a career, not a crap job. There's nothing inherently good about just working. The only way it's good is if it elevates people.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
September 27, 2007 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the argument is more that the media forces Democratic leaders to be lame than that it enables them to be lame. I believe Joan's Exhibit A, Al Gore's sighs, is pretty clear. Al Gore is not lame, nor lacking in big ideas, nor in grand "arguments". But the Al Gore who filtered through the media to the American public appeared lame, for no good reason other than that the media needed to build an entertaining communal narrative.
I mean, I really don't think Matt Bai needs to hear yet another rehearsal of the thousand and one beefs the netroots have with the mainstream media. But they are pretty goddamn serious beefs.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
September 27, 2007 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, it was so egregious. There shoulda been a panel of censors sitting with the writers of shows like Saturday Night Live to insure that impressions of the candidates were equal opportunity catchy with the general public. No more of this more successful parody of the team in power over the challenger just because the public knows them better thing. The comedians must be made more responsible! And how about what that Dana Carvey did to Ross Perot, he should be in prison.
September 27, 2007 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nathan is responding to this comment that you made earlier, Matt, in which you discuss CAP's "singular idea that people are poor because they lack money, and if you give them money they won’t be poor." It does sorta sound like you are criticizing something along the lines of "gov't handouts" before you clarified what you meant in this current post.
September 27, 2007 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm flattered, Matt, but I think that's a book for Atrios. I've got my hands full with those incredible Western Dems.
I don't think you can separate where we're at in American politics today from the media environment in which it operates. As I said, I don't hold the media entirely responsible, and you much less so, for the lameness of our Democratic leadership right now. But I've worked with enough politicians to know their slavish devotion to the headline, how much it means to them and how much they need it. You just can't look at new media in U.S. politics today without looking at old media, too.
And yes, that's another book. But I sincerely would like to hear your thoughts on it. Maybe at the next convention we can do more socializing and less stressing, and have a long talk over a few beers. Off the record, of course. Heh.
September 27, 2007 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
A lover, not a writer--and you're better off for it, believe me....
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September 27, 2007 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're on, of course. But I have a hard time answering for the media, or even explaining them. I think it's hard to see the impact when you're in the middle of it, and the same is probably true for the Netroots. I do look forward to the Western Dems book, though.
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September 27, 2007 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I suppose you could read that into it, but this goes to the heart of what I've said elsewher in this discusssion and in chapter 9 of the book, about progressives getting boxed in to the point where they see every suggestion outside the party line as a statement of support for their opponents' attacks. That's the great tactical victory of the conservative movement--they have bullied Democrats to the point where even the suggestion that more assistance alone does not necessarily eliminate cyclical poverty is seen as a Reaganesque attack on handouts to welfare moms. It's reactionary, and it stifles debate. But I hear your point. Thanks.
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September 27, 2007 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the problem here is that Bai simply misrepresents the literature on poverty, which is not suprising coming from a journalist.
Here's Brookings economist (not exactly a left-wing enterprise) Isabell Sawhill summarizing what social scientists think about poverty:
Just to reiterate, 4 out of the 5 most important things we can do to increase poverty are employment and income related:
1. Reduce unemployment;
2. Increase cash transfers to poor people;
3. Invest in training and education;
4. Accelerate economic growth.
So the kind of income support and labor market reforms that CAP advocates are exactly what is needed to reduce poverty in the US, even if those proposals aren't new enough or sexy enough for some.
September 27, 2007 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent point TG!
Those of us who actually have experience in this area also know this to be true from firsthand knowledge. The poor are no different than anyone else (despite the sense of superiority that most people who don't know the first thing about it have of themselves). Given an opportunity to take care of themselves they will. More than anything else that means they need the money to do so. Without it, you still have a person or family in poverty without the resources to stabilize their lives and join the mainstream of the rat race with the rest of us. Poverty, after all, is measured by how much money you have. What the numbers don't reveal about poverty is what a crushing, violent state of existence it is and how it destroys everything in its path very like a natural disaster. It is difficult for those with no experience (like most journalists who've never been poor a single day in their lives) to really grasp what poverty is and what it takes to eliminate it.
September 28, 2007 6:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, this is a subject of serious academic debate, even if a lot of academics don't want to admit it. There are several top antipoverty experts at the Kennedy School alone who will tell you that economic assistance is only one important piece of ending poverty, but, we now know, nowhere near a comprehensive solution. James Heckman at the University of Chicago, who won the Nobel Prize in economics, spent years studying job training programs and came away with the conclusion that they don't actually accomplish much, and that the only proven way to break the cycle of poverty is to intervene with children in their earliest years, even before HeadStart. You can, of course, find a an academic to say whatever you want, but you do the entire discussion a disservice, I think, by pretending that the matter is settled and closed.
Can I say that you also do a disservice to everyone taking part in this discussion when you assert--as someone inevitably does in these things--that the journalist is ignorant and never leaves Washington and doesn't know what it's like to be poor. I don't know your background--maybe you've been poor, maybe you haven't. For your interest, I started my career covering crime and other urban issues in some of the poorest neighborhoods in America--not at some policy journal or on a blog. I've spent more time in housing projects, at all hours of the day and night, than I would wish on anyone, which is why i know John Edwards is right to want to get people out of them. I've also traveled extensively in areas of rural poverty, here and in Africa and the Middle East. So please hold your stereotypes for someone else, and feel free to apologize for the reckless implication that neither I nor anyone wo doesn't immediately agree with you can possibly care about poor people.
