After analysis, the USCCB has determined that the Senate version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is unacceptable in its current form. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the Senate’s bill would raise average taxes on persons making between $10,000 and $30,000 per year beginning in 2021, while millionaires will get a tax cut during the same period. In 2023 and 2025, average taxes will increase for those making less than $30,000 per year, but will go down for those making more than $30,000. By 2027, after most individual tax cuts are set to expire, average taxes will increase for taxpayers making less than $75,000, while decreasing for those making more.
The topic of the Senate tax bill is of interest on its own terms, of course, but what really caught my attention was that the call to action originated, not with the JVC, but rather with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) - in particular, its Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development (JPHD). I don't recall ever previously receiving an advocacy call to action like this from any department of the USCCB. Which is kind of a head-scratcher, because you'd think that, if the bishops want to call people to action, they'd look to enlist the clergy in the effort.
But be that as it may, for those of us who have the impression that the bishops are obsessed with (ahem) pelvic issues, I suspect the news that this type of a call to action is emanating from one of its departments will be welcome news. It piqued my interest so much that I sought out the JPHD website. I found several other calls to action there (among other items, to tell Congress to support the DREAM Act of 2017), some tweets (the USCCB using Twitter - another first for me!), and a report on poverty in the US.
That last item consists of a slide deck jointly prepared by authors from the USCCB, Catholic Charities USA and the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The deck itself is chock-full of interesting info about poverty, some of it surprisingly good news (poverty went down from 2015 to 2016; income grew in the lowest decile in 2015 faster than in the highest brackets).
But for purposes of this post, I'd like to highlight slide #27 in the deck. As you can see, it lists a number of government anti-poverty programs, as well as major categories of personal expenditures, and attempts to quantify each one's effect on the prevalence of poverty. Most of the government programs listed are pretty targeted: they provide assistance for food, housing, workers and so on. The bars next to those targeted programs are pretty small, suggesting that they don't make a major impact on poverty. Which is not to say that they're not necessary, or that they can't be improved.
But the two at the very top of the list, whose bar graphs indicate that they are the most effective programs by far at combating poverty, are Social Security and Refundable Tax Credits. What is interesting about these programs is that they are not especially targeted; they simply provide cash to recipients, who are free to do whatever they wish with it. That's actually a conservative approach, in a way: rather than the government dictating what I should do with the money it gives me, it trusts that I can best decide how to spend it in a way that will help me. (This same notion of individual judgment and autonomy underlies proposals for a guaranteed minimum income, which has garnered some conservative interest because conservative hero Milton Friedman advocated it).
Which brings me back to the Senate tax bill. Assuming the information in the call to action is accurate (and I do tend to trust the USCCB on these matters), the bill seems to take an approach that is diametrically opposed to effective government policy: rather than put cash in the hands of people who are poor, it takes cash out of their pockets. Frankly, the Senate bill seems contrary to a preferential option for the poor. My advice would be to take the call to action's advice, and send an email to your senators.
It's a horrible bill that will hurt the poor and make the rich, including Trump, richer. None of my senators will vote for it, but then they aren't cold-hearted bastards, oops, I mean Republicans.
ReplyDeleteSome of the worst features of the Senate bill are not in the House bill, and vice versa. Assuming (which may be rash) the Senate passes something, the best and worst features of the two bills will go to a conference committee which (considering how this is being handled) will merge the worst features of both. Then it will be passed in a rush, and signed in huge letters by the president. After that we will find out what changed.
ReplyDeleteAs John McCain would say, we need regular order. But, as Addison McConnell would say, order is just a Rubik's Cube.
That's an interesting chart. I think a lot of people aren't aware of the effect on poverty of Social Security and Refundable Tax Credits (is that the same thing as Earned Income Tax Credits?). It makes me mad that a lot of young people are being brainwashed that Social Security won't be there when they retire. That could be a self fulfilling prophecy. One of my sons expressed pessimism about that. I told him, "Don't buy into that narrative! Push back." And told him that his great-grandparents had supported FDR in part because of his role in establishing Social Security.
ReplyDeleteI find it puzzling that McCain is supporting the Senate bill "because it will give hard-working families a break." The question is, which families? And which families will be the losers?
NPR said he was still holding out. Has something changed?
DeleteI was going by what I saw on Huffington. Of course they aren't always the most reliable or objective news source around.
DeleteAnd why does it always have to be "hard working" families? How hard do you have to work to be worthy of help? Are people out of work undeserving?
ReplyDeleteI think most families are hard working, including those who are out of work or unable to work. In those cases it's hard work to just survive.
DeleteI think they try to spotlight the irony that you can have jobs, work like hell and still be in a financial hole in this Pottersville of a country we have now. That's my take, anyway. I agree with Katherine that the hardest job is not having one.
DeleteCrystal, Are you thinking of G. B.Shaw's distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor?
DeleteALFRED P. DOOLITTLE: I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more.
Ah, tell it, Stanley 'Olloway!
DeleteAll lives are deserving or none of them are. The Protestant work ethic makes it hard not to start sorting people by their productivity, net worth, or moral rectitude into the deserving or undeserving.
Lord knows I divvy people into these categories all the time in my black little heart.
Charity doesn't require me to approve of everybody or love them in any personal sense. But charity requires me to recognize that God lives them all, and expects me to do all I can to provide for them.
Tom, I hadn't heard of that, but it does all seem to be about the idea of 'deserving'. I don't think society should make that distinction about whether poor people deserve help or not - being below the poverty line should be enough to make someone deserving of help.
ReplyDeleteI think politicians always say "the hardworking middle class" because 1) they think poor people don't vote, and 2) they believe those who do vote resent sharing their money with the poor.
The preferential option for the rich
ReplyDeleteI think Stanley has put his finger on the motivation behind the "hard-working" meme.
ReplyDeleteI also suspect that one of the reasons that so many of the federal programs are targeted (e.g. to provide food for children, or to provide childcare assistance) is because of a residual suspicion that people in need of help are out to bilk the system. Thou shalt use these funds for this purpose, and no other, because otherwise thou wouldst use the money on drugs or cheap liquor or some other sort of thing we disapprove of. My own admittedly limited experience in dealing with people on public aid is that the amount and kind of help on offer via these targeted programs never quite matches up to the reality of their needs. Housing subsidies help, if you can make it through the long waiting list to get a place to stay, but if you can't make your car payment or pay for your electrical utility, a housing subsidy isn't really what's needed at the moment. And then, ironically, because they have needs that aren't being met, that probably makes them more likely to look for some way to cut a corner here or tell a little fib there in order to get what they need. Because when you need something in order to live, niceties about scrupulous truth-telling are a lot easier to set aside. The church teaches something analogous in its views of distributive justice and the limits of private property. If you are starving and I have a surplus of bread but won't share it with you, you haven't sinned by taking some of my bread from me for you and your family. It seems to me that some convenient amnesia about sources of income in order to stay enrolled in Medicaid is pretty much the same thing.
Crystal, I'm with you. I will say it's hard not to be judgmental. If a single mom receiving public assistance has three kids, fathered by two different men, neither of whom she's married to, it's very difficult - for judgy people like me, anyway - to look at the circumstances non-judgmentally. But when we're through judging them (hopefully silently!), mom and the kids still need food, clothing, dental care, a place to live, etc.
Other countries have made this a policy and so should we - people with less than a certain amount deserve help, regardless of the details of their personal lives.
ReplyDeleteI get benefits for being low income ... a cheaper phone bill, cheaper utility bills, Medicaid pays for my Medicare premiums. About twice a year I have to fill out forms and send in bank account info to prove I'm poor enough to deserve this. And still what I have is often not enough.
Do any of you listen to podcasts? There is a good one out out from London, that I listened to recently that discusses a lot of the points you’re making about poverty and social programs. This podcast is London schoolof economics and politics. Google Beveridge 2.0 London School of Economics. Let me know what you think. By the way you’ll be happy to know I can now delete. He he he
ReplyDeleteHmm, I see that the other posts have blue headlines but mine are grey. Have they been grey since the moment I posted them? Did I do something wrong?
ReplyDeleteMy links always look grey too. The only problem with that is that grey doesn't look that much different than black, and people might not realize that it is a link. But maybe it looks blue on their screen.
DeleteThe links are blue (hot) when you are on the blog's general page, but gray when you are on the post's actual page. That's normal.
DeleteJim, I don't think so. Mine are gray too -- here. Yours are blue to me. A computer guy somewhere must have thought that would be elegant. Or maybe he knew how to do it, so he did it. Ours is not to reason why.
ReplyDeleteKatherine and Tom, thanks. My name looks grey in the list of contributors, too. Must be a feature of the software, to show which are mine.
ReplyDeleteThe software grays out blue links after you use them whether they are your links or belong to someone else. The idea is to let you know that you have already tried a given link, so you can go onto links that you have not tried.
ReplyDelete