Regular Needs Children
It’s nice, I suppose, that Sarah Palin’s experience raising a special needs child has awakened her to the importance of generous public support for such children. And it’d also be nice to think that John McCain’s embrace of this issue reflects a genuine Palin-inspired awakening on his part, rather than a cynical recognition that standard conservative policies that would normally evade attention despite their hideously immoral consequences would be highlighted by the case of Trig Palin. And so good for them. Obviously, special needs children deserve to have their needs taken care of. But of course all children have a lot of needs. And the moral logic that supports taking care of the needs of children with special needs also, of course, supports the idea of supporting all children with their needs.
If one of John McCain’s children had a cavity, I’m sure McCain would have them go to the dentist. Same with Palin and her kids. And the same with every Republican member of congress. And they’d make sure their kids get regular dental checkups and tooth cleanings. That’s not a “special” need, but it’s a need. But if your parents are too poor to afford regular cleanings for your teeth, then you’re out of look as far as conservatives are concerned. That need’s not “special” enough. Or suppose you were hoping for a standard medical checkup? Well, conservatives are against expanding S-CHIP. Suppose you rely on Medicaid to pay for a doctor to take care of you when you’re sick? Well, states will be cutting back spending in the face of the recession and conservatives oppose efforts to have the federal government boost aid to the states. First Focus found that “real discretionary spending on children has declined by more than six percent since 2004″ under George W. Bush and McCain’s plan for large, across-the-board cuts in real discretionary spending would, of course, force further reductions.
What’s the justification for this? Its not that conservative politicians don’t understand that non-”special” children have substantial needs. You can see from the way they raise their own kids — just like all other prosperous families, they spend generously on them. But 16 percent of all children and twenty percent of children under the age of six live in households that are below the poverty line. A family of four is below the poverty line earning $21,200. If you’re a woman earning $21,200 a year and raising three children, you’re going to find that it’s really, really hard to take care of all your regular children’s regular needs. Note that as of July 24, 2009 the minimum wage will be $7.25 per hour which conservatives think is too high. If you work forty hours a week, for fifty-two weeks a year at $7.25 an hour you’ll take home $15,080 a year with which to take care of your regular children’s regular needs. Try to give you a refundable tax credit? Well, that’s welfare and we can’t have it.
It would be one thing if conservatives had the courage of their convictions and just said, “hey, government intervention in the economy is so terrible that we don’t care if children suffer.” But when you see candidates out there on the hustings talking about how we need to take care of special needs children, well, it makes me mad. Of course we need to take care of their needs. But kids, special and otherwise, need all kinds of stuff. They need decent childcare and nutritious food and they need to see doctors and dentists and they need clothing and they need decently maintained houses that are heated in the winter. They need parents with job opportunities and schedules that are flexible enough to take care of them. Nobody seriously denies that kids need this stuff. But lots of people are just indifferent to the fact that a huge proportion of our children don’t get their needs met. And it’s appalling. McCain says that rather than spreading the wealth around, he wants to have equal opportunity. But what kind of equal opportunity do have when mom’s pulling in $21,500 to support three kids and President McCain is slashing spending on child and family services left and right?
83 Responses to “Regular Needs Children”
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October 24th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Very well said, Matthew.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hear Hear!
October 24th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Excellent.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Of course the unstated assumption is that it is the federal government that should be the provider for everyone’s “needs.” In addition to filling cavities, maybe we can have the federal government buy everyone’s clothes, food, a car or two, backpacks, school supplies, and perhaps kids need a vacation or two throughout the year too. Maybe people aren’t indifferent so much as they realize that the cure would be far worse than the disease. But for people like Matt, if you don’t favor the federal government being all things to all people, it’s because you hate poor children and love to see them suffer.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
just because palin has a 6-months old special needs baby, does not mean she’s experienced in that field. special needs kids are tougher to take care of when they are older.
i for one dont believe she really KNOWS how to do it by todd and herself. she’ll still gonna need help from other people who are more experienced than her. in this field, i’d prefer to hear a detailed argument from an actual nurse, or a mother who has actually taken care of a special needs child for decades.
if i were to pick a vp based solely on experience in this field, i’d rather pick a more experienced mother than palin.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
It is for precisely the reasons you outline that the modern conflation of Conservatism with Christianity seems so perverse and Orwellian.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Some children should be rewarded for making the extra effort and having the foresight to be born into wealthier families.
There are plenty of options for children with no special needs. They can:
-Marry a beer heiress.
-Get elected to Congress and get comprehensive medical care.
-Start a small business and earn over $250,000 per year.
Six year olds who are not doing these things are expressing a preference for not having quality medical care.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Helping children = socialism. We need to make our children understand good conservative values like walking through the snow and knowing how much better they had it than their parents did. Frankly all kids need are gruel and a good spanking.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
One thing that’s very wrong about this is that Palin has no experience in raising a special-needs child. In a better world a state agency would be investigating her for child abuse.
Caring for a special-needs child means being available 24/7, and if you are a mother who has consciously chosen to bring a disabled child into the world that’s an inflexible requirement. Such a child needs and deserves to have a real mother.
In Palin’s case, there are two forms of child abuse going on- first, passing the disabled child around like a football, and second, forcing her older daughter to assume the tasks of mothering when the older daughter obviously isn’t mature enough to even master her own emotional needs.
What Palin is doing is the exact opposite of “caring for a special needs child”. Palin is assuming that the child will never amount to anything anyway, so it doesn’t matter who changes diapers or feeds the child. This doesn’t even rise to the level of car you would find in any halfway decent orphanage, where staffers form emotional attachments to the children and bend their own personal schedules out of shape to provide consistent care.
It’s entirely fair to dislike Palin intensely on this basis alone.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
“But if your parents are too poor to afford regular cleanings for your teeth, then you’re out of look as far as conservatives are concerned.”
——————–
Sigh.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Agreed. Every child deserves an education, healthcare, and a roof over their head. The government should step in when parents can’t/won’t provide these things.
But people also get upset when they hear about a single mother with three kids working minimum wage because they want to know why this person has burdened the rest of us with children she can’t afford. I think many conservatives then want to punish this person by with-holding care from the kids. This is obviously wrong. But it would be nice to find ways to reduce the number of cases where people who clearly cannot afford to care for kids have them anyway.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
This is the same as how conservatives get in favor of stem cell research when they or their spouse could benefit from it, or get in favor of gay rights when their kid is gay (unless they throw them out of the house, I guess). But they never think, “Wait a minute, maybe the rest of my deeply-held principles should be reexamined too”–they see it as an isolated incident. Liberals support gay rights and children’s health insurance whether or not we’re gay or have kids.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Brad, you’re not reading the post. If you think the government shouldn’t provide for children’s needs, then so be it. But it’s hypocritical to take that position, while still believing in federal funding for “special needs” children just because you or your running mate has a special needs child–or, more cynically, because it’s a painless way to make you look compassionate. If you believe that society benefits from providing for special needs children, then the same logic dictates that we would benefit from providing for regular needs children too.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Is this the first time Matt has ever gotten mad in his blog? If so, he’s picked a good moment and a good topic.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Nice post indeed. But don’t forget how many conservatives like Bush and Palin were born with special needs. Being born without a brain surely counts.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Brad, you’re wrong, here’s why:
1) Kids need health care. Actually need it. You don’t have to dig too far back to find stories about, say, poor black kids dying from infected teeth because their parents couldn’t afford health insurance so they couldn’t see a dentist and get the simple treatment that would save their lives.
2) The “cure” in this case is providing health care for children, most likely via small tax increases on absurdly rich people.
3) The “disease,” of course, is kids dying. Dying from things that wouldn’t kill them if they had the good fortune to be born into a wealthier family.
Maybe you think the cure here is worse than the disease. But if you think that, don’t complain when people point out that you “hate poor children and love to see them suffer.” Or at least, make a more reasonable objection, like “I don’t hate poor children and love to see them suffer! I’m INDIFFERENT to poor children and don’t care if they suffer, as long as I get a cut in the capital gains tax!”
October 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
But lots of people are just indifferent to the fact that a huge proportion of our children don’t get their needs met.
Yes. And those people have a name- “Dad”. Where are the second wage earners in these families of women who earn $20,000 per year? Do they care about their own children’s normal needs?
October 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Don, he also spells it “fook.”
October 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Please correct the amount shown as “taking home” from the $15,080 gross ($7.25 X 2080 hours) to an amount reduced for FICA, Federal withholding and state/local withholding. What?! those folks pay taxes????
October 24th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Where are the second wage earners in these families of women who earn $20,000 per year? Do they care about their own children’s normal needs?
To answer the first part: not there. To answer the second part: no.
What alternate universe do you live in where people can always be relied on to be caring and responsible, C Stanley?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Where I live, C Stanley, if a father refuses to help pay for the care of his children, he is brought to justice by. . . the government.
Are you opposed to big government initiatives like that?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
James: I live in the universe of reality where of course people can’t always be relied upon to meet their responsibilities but the first line of correction of that problem is to hold them accountable. I would never want children to be punished for their deadbeat dads, but articles like this one completely skip the step of holding both parents accountable before turning to the federal govt as the solution. That’s neither responsible nor sustainable (eventually the burden to society for single mother families will outstrip the ability of GDP to cover the burden, no matter how compassionate we are to the innocent children.)
I’m always amazed that no one ever mentions the problem of non-child support paying fathers. Shouldn’t that be step one of caring for kids of single moms? Combine it with whatever aid is necessary to ensure that the kids don’t suffer, but don’t give the fathers a pass. If those men owed back taxes, you can bet the IRS would find them and put a lien on their earnings and assets till their debt was paid- so why aren’t we finding the fathers who don’t pay and requiring them to do so? Wouldn’t these kids be far better off having the assets of an actual second wage earner available to meet their needs anyway, instead of getting the crumbs from the public till?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Notorious, I assume that was an attempt at some kind of ‘gotcha’. Can you show me some conservative who objects to the government function of law enforcement like you seem to suggest?
And if it is the case, as you claim, that fathers who don’t support their kids are being brought to justice, then what the hell was Matt talking about when he expresses concern for the single mothers who are trying to support 3 kids on $20,000?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I don’t know how conservative intellectuals would justify this, but your average, everyday, red meat Joe the Plumber type conservative would say that having the government address needs for regular children with regular needs that have been born to parents to poor to afford to pay for it rewards parents that made poor life choices, and responsible people (like a 34 year old single parent who owns a house) shouldn’t have to pay taxes to subsidize the poor choices of people who didn’t realize, or who deliberately ignored the fact that, they were too poor to have children.
You’ll typically hear people like this say “if you can’t feed them, then don’t breed them.” I’m not a conservative myself, just passing along what my upper middle class, white, conservative and Evangelical Christian (not “elites” though!) neighbors would say.
An libertarian economist would say that parents who have children knowing that their offspring’s regular needs couldn’t be met with the parent’s income were “ignoring market signals” or something like that.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The hysterical responses on the right to liberals pointing out that poor children have unmet needs is quite revealing. It really displays the level of doublethink necessary to be a modern republican. To a Republican, we just need to provide sufficient incentives for people to make money and these problems will go away- parents will get a damn job already and support their own kids. But they don’t seem to notice that Republican policies have the impact of increasing the number of poor kids. There is a peculiar symmetry to the neoconservative approach to foreign policy. As long as you do the morally right thing according to their ideology, the actual effect is irrelevant (although there are always though complaining about the cure being worse than the disease). In this case, the right thing to do is to punish people for being poor, and the fact that it leads to more uncared for children is irrelevant.
Then the hypocrisy grows even further when you realize that banning abortions -> more uncared for poor kids. And then you find out that the anti-abortion forces are also not interested in pursuing approaches that reduce the numbers of unwanted teen pregnancies. For them a teen pregnancy is a desirable outcome because it is an appropriate punishment for pre-marital sex (deal with the consequences and all).
After you really grasp all the connections involved, it’s difficult not to want to punch any conservative you meet square in the face.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Well, I suppose I can see why the urge to punch conservatives in the face is so prevalent when people on liberal or center left blogs repeatedly state what ‘conservatives’ believe instead of discussing issues with actual conservatives. It’s pretty easy to work up some outrage over the strawmen conservatives that you guys seem to want to argue against (not saying that SOME of the attitudes you describe don’t exist, but as a conservative I don’t attribute the attitudes of the fringe left to all liberals. I’d get pretty angry if I did so, too.)
October 24th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
What personal experience does Palin have in guiding a Down Syndrome person from birth through their school years? What medical, social, psychological and economical travails has she personally confronted and been forced to overcome or surrender to with a child at age 1, 4, 8, 11, 15, 19, 25 and 32? If the White House has a need for someone possessed of such wisdom and experience is Palin, as she claims, the best person to fill the job opening?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
steve (and someone else earlier who mentioned Palin’s recent experience as a parent of a special needs child): apparently you are unaware that Palin’s 12 year old nephew has autism and she’s been involved as an extended family member in helping her sister and brother in law with his care and needs.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Thank you! I continue to stand in amazement of Palin and McCain bleating on about the plight of “special needs” children while AS PART OF THE REPUBLICAN CORE AGENDA seek to allow innocent kids with limitless potential to wither on the vine.
Of course their cynical political calculation is obvious. The middle and upper class parents of “special needs” children who are, to Republicans, the most sympathetic differ greatly from their polar opposites – poor, working class parents. Their “normal” children attend inadequate schools, have no health care, little guidance and often must weather violence, despair and apathy all around.
It’s true, the parents of these children have often thoroughly failed them. But of course to those on the right, that fact should doom them to continue the cycle because we have reverted to being a society that requires children to pay for the mistakes of their parents.
Meanwhile, Palin and McCain pander to the parents of “special needs” children who plead for the embellishment of social programs that favor their kids and then turn around and lie about being for a small government that allows for “individual liberty”. It’s beyond ironic to see social darwinists so fiercely crusade for their offspring who lack the potential to ever fend for themselves at the expense of children who are better equipped.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
It’s beyond ironic to see social darwinists so fiercely crusade for their offspring who lack the potential to ever fend for themselves at the expense of children who are better equipped.Uh, beyond ironic because you’re making it up, but whatever.
Can anyone elaborate on what is meant by this kind of comment:
AS PART OF THE REPUBLICAN CORE AGENDA seek to allow innocent kids with limitless potential to wither on the vine.
Or this one:
But what kind of equal opportunity do have when mom’s pulling in $21,500 to support three kids and President McCain is slashing spending on child and family services left and right?
Just trying to figure out the rules of engagement here. Can we make up any shit we want and claim that this is what our political opponents believe, or is there any requirement for it to be grounded in reality?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
26. C Stanley: You’ll notice that I used the word Republican. I should have used it an the end there as well, my mistake. At Crooked Timber there is a post up regarding Ross Douthat’s attempt to carve out a reasonable, defensible conservative position on the issue. Maybe you can go over there and contribute your opinion on the matter. But what I’m talking about is no strawman: Republicans are hyperventilating over Obama’s terrible ‘redistributionist’ policies. Anyone complaining about how we’re misrepresenting Republicans on this issue is just trolling.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
And if it is the case, as you claim, that fathers who don’t support their kids are being brought to justice, then what the hell was Matt talking about when he expresses concern for the single mothers who are trying to support 3 kids on $20,000?
Many deadbeat fathers are not being “brought to justice” because either:
1. They’re in jail. Can’t get blood from a stone.
2. They’re dead. Can’t get blood from a corpse.
3. They’re destitute. We don’t have a legal mechanism to force people to work (except for prison labor, which pays nothing.)
4. They’re ‘in the wind’.
Case (4) is the only one that government can really help with. Unfortunately, finding deadbeat parents means a lot of additional LE spending which is never popular when there are “real” crimes to fight (and an expensive drug war). Plus once they’re found, you still may have to deal with cases 1, 2 and 3.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Republican core agenda: Get government out of the way so people can support themselves and their families as the wage earning opportunities that spring from their abilities allow.
A consequence of this is, if for example, you have two kids and can only get a low paying job, then your kids will suffer in every way that matters relative to children from families with more means. By “every way that matters”, I mean access to resources that will allow a child to develop as much of their potential as realistically possible, not “guaranteeing outcomes” or whatever nonsense spin drools from the mouths of right wing pundits. If you can seriously argue that this isn’t what it boils down to, I’d like to hear your distilled alternative platform. By the way, I’m absolutely against people having children they can’t pay for, but then the right doesn’t have a strong history of advocating family planning or sex education does it?
As for the social darwinist part of it, I stand by it. If the right is against expanding spending in the public sector, where will the money for special needs children’s care come from? Military spending?
October 24th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I have a special needs child, and I’m very glad for the services my state provides. Of course it’s very obvious that McCain’s spending freeze plans are just the kind of thing that would threaten those services. Palin might be different, but for no principled reason at all–she has a special needs kid, so for her that’s a worthy thing to spend money on, whereas other people’s kids who have different needs that she doesn’t know anything about personally can go eat dirt. It’s this “socialism” for the middle class and rich only that gets rave reviews in Alaskan politics, and increasingly among mainstream conservatives.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Republicans are hyperventilating over Obama’s terrible ‘redistributionist’ policies. Anyone complaining about how we’re misrepresenting Republicans on this issue is just trolling.
Most of the hyperventilating among Republicans that I know is over the fact that Obama only inadvertantly admitted that he wants to redistribute wealth. If liberal/progressives want to do so, they should be upfront about it and then debate the plans according to what they really are. Instead though, Obama claims that he plans to cut income taxes for people who actually don’t pay income taxes. If he’d be honest and admit that this is a tax credit program, then many conservatives would still oppose it but everyone could have an honest debate about whether or not Obama’s tax policies and tax credits are the best way to help the working poor. I can give you conservative arguments against that, because helping people with $500 checks from the govt in the short run isn’t a net positive thing if the policies that allow this money to flow end up impeding job creation (ie, his small business taxation.) I’m sure that I’m not going to find any agreement here on my opinion on that (and unfortunately can’t hang around much longer today to discuss, even if I did find any takers) but again, my main objection is to the method of slipping in tax credits under the radar screen and misrepresenting whether or not each candidate will do more to ‘cut taxes’.
As for the ‘trolling’ comment, I never have understood the objection to people of varying political views coming together for debate, sorry. Is this supposed to be only a forum for people to have their preconceived opinions validated?
October 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
No trolling is when you take a comment from Obama about wanting to redistribute wealth and then spin that as a desire to redistribute wealth as an end unto itself. We can look at today’s society, the income disparity and our tax policy, and say, “we need to use tax policy to redistribute some of this income”. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say if you think the rich should pay a slightly higher amount or the poor should get more breaks. If you’re not a supply-sider, you’ll probably even think this is a good idea for the overall health of the economy, but you also might think it’s an issue of basic fairness.
Again, there was no ‘inadvertent admission’ here. Obama used perfectly reasonable language to describe the motivation for his preferred tax policy. The counter-argument the Republicans are pulling out doesn’t address Obama’s actual policy position and it requires an absurd characterization of what Obama’s intentions ‘really are’.
But just based on your contributions in this thread, I’m not likely to accept that you’re anything resembling a reasonable conservative. Your response to kids being raised in poverty is that we have to go after delinquent child support payments more aggressively. I’m sorry, but this just isn’t a serious response. It would be great if we could address the problem by holding parents more responsible, but at the point that this fails (and it has in many cases), what is our new policy prescription? Well, you’d rather dodge that question it seems.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I work for California’s Regional Center system on school-age children’s issues. We have a very cynical saying every time the budget comes up: No one ever got elected promising to spend more money on the retarded. It’s kind of fascinating to watch McCain/Palin hammer this one, especially when right up until yesterday the campaign didn’t even have a position on disabilities, while Obama’s always has.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
No, Conservative Christians still help kids in need, we just do it through methods we choose. There are plenty of Christian Ministries that help kids in need. We donate our time and money through those organizations rather than our inefficient government.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Perhaps perfectly reasonable if we didn’t already have a progressive tax structure, and if people were aware that the poor were not in fact getting ‘more breaks’ in the way you imply (tax breaks) but instead were getting a net payment from the government. Again, if you want to argue in favor of such policies, go ahead- but obviously if you don’t believe that most Americans would vote for your candidate if those policies were known and understood, then you’re going to present tax credits as tax cuts because that sounds like something that everyone can agree on.
I would hazard a guess that you wouldn’t be happy about a conservative candidate using euphemisms for ultraconservative policy in order to dress it up as a centrist platform. Am I wrong? If not, then why is it hard for you to understand that conservatives and right-leaning centrist voters also want to shine the light on deceptive rhetoric so that everyone actually knows what they’re voting for?
Um, forgive me for not answering your question before you even asked it. I actually did allude to the fact that I want kids to be taken care of regardless- but I can’t support policy that completely bypasses the parental responsibility. Having known many single moms, I don’t feel that we’ve NEARLY reached the limit of what can be done to enforce paternal responsibility in financially supporting kids. Can you argue otherwise? Do you have some knowledge of what is actually being done to make fathers pay child support?
To me, it’s analogous to a corporation that creates an environmental mess- would you support public policy that said, “well, companies will do this so we just have to raise people’s taxes and create a fund to clean up the mess” or would you expect the government to seek redress from the responsible parties first and then commit public funds only when necessary to pick up the slack? How is it different for me to expect that the govt should first enforce existing law to have parents pay for their own children’s needs whenever possible before creating or expanding programs to publicly fund the basic living expenses for the kids? It actually can be done simultaneously- set up tax credits for families in need but whenever that need has arisen because of the neglect of one parent, the payments that potentially can come from expanded efforts at collecting child support could be repaid to the system. There’d still be a net cost, but not as much- and if the real interest is ‘fairness’, then what is more fair than holding people first accountable for caring for the needs of the children they bring into the world?
October 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Hear, hear, Clay (#38)
October 24th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
No, Conservative Christians still help kids in need, we just do it through methods we choose. There are plenty of Christian Ministries that help kids in need. We donate our time and money through those organizations rather than our inefficient government.
Another typical Republican response. I’m glad that you donate your time and money, but since your preferred policies (even taking your voluntary contributions into account) lead to those kids being worse of, you are objectively in favor of kids being raised in poverty. You’re not helping!
C Stanely, it appears you are quite hung up on the distinction between tax breaks and tax credits for the poor. If you think Obama is being misleading on this issue, fine. But if you want to pretend that this whole Republican pouting show regarding Obama’s ’socialist’ policy preferences is about tax credits for the poor and not tax increases for the rich, feel free to enjoy your little fantasy world.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Very well put, Matt.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Well, mpowell, I’ve already stated that most conservatives would still oppose these policies as socialistic- so I don’t know why you think I’m endulging in fantasy since I never suggested that everyone would be happy as clams and would vote for Obama if he’d just admit that he’s proposing tax credits rather than tax cuts.
But since it’s always the centrist voters who determine an outcome of an election, I think it’s to be expected that conservatives would be angered by the deception that would lead to some centrists voting for policies without having an understanding of what they’re approving.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
On what objective basis can you draw those conclusions?
October 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
43.
So the Conservative hissy fit about Obama’s “secretive socialism”(which isn’t socialism, and isn’t secretive because the policy is there for anyone to read) is really only to call this to the attention of silly centrist voters who aren’t smart enough to vote in their own best interest? Really? That’s what you seem to be saying C.. More please.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Very well, C Stanley, I’ve accomplished about as much as I should have expected in this exchange. The fact remains that Republicans prefer policies that make poor kids objectively worse off. If you want to distance yourself from those policies, fine. If you have alternative proposals that will actually help those kids, let’s hear about them instead of just vague suggestions that we hold parents responsible- any studies on whether this would actually make an appreciable difference? Otherwise, we don’t have anything to talk about here.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
On what objective basis can you draw those conclusions?
If you are prepared to commit to the idea that the Republican policy preferences of not providing direct economic aid to the poor actually help poor children I am fully willing to leave it at that and let other people reach their own conclusions.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
#45: craig, that’s not that far off the mark as far as I’m concerned. I don’t find it insulting to say that some people aren’t that politically engaged and begin paying attention toward the end of a campaign cycle-it’s normal that there are people like that and I don’t intend to demean them for it.
If my hunch is right about this, we’ll continue to see some tightening of the polls now that it’s being brought out in public discussion thanks to Joe the Plumber.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Check the state polling from yesterday. Joe the Plumber is going nowhere fast for McCain.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
#47 mp: you’d of course have to provide something specific other than your sweeping statement of “not providing direct economic aid to the poor” before I could agree or disagree with your assessment.
Would you support giving $25,000 checks to all families that fall below the poverty line? If not, then does that mean you don’t want to ‘provide economic aid to the poor?’
October 24th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Thank you for this post. This morning, on my way out, I saw Palin talking about this live. I was angry, and told my husband how infuriating I found this concept that we should care MORE about “special” needs children than about the needs of all children. A few hours later, I returned home and began skimming through various blogs. Upon reading the heading on this post I exclaimed, “This is why I like Yglesias so much.” So often he’s the only blogger commenting on just what I was thinking, and always expressing it better than I could have.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
48.
So by that logic you’d be cool with me paying for ads calling John McCain a warmongering baby killer with a hidden communist agenda, and any other distortion of the truth so long as those silly centrists, who must be too lazy to find out the facts vote my way? Interesting country you live in. I assume you must be in the Real America.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
In the conservative mind, the difference between funding regular and special needs kids is rooted in the same rationale as abortion exceptions for rape. It’s not about the child, its about structuring social policies to punish behavior they don’t like.
They don’t think the poor should be having children, so they ought to “pay the consequences” if they do, but middle class families didn’t “choose” to have a child with Downs or Autism, so why should they be bankrupted by it? That’s the logic, and it’s quite simple, if simply heartless.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
WTF? I complain about dishonesty on the part of Obama campaign (which no one here seems willing or able to actually defend, BTW) and you think this equates to my support of more dishonesty?
October 24th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
D Rose: it makes you angry that someone points out that kids with special needs have special needs over and above the general needs of average kids?
October 24th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Or, you know, it’s about actually thinking through the consequences of social policies and determining if the desired outcome will result, if any unintended consequences are likely to occur, and if the cost is sustainable. But your way sound nastier so I guess you’ll go with that.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I hope lots of people are for expanding the CHIP program into a total welfare program…or are you ignoring the fact that “children” was going to be expanded to mean anyone under 25.