Thanks.
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September 28, 2007 8:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, the matter is not settled and closed, which is why statements like:
are pretty misleading. Decades of scholarship, as well as the contemporary experience of other rich countries and our own history show that, yes, faster economic growth, tight labor markets and generous income supports are extremely effective in reducing poverty. On the other hand, the evidence that government can do anything about family structure or "culture" is essentially nil.
A real problem here is the annoying tendency to dismiss anything that happened or was thought up more than 5 minutes ago. "New" does not always necessarily imply "better." We should be interested in policies that work, regardless of when they were first thought up.
Social Security is a good example of this -- it works very well in limiting poverty among our elderly, and it's very popular. Who cares about marginal changes to taxes or benefits? It's not that important in the big picture. On the other hand, a nation full of Obama's "Harlem Children's Zones" (as worthy, shiny or new as the idea may be) will not put a dent in the poverty problem as long as the zones exist as islands in a broader economy and welfare state that doesn't produce enough jobs that pay a living wage or transfer enough income to make up the difference.
For the Democrats, the real problem is an inability to think big enough (since we're on the topic of Social Security, here's a good progressive idea: More, not Less) to enable them to reestablish the nexus of public programs, political party, and citizens that would actually help to solve some of our social problems, while also, in the words of Bill Kristol, "revive ... the Democrats as the generous protector of middle-class interests."
Journalists contribute to this problem with their incessant habit of determining how "serious" people are based on how close they are to the political "center," or how "new" their proposals are, rather than rigorous analysis of whether or not the programs will actually work or help solve the problems they are intended to solve. This reduces the policy options on the table to, for the most part, marginal tweaks to existing ideas, which is deadly to progressive politics.
September 28, 2007 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for being such a good sport, by the way, in the face of all this nastly foul-mouthed blogger vituperation.
Just to not be so 100% negative.
September 28, 2007 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
TG, your comments are very thoughtful and I can't dismiss them. You make some good points. To me, the issue here isn't really "old" or "new" (although it's true I sometimes frame them that way, perhaps carelessly) as opposed to "good enough" and "optimal." I feel like what I often hear in these kinds of conversations, after the argument has been pared down to its essentials, is progressives saying, "Well OK, maybe poverty isn't entirely solveable by transfer programs, and maybe Social Security is inequitable in some ways and not as perfect as it was in the world before everyone bought mutual funds and learned to telecommute, but this stuff is still pretty good, and if you start to talk about changing them, then you play right into the hands of republicans who are always lurking around the corner, ready to dismantle." As an American, my disappointment with that is that no generation in our history, faced with such transformation, has been so unambitious. What if the progressives of a century ago or the New Dealers or the civil rights marchers had taken the same approach? Isn't this the entire progressive rationale--that politics needs to be bolder and more principled? But as soon as it turns to policy, principle gives way to "it's good enough and let's not start a fight we can't win."
But more to the point, as a journalist, I think it's my role and my responsibility to push for what's best, not for what's OK. That's how the country improves. That's part of our mission. It may be frustrating to others at times, and it may seem blind to political reality or overly skeptical, but we ought to be setting the bar at the ideal and letting others get as close as they can to it. Does Social Security work? Yes. Is it the program you would design today? No. So you're right that we ought not to jettison everything that works just because it's old. But I think I'm also right that we ought not to hold onto everything old just because it's adequate.
Can we agree that that's a fair compromise?
And thank you for your last comment. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't occassionally discouraging, but I get my say, and others should have theirs.
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September 28, 2007 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I think I mostly agree with that. I'm not against new policies or changes in existing ones. I think that my conception of what changes are appropriate or what new policies are needed is probably further to the left than yours.
September 28, 2007 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Without taking any position on Bai's book, let me just say I completely agree with his take on Nathan Newman and his tenancy towards bumper sticker framing of issues, ideological zeal, and intellectual shallowness. It's really difficult to take Newman's posts seriously.
And aside from Newman personally, such people on the left are a threat to the success of progressive/liberal ideas in general, doing more harm than good. In some ways they're even a greater threat to the left than wingnuts are to the right. A Luddite can easily "succeed" in breaking government from sheer popular support for idiotic policies and reactionaries.
But a mystic, zealot, or hippy can't simply repair the damage by summoning up a working government from dogma and good intentions.
It takes wonks and serious intellectuals to build a functioning government, who are often hampered not only by their ideological opposites, but also by well meaning but utterly clueless Utopians and short sighted interest groups on the left as well.
Democrats and the left need to change the political landscape to be more intellectually serious, and build a lasting foundation for meaningful governmental and policy change with a large political base. We don't need ideologues and hot-heads who will simply lead us on goose chases for the next 4-8 years, resulting in another political swing of the pendulum towards reactionaries, demolishing any gains made and putting us back to square 1.
September 28, 2007 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink