Welfare Queens Aren't the Issue, Dems

In the liberal mind, Republicans are always trying to come up with "wedge" issues that divide the American people and disturb the even tenor of good, beneficial programs that create a safety net.

First it was affirmation action, then welfare queens.  Now the Republicans think they have a new issue, according to Mark Schmitt: unemployment insurance.

But now they seem to have found it, in the most unlikely of programs: Unemployment Insurance. The legislation to extend the payroll tax cuts that passed the Republican-controlled House on Wednesday brings the full arsenal of welfare reform gimmicks to the UI program: Time limits; drug tests; requirements to seek work or enter an education program.

Well, I'd have to agree that drug tests and seeking work are gimmicks.  But that's because liberals like Mark Schmitt will descend like a murder of crows on anyone that proposes a bigger reform and asks bigger questions.

Don't agree?  Well, Schmitt himself pours scorn on Newt Gingrich for a "proposal to have schoolchildren work as janitors."  Sorry, I don't bite.  Why don't we have schoolchildren getting out to work instead of being confined for their entire childhood in those wonderful government child-custodial facilities without possibility of parole?

And why don't we take a bigger look at unemployment insurance?  Why don't we privatize the whole thing: old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, workers' comp, and disability?  All of these government programs, that want us to believe that government is giving us wonderful benefits, are merely running wage income through the government and then out again as benefits.  Why don't we encourage workers to build their own savings, and supplement it with a bit of insurance when they are young?

I will tell you why, and it has nothing to do with the safety net.  It is merely that people in politics want to buy votes.  In the case of unemployment the government taxes employers and then turns around and pretends that the government is giving money to the helpless unemployed.  Suppose we just gave that money directly to the workers in personal unemployment accounts, and let them borrow from the government during a recession when jobs are hard to find?

The good thing is that the temptation to freeload, however large or small, would be diminished when people are spending their own money on unemployment.  And if an unemployed 40-year-old went out and found a job sooner, because he didn't want to touch his nest-egg, well, it's a free country.

That's the difference between conservatives and liberals.  Liberals want a benefit society; conservatives want an ownership society.

A Wedge for Me? Or Thee?

Quick question.  What is a "wedge issue?"  The answer, according to Jonah Goldberg, is any issue the Democrats don't want to talk about.

In his book What’s the Matter with Kansas? Thomas Frank insisted that Republicans only know how to win on divisive wedge issues that distract voters from their “real” interests. This amounted to McMarxism — a dumbed-down, mass-market version of the old socialist notion of “false consciousness.” Liberals like Frank assume voters are too dumb to know what they should care about.

Like the Keystone XL pipeline.  Right now, the White House is in high dudgeon that the eevil Republicans have put the Keystone XL pipeline and its 20,000 jobs on the payroll tax holiday bill.



And I agree.  It is monstrous for the Republicans to be raising the false consciousness of the white working class with the mirage of jobs, jobs, jobs, when anyone who knows anything knows that the only way to save the planet is to put the kybosh on fossil-fuel development and shovel money at Democratic crony capitalists and their solar panels and wind farms.



But there's a bigger problem for Democrats than the bitter clingers of the white working class.  It is the disappointed hordes of young voters that voted for hope and change in 2008.  Voters under 30 voted 66 percent for Obama back then, but they seem to be experiencing buyer's remorse.  I wonder why.



According to Carl Cannon, only 32 percent of under-30s approve of the president's handling of the economy.  All is not lost, of course.  The president still leads a generic Republican among 18-29 year olds by six points.  But you can see that the 66 percent is out of the window, and also the enthusiasm.



This is good news.  For Republicans there is nothing better than for a whole generation of youngsters to put their faith in a charismatic leader and have their hopes cruelly dashed.  Now those young folks will be receptive to our message.  This is not rocket science, folks.  When government controls everything then young people must join the end of the queue.  Because young people don't have much political power.  It is much better for young people to rely on their energy and youth than upon Uncle Sugar.



But here is more.  It looks like President Obama's class warfare campaign is coming up a loser.  The Gallup Poll announces that "Fewer Americans See U.S. Divided Into "Haves," "Have Nots"".  Gallup asked people whether they thought the nation was divided into Haves and Have Nots.  Back in 2008 Americans split 49% to 49% on this.  But now the Is Divided camp has declined to 41%.  And here is the kicker.  When asked to say whether they felt they were part of the Haves or the Have Nots, 58% said they were Haves, and 35 percent said they were Have Nots.  And Americans' self identification has not changed much over the last ten years.