Hmm…lets think… 25 and under are government health care…. 65 and over are medicare (gov again…) so…. for 40 years you’re on your own but the rest of the time we’ll take care of you. It’s just a matter of time before they close the gap more and more, something that will not help everyone equally…in the same poor manner.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
WTF is so hard to follow? You agree I’m not far off the mark in saying that the Conservative hissy fit in calling Obama a socialist and hanging out with terrorists, and all the other distortions and lies are just to put a shiny object in front of those non-informed centrist voters, and I say ok. John McCain wants to stay at war, and have new wars during his term, he’s said that, Warmonger. Babies die in war, baby killer. John McCain was a prisoner of the communist Vietnamese for years, do we know his real agenda? You know how this works, you’re a conservative.
I stand by the idea that it’s ridiculous to hold yourself up as the champion of aid for special needs kids now that you yourself have one, but the rest of your agenda is about having children and their parents get tough and take care of themselves. It’s even worse when the other big idea on your ticket is an across the board spending freeze, so you’re not gonna fund any new programs for special needs kids anyway.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Point out where I agreed with that, please?
This is what I expressed ‘partial’ agreement with:
I was agreeing with you that the deception of Obama talking about tax cuts when he means tax credits is what conservatives are calling ’secret socialism’ (though your use of that term is the first I’ve heard, but as I said, it’s not far off the mark) because it’s an attempt to give stump speeches and debate answers in a way that sounds like one thing but is really another. And yes, it does succeed in deceiving some voters who don’t have time to do the fact checking.
What that legitimate complaint about dishonesty has to do with your attempt to justify MORE dishonesty is beyond me.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
My complaint is that you only seem to see dishonesty on the Obama side.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
craig: I will agree that both sides are dishonest in certain ways- I see several instances on Obama’s side that are blatant attempts to portray liberal policies as moderate ones though, and that has a high probability of influencing centrist votes in his favor.
Generally both candidates are decietful about their opponent’s position and record- portraying them in ways that will be unacceptable to certain blocs of voters that the candidate is trying to win over (Obama does this when he takes McCain’s 100 years in Iraq statement out of context, for instance, and McCain does it when he stresses Obama’s liberal voting record.) I find it even more egregious when one of them is deceitful about his own policies, though- because that makes it very difficult for people to really know what they’re voting for. If you have to read between the lines and check the fine print, then you can be sure there’s something there that some voters won’t like but will accidentally overlook.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I’ll give you one more just to show that I’m trying to be intellectually honest here- I think that Palin goes way too far when she says that Obama/Biden want to wave the white flag of surrender.
You see, I do acknowledge the deceit on both sides (though in Palin’s case I think she actually believes what she’s saying!) I’m raising a complaint about a particular practice of disguising one’s own policies as more moderate than they really are in this case.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
If I make $100,000 per year my taxes are less under Obama plan than under any of the constantly shifting plans McCain’ camp keeps releasing, and I’m willing to gamble that the overall economy of the nation will be better. Politics is a gamble. I think the level of deceit on the McCain side is pretty huge compared to saying tax cuts instead of tax credits. But that’s just me.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Matt,
Wonderful post. I would also recommend a fairly short article with more statistics, down-to-earth details, and some policy proposals. I disagree in places but, like this post, it’s got some powerful stuff to say.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Typical ruse, using poor children to paint conservatives as heartless and cruel. Here’s a thought: if you really care about those kids, why don’t you go find a needy single mom and personally pay for her children’s dental care? I’ll tell you why: the premise of liberalism is using my money to solve your problem.
When liberals stop talking the talk and start walking the walk, then I’ll believe they are truly caring, thoughtful people. You think taxes should be higher? No problem. Tell me, how much did you voluntarily add to your 1040 last year? There’s a line for it, you know. Unless you have a non-zero number on that line, you only think my taxes should be higher. Put up, or shut up.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:47 am
I’ll tell you why: the premise of liberalism is using my money to solve your problem.
Seriously. I don’t have kids, I don’t see why I should pay for schools.
Also, I take public transit. I’d like to not pay any taxes that go towards roads and highways.
I only want my money to solve my problems. Why is that so hard to understand?
October 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
And that whole war in Iraq thing, yeah, that’s not helping me one bit. For that matter, basically the entire US military presence outside the US (Korea, Germany, Japan, etc.) is useless. Why should I pay for any of that?
Funny how the premise of conservatism is using my money to live out your militaristic, hegemonic fantasies.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Chuck,
Two quick points in regard to your comment (no. 65).
1) I think you’re incorrect when you say Matt is perpetrating a ruse or painting conservatives as heartless and cruel, because he is essentially saying something far simpler — that the consequences of their policies on child poverty issues are cruel and unjust. He offers plenty of detail about the actual problems that those policies neglect, as does my link at comment no. 64, and the consequences of leaving such problems unaddressed seems to millions of people pretty clearly to be cruel. If you think the consequences of a conservative rejection of social spending on this are actually helpful to such children, then you can explain why; the rest of us might learn something.
