The Conservative Myth of a Social Safety Net Built on Charity

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/the-conservative-myth-of-a-social-safety-net-built-on-charity/284552/

?n2svfb

Ideology is as much about understanding the past as shaping the future. And conservatives tell themselves a story, a fairy tale really, about the past, about the way the world was and can be again under Republican policies. This story is about the way people were able to insure themselves against the risks inherent in modern life. Back before the Great Society, before the New Deal, and even before the Progressive Era, things were better. Before government took on the role of providing social insurance, individuals and private charity did everything needed to insure people against the hardships of life; given the chance, they could do it again.

This vision has always been implicit in the conservative ascendancy. It existed in the 1980s, when President Reagan announced, “The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern,” and called for voluntarism to fill in the yawning gaps in the social safety net. It was made explicit in the 1990s, notably through Marvin Olasky’s The Tragedy of American Compassion, a treatise hailed by the likes of Newt Gingrich and William Bennett, which argued that a purely private nineteenth-century system of charitable and voluntary organizations did a better job providing for the common good than the twentieth-century welfare state. This idea is also the basis of Paul Ryan’s budget, which seeks to devolve and shrink the federal government at a rapid pace, lest the safety net turn “into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.” It’s what Utah Senator Mike Lee references when he says that the “alternative to big government is not small government” but instead “a voluntary civil society.” As conservatives face the possibility of a permanent Democratic majority fueled by changing demographics, they understand that time is running out on their cherished project to dismantle the federal welfare state.

But this conservative vision of social insurance is wrong. It’s incorrect as a matter of history; it ignores the complex interaction between public and private social insurance that has always existed in the United States. It completely misses why the old system collapsed and why a new one was put in its place. It fails to understand how the Great Recession displayed the welfare state at its most necessary and that a voluntary system would have failed under the same circumstances. Most importantly, it points us in the wrong direction. The last 30 years have seen effort after effort to try and push the policy agenda away from the state’s capabilities and toward private mechanisms for mitigating the risks we face in the world. This effort is exhausted, and future endeavors will require a greater, not lesser, role for the public.

[treestar]

1. Wonder why they add the stupid dependency argument

Wouldn't charity do the same thing? That's the excuse they wod make for not doing charity. They ate advertising that upfront.

[el_bryanto]

2. Charity has always been a bad reason for social insurance

Social Insurance is an investment in your people, helping them get through temporary difficulties without those difficulties causing too much strain on the family or the community.

Bryant

[jwirr]

14. I have worked and benefited from many charitable organizations both religious and secular. They all

admit that they do not have enough money to meet the need. This was true during the Great Depression and it is true now. One minister told me that if they had the money the government takes in taxes for these programs they could do it. That minister is delusional. First and foremost he would have to get his congregation to give him that money. All of them and that is a laughable hope. Second many churches would not serve all of the people who were in need in their community and that would negate the whole idea. Finally, he is wrong about being able to run this so called church based safety net. The Great Depression was the reason we created the safety net and the churches were failing totally in that crisis.

[GoCubsGo]

3. That system only works when...

...the people with all the money aren't selfish, greedy assholes. Of course, if they weren't greedy and selfish, they wouldn't have all the money, and there likely wouldn't be much need for charity... Got to love that conservative logic.

[butterfly77]

4. K&R..

[redqueen]

5. K&R

[reformist2]

6. Poverty is not just the result of misfortune, it's a natural product of capitalism. That is why

...we decided 80+ years ago to build a permanent safety net, as a way to correct the injustices *inherent* in the capitalistic system.
I repeat - the safety net is not charity - it is social justice. Capitalists should be grateful we didn't scrap their system entirely. If things keep going the way they are, we may do so yet.

[Alkene]

11. +1 n/t

[ck4829]

7. They say: We'll catch you... this time

Are there not people with money NOW? What is exactly stopping a charity based safety net from forming today or yesterday for that matter? Nothing, in fact there are pretty big incentives for creating charities currently. And the best way to stop people from falling through the cracks would be to have redundancies and failsafes, right?

The right needs to be chastised for this for encouraging this kind of behavior, this "I wanna create charity, but the government is already giving out welfare and stuff" mindset.

[Enthusiast]

8. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

We have a whole lot of history to look at. History tells us the righties couldn't be more wrong. We know it and they know it. There are few better examples than the Irish potato famine.

[Morning Dew]

9. They should, as an experiment, convince the religious charities to forego federal funding

and see how well those charities can fund their programming.

[Dustlawyer]

10. K&R!!! My brother and sister are totally disabled

and my mom is on SS. She would have had my dad's pension, but after 35 years at Bethleham Steel, they went bankrupt and raided the pension for their Golden Parachutes. She gets $50 a month from it and my dad was an Industrial Engineer!
We cannot afford to help much with my siblings who live on $700 a month from SS. Those crippled takers!

[Xyzse]

12. Few problems with it

1 - It isn't efficient enough and their priorities are screwed up:
Depending on the group, I don't particularly see it as efficient enough to deal with problems. I particularly have something against the Evangelical versions of Christianity. I've been to some of their gatherings/masses, and their message has always been to evangelize, spread the word and give money. Their purpose is to spread themselves with just making money. It was disgusting, and their interpretation of scripture was skewed towards that end.

It was bad enough that I walked out. I am sorry I digress, but that is a huge problem, particularly the ones that are evangelical where the money they get is not meant for charity, but meant to create ministries instead, and make money for their organization rather than using it for those with actual need.

2 - It is never big enough.
This goes hand in hand with "1", they don't have enough to run their organization plus service those in need. Hell, why else do they go for being tax-free organizations? They don't reach enough people, and they receive governmental assistance through tax relief and other grants to help more people.

3 - They are not inclusive enough.
Because of their religion, they are able to turn away some people. Even for their more privatized aspects beyond a church organization, they are lobbying to exclude people. That is wrong in so many levels.

[mountain grammy]

13. K & R The entire article is excellent..

My teabagger father in law, before he died, talked about the Great Depression and Roosevelt. He loved FDR. He voted for FDR. He told me "everyone voted for FDR!" I said so why do you now want to end his policies? Well, they weren't supposed to be for "everyone." Go figure. Fox News, mission accomplished!