I continue to think that we ain't seen nothing yet when it comes to the election of 2012.  It is going to be a watershed election.

End of the Age of Exploitation

I'm reading a history of India right now.  It's a Marxist history so it views everything through a lens of colonialism and exploitation.  The Brits, you see, cleverly disturbed the traditional land-ownership and tax payment in India.  They replaced "corrupt" officials with their own chaps who racked up the rent and the taxes on the poor suffering Indian peasants.  Of course the peasants rebelled, time after time.  On this view, in India's Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra, the Rebellion or "mutiny" of 1857 "was the culmination of a century long tradition of fierce popular resistance to British domination."

The interesting thing is that, up until about 1850, the Brits summarily dealt with rebellions.  They put them down, "with prejudice," as the phrase goes, and then went on their merry way, making more money out of India.  They were quite happy to exploit the Indians to the limit.  Their indigo planters were representative.  These chaps farmed out the cultivation of indigo plants to the natives, and then paid them next to nothing.  Not surprisingly, in 1859, there occurred an "indigo revolt."

But this time the Brit overlords took a look at the situation and decided that the revolters had a point.  Then in the 1880s the Indian intelligentsia formed the Indian National Congress and developed the idea of India as a nation and began to organize Indians of all faiths and castes in an all-India movement against the British.  Then, you might say, it was all a matter of time.

The important thing to realize is the novelty of all this.  Go back to 1800 and you have Arthur Wellesley happily marching troops all over central India in a war against the Maratha Confederacy.  There was no scandal about that.  But by 1857 the Indian Mutiny was a scandal, and the question of exploitation was an issue, and the British were ashamed.

Let's say that, between 1750 and 1850, the world changed.  Let's say that it reflected the rise of middle-class intellectuals and the bourgeoisie and the "public square".  These chaps had a different world-view than the landed warrior class that ruled up to the moment of the French Revolution.  There was a religious side to the change that was manifest in the anti-slavery movement.  And there was a secular side of it, that erupted in the French Revolution and the baby-boomers of the 1840s.

After 1850, therefore, exploitation--of slaves, of workers, of colonial peoples, of "others" became a scandal.  The century from 1850 to 1950 was the Age of Exploitation.  Everyone railed against exploitation, and the most notorious railers, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, created the most exploitative societies in human history.

And now, I would argue, the Age of Exploitation is about to disappear onto the ash-heap of history.  Why?  Because exploitation isn't just a scandal these days.  It doesn't even make sense.  It only made sense in the old agricultural age, when agricultural workers could be conveniently exploited and starved on the quiet out in the countryside.  Today, we are all networked and each person is a resource that makes the most money for the ruling class if they are groomed into becoming a valuable "intangible asset" for the global economy.

But here we have Osawatomie Bam Obama still sounding the old cry: "inequality" and "exploitation."  It's the last hurrah of the class warrior.  It's the last hurrah because greedy employers today realize that they can make more money with skilled employees that can deliver more product than unskilled employees that you squeeze for the last ounce of blood.

Here's the dirty secret of the class warrior.  Obama and the class warriors have to bang the drum for exploitation.  I only realized why a few months ago.  If you want a revolution, or you want to increase government power with taxes and spending and regulation, you have to argue for exploitation.  Without exploitation there is no argument for increased government power.  Without exploitation we all sit around and say, wow, what could we do better?  How could we use our capital better?  How could we improve the training of our employees. How could we improve our market position?

But the Obamas of the world are not interested in a society where there are mild or moderate problems. Because that doesn't call for force.  They want big-time exploitation that calls for men on white horses, charismatic leadership, fake Greek columns, and vast government power.  Otherwise what's the point?

Newtonian Politics

Like most everyone, I'm a bit skittish about Newt Gingrich.  Why?  Because, you know, he's a bit flaky.  Shoots from the hip.  And all the other things we "know" about Newt Gingrich, which is to say, stories that his enemies have launched into the public square through their willing accomplices in the mainstream media.



On the one hand, I don't think that Newt is a dreaded "progressive," in the mold of TR, Wilson, and FDR, as Glenn Beck seems to think.  On the other hand, I don't think that Newt is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.



We hear now from former House members that didn't like Gingrich as speaker and thought he was erratic, and then you read Tony Blankley, who used to work for him, write this:

Curious. I remember most of them enthusiastically following his leadership year after year as the Republican whip from 1989-1994. It was the most successful congressional opposition movement since Benjamin Disraeli formed the modern Conservative Party in Britain in the mid-19th century. And after the GOP took back the House for the first time in 40 years (and the Senate, too, by the way), Gingrich's four years as speaker proved to be the most productive, legislative congressional years since at least 1965 to 1967, and they were led by Lyndon B. Johnson from the White House. Working against -- and with -- Democratic President Bill Clinton, we passed into law most of the Contract with America, welfare reform, telecommunications reform (which ushered in the modern cell phone and Internet age), we had the first balanced budget since before the Vietnam War, we cut taxes and lowered unemployment to under 5 percent.

And the other thing about Newt is that when they said: Go, in 1998, he went.



So which is it?  The big thing about Newt is that Democrats can't stand him and like to make fun of him.  But then they made fun of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush: they sneer at all conservative Republicans.  They have a special reason to be angry at Newt.  It was he that forced Speaker Wright (D-TX) to stand down and it was he that led the 1994 campaign that switched the House to R. for the first time since 1954.



I met Newt at a fundraiser back in 1994 when I was working on the congressional campaign for Rick White.  What did I think?  I think it was outrageous that the left were demonstrating outside the fundraiser.  They called Newt a bomb-thrower back then, meaning that he said nasty things about the opposition.  You mean like every Democrat that ever lived?



Here's what I think.  If the American people are determined to get rid of Barack Obama it won't matter whether Newt is a flake or has "baggage" or has taken money from Freddie Mac.



And you know what?  They would be right.

Newt and Romney and Layoffs

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has ruffled feathers with the following challenge to Mitt Romney:

If Gov. Romney would like to give back all of the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, then I would be glad to listen to him.”

I get the point.  We conservatives believe in the market economy and one of the vital functions of the market economy is performed by companies like Bain Capital: reorganizing bankrupt companies, laying off employees, and recapitalizing them for further growth, if possible.



So what is Newt playing at, doing the Democrats work for them?  It is, after all, President Obama who told us, in his role as Osawatomie Bam:

Because there were people who thought massive inequality and exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.

But that is the point.  Right now I expect that the president and his handlers are rubbing their hands about Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.  Democrats have been whaling on Romney for years now about all the companies he bankrupted, and all the jobs he sent overseas.  It's time that Mitt Romney came up with a retort.



And that retort better be more than a lame defense.  It has to go on the attack.  It has to say that companies get into trouble.  When they do there are no good options.  You have to suck it in and do the best you can with what you have.  Back in the railroad era, it was J.P. Morgan who wound up with the nasty job of reorganizing bankrupt railroads.  It was a dirty job, but someone has to do it.



We know what President Obama believes in.  He believes in taxpayers' money for his union cronies and his crony capitalist contributors. As for coal companies, he's quite happy for them to go out of business and all the jobs with them.  As for oil pipelines, from small to XL, who needs 'em?



We all understand that humans are risk averse.  We hate to admit it when we are wrong, and we hate to be the bearer of bad news, and we put off unpleasant decisions when the companies we lead are going south.  That usually means that the reorganization falls to an expert in reorganization, like Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. We often resent people that are tough enough to do the tough work.



So where is Mitt Romney's home run on the Bain Capital issue?



And of course there is the bigger issue about "inequality" and "exploitation."  Of course inequality and exploitation are problems.   The question is, can government make them better?  The record, I would say, is clear.  Government hasn't a clue what to do about inequality and exploitation except take money from people it doesn't like and give it to people it does like.



Take the auto bailouts.  That was taking money from ordinary Americans and giving it to the best-paid workers in America.  Talk about inequality!  And when the government took money from the taxpayers and gave it to solar-panel loser Solyndra it was exploiting all the companies that sell products to market without subsidies.  Talk about exploitation!



The whole point about capitalism is that its needs a proper legal basis, one that rewards faithful service and clearly defines the rights of debtors and creditors and punishes fraud.  But when you start talking about inequality and exploitation you are getting into pretty deep water.  You are saying that the system that took us from $3 per day to $100 per day needs to be bashed around by force.  For government is force and politics is talking about force.



How in the world are you going to improve a system of peaceful cooperation with force?