2) The impulse to ask for private initiative is understandable, since all of us have to rely on our own energy and decisions to advance many of our goals in our everyday lives. Nonetheless, fundamentally, your comment is a non sequitur. Addressing major problems in society usually involves devising a collective solution, and a personal decision to pay more in taxes would not advance that goal. So to focus on such personal choices misses the point, which, again, is that child poverty is the kind of large-scale problem that would require a corresponding public commitment in order to solve.
Remember, finally, that liberals believe in plenty of government support for middle-class people’s aspirations as well. In a grassroots democratic process, we take our own needs seriously as well as those of others and try to work out compromises to make at least some of those needs more achievable for ourselves and everyone else.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Recapping the replies in 66, 67, and 68:
Providing for the common defense is actually an real, stated function of the government, right there in the Constitution. I don’t have a problem paying taxes for it, since it fundamentally allows for the rest of our system to function. You may disagree with a particular application of those defense dollars (Iraq) but it’s tough to ignore something right in the preamble of the Constitution.
Paying for education: I would *love* to opt out of education taxes, wherein I fund the agenda of the NEA, and use those substantial funds to join with others to create a charter school. So we are on the same page there. Charter schools inject competition and market forces into education, which is why the NEA so desperately opposes them.
I’d be happy to better structure road taxes to be more usage based. Geez, I’d be happy to see the current road taxes actually be used for roads. In my state (NC) they raided the road funds long ago to fund unrelated programs, so now there is no money to actually build the roads. Moreover, even those who use public transit need roads; they are used to deliver all the stuff you need to live your life. Of course, the road taxes should be baked into the cost of goods, so you’d pay the tax as you purchased those goods. That works out just fine.
The whole “child dental care” argument is structured to evoke pity, because no one really wants to deny dental care to children. My point is that if you really want to help children get dental care, find some like-minded folks, form a non-profit, chip in some money, and get some kids to the dentist. My brother-in-law is a dentist; this summer he traveled to Central America at his own expense for a week and fixed teeth for as many people as he could. He didn’t ask the government to collect money from others and do it. He walked the walk: he went and did it himself.
The tax issue is the same. Each of us has the direct ability to raise our taxes to what we think is the correct level. The problem is that those who want to raise my taxes seem to think that their taxes are just fine. When I see you chipping in on your own, maybe I’ll take your request for me to chip in involuntarily a little more seriously. Liberalism is all about “do as I say, not as I do.”
Again, walk the walk. Lead by example. Shake your wallet out and send it to the government, if that’s what you think everyone should do. I think people should find ways to fix things on their own initiative, so that’s what I try to do.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:12 am
“Providing for the common defense is actually an real, stated function of the government, right there in the Constitution.”
I’m sorry, but how, exactly, are U.S. troops garrisoned in Iraq, South Korea and Germany contributing to the common defense of, you know, the United States? Is it really necessary to maintain 11 carrier battle groups (10 more than any other single navy in the world)? Do we really need to spend as much on our military as the entire rest of the world, combined, to maintain a “common defense?”
You know the answers to those questions, of course.
You just said you’re willing to spend trillions for bombs and tanks and nukes, and not one penny for education. Good to know where conservative priorities are.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
It seems silly to leave a post this far down the page, but here it goes. There’s an expression that what is best for all is best for none.
Solution: get the federal government out of the picture. If you are super liberal and want to marry gay horses and have 8th trimester abortions and pay 55% income tax, move to the state that offers that. If you are libertarian and just want people to run their own lives and the government to leave you alone, move to the state that offers that.
The federal government, by way of the Constitution is only responsible for delivering mail, maintaining interstate highways, and defending our land.
Do you really want the federal government to be responsible for your health? Do you want them to decide what is financially viable to cover? Do you really want to pay for other people’s desicions? As a non-smoker, i don’t want to pay for a smoker’s health care; and as someone who’s carefully planning a family, i don’t want to pay welfare to a single woman who can’t figure out how to not get pregneant.
I find it ironic that liberals do things “for the children” but think that children are choices. If you don’t want a child, don’t get pregneant. If you’re child will have special needs, don’t abort him/her; another person’s life is not for you to judge.
And finally, before anyone says I don’t think women should have a choice about what to do with their body, they are wrong. Do whatever you want with your body, just don’t kill anyone for your convenience. The right to life trumps the right to choose; but if women want to cut off their arms and poop their pants, thats fine with me.
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