Man Problems: Who's to Blame?

Let's talk about the "man-child" problem.  Or the "preadult" problem.  Or the fact that women are doing much better in education and the work force than men.  Philip Brand has a review of several books on this problem.



Or is it a problem at all?  Hey, men have exploited women since the dawn of time, so maybe it's about time!



But the problem is that it's not just a man problem, it's a class problem.   As Charles Murray points out, upper-middle-class men are doing fine.  It's the men below them that are having problems, men who don't quite rate the professional, leadership jobs that you get when you excel at college and bureaucracy.



Now, for Kay Hymowitz, pre-adulthood is a "predictable, perhaps even necessary, response to massive changes in the way Americans earn a living." A college education is essential, and women excel in the kind of occupations that have been thrown up by the new economy. Also women are determined to "achieve financial independence before marriage."



Oh yeah? For "women" read "upper-middle-class women." Head down the social ladder and you see women merely using the welfare state. Which, I suppose, is a kind of financial independence.



Then there's the argument of Leonard Sax in Boys Adrift that the educational system is all wrong for boys.



Or, according to Hanna Rosin in "The End of Men" (Atlantic, June 2010) it's the end of the manufacturing wage.



In my view, the reason for the man problem is liberals, liberals, liberals. Granted that the changes in the workplace and the sex-place (see Walter Russell Mead here) are changing everything, the problem is that certain things can't change because liberals are sitting on the switch.



In education we need huge changes, and we need to mix education and early work. But liberals have education bureaucratized into utter stasis and ineffectiveness, and the work-place regulated into inflexibility.



With welfare we have totally marginalized lower-class men. And with health care we have made bio-medicine both free and impossibly expensive at the same time. Warning: liberals at work.



The problem with all this is pretty simple.  Liberals believe in government.  But government is force, and politics is talking about force.  Most things in this world don't lend themselves to force.



The solution to our problems is a cultural revolution, one that removes liberals and their cold dead hands from the levers of political and cultural power.



And Barack Obama is maybe just the man to help.  By leaving office on January 20, 2013.

Not Really the Working Class Any More

Finally, old reliable Michael Barone has weighed in on the Obama "abandon the white working class" strategy.



Of course, he writes, the Dems abandoned the white working class decades ago when they pivoted from Social Security/Medicare to welfare and regulation.  Now, apparently, Obama wants to win with the educated, the young, and minorities in swing states like Colorado and Virginia that Obama won in 2008.

So maybe it makes sense for Obama to write off the white working class. Yet he is doing it in an odd way, by enacting New Deal-like programs and expending great energy on raising taxes on high earners.

Of course, the white working class is really the white middle class these days.  They may not have big houses and fancy cars, but they do have houses and cars.  They may want their Social Security and Medicare but they don't want them expanded.  New Deal-like programs really appeal to the minority voters, the replacements for the white working class in the Democratic coalition, people who want a powerful patron and the benefits that flow therefrom.



But I wonder if the president can really expect to keep the educated and the young voters in Colorado and Virginia.  After all, the way that the Dems did well with educated suburban voters was on the social issues.  Social issues seem to be really quiet right now, and for good reason.  Educated voters are taking an educated look at their economic position this year, and they are wondering what all this class warfare does to help them.  They are moving towards the economic conservative rather than the socially liberal side of their world view.



And young voters.  Any young voter that doesn't thinking she was sold a bill of goods in 2008 deserves... well she will probably still vote for Obama.  But don't expect any 65% of young voters going for the president this time around.  If anything, I expect most young voters to be very confused.  After all, they have spent the last 16 years listening to liberal teachers tell them about the wonders of liberalism and government, and now that they are out in the world, they are looking at their liberal map and deciding that they are completely lost.  If I were one of them I would be casting around for a new map, an alternative world view.



Buzzing around in my head is the question: are these Obamis crazy, or crazy like a fox?  I resist the idea that they are fools, because that is not a good way to think about the opposition.



Maybe the answer lies in Donald Rumsfeld's line that you go to war with the army you have.  Never mind how the Obamis would like to fight the election.  The fact is that they can't change uniforms and tactics and weapons on a dime.  The Dems are the party of the educated elite and the entitlement beneficiaries, and they can't really pretend to be anything else.  They could try to be post-partisan and post-racial in 2008 as the "out" party.  But not in 2012 as the "in" party.