Income redistribution by politicians should remind us they politicians want incredible power to decide what is fair and if anyone should be rewarded for hard work. Deciding income distribution puts the politician in the position of handing out gifts to the undeserving. Historically, the politicians have decided they should be getting the income and everyone else should get poorer. This truth certainly explains the growth of poverty in the last five years.
~~~~~~~~
Democrats are revving up for a huge national "conversation" on income inequality. This is in no small part because the Obama administration and congressional Democrats would rather talk about anything other than Obamacare.
But it would be unfair to say this is all a cynical effort to gain partisan advantage. For instance, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
is certainly sincere in his desire to take "dead aim at the Tale of Two
Cities" in the Big Apple. He and his team want to fix the distribution
of income in New York by distributing it differently.
This in itself points to the different perspectives
on the left and right when it comes to income inequality, perspectives
worth keeping in mind if you're going to try to follow the conversation
to come.
As a broad generalization, liberals see income as a
public good that is distributed, like crayons in a kindergarten class.
If so-and-so didn't get his or her fair share of income, it's because
someone or something -- government, the system -- didn't distribute
income properly. To the extent conservatives see income inequality as a
problem, it is as an indication of more concrete problems. If the poor
and middle class are falling behind the wealthy, it might be a sign of
declining or stagnating wages or lackluster job creation. In other
words, liberals tend to see income inequality as the disease, and
conservatives tend to see it as a symptom.
Income inequality can be a benign symptom. For instance, if everyone is getting richer, who cares if the rich are getting richer faster? New York City's
inequality, for instance, is partly a function of the fact that it is
so attractive to poor immigrants who start at the bottom of the ladder
but with the ambition to climb it rapidly.
This raises the most delicate aspect of income inequality, the extent to which it can be driven by non-economic issues. New York City's new public advocate, Letitia James, delivered her inaugural address while holding hands with Dasani Coates,
a 12-year-old girl who until recently lived in a grimy homeless shelter
with her parents. She was profiled in a nearly 30,000-word New York Times
series that aimed to highlight the Dickensian nature of the city and
succeeded in anointing Dasani as the living symbol of income inequality
in New York.
James
held Dasani's hand aloft for emphasis when she proclaimed, "If working
people aren't getting their fair share ... you better believe Dasani and
I will stand up -- that all of us will stand up -- and call out anyone
and anything that stands in the way of our progress!"
But she also said something interesting about
herself. James said her parents were smiling down from heaven as they
watched her swearing-in, adding that her mother and father were "without
credentials, humbled individuals more accustomed to backbreaking work
than dinner parties." Later, at a reception, she said of her parents, "I
made them proud. I just want to inspire others. That's why I had Dasani
with me."
One has to wonder whether James missed the irony.
According to liberals like James and The Times (to the extent that's a
distinction with a difference), Dasani is a victim of a system that
tolerates so much economic inequality.
Dasani is certainly a victim, but is the system really to blame? Dasani's biological father is utterly absent. Her mother, Chanel,
a drug addict and daughter of a drug addict, has a long criminal record
and has children from three men. It doesn't appear that she has ever
had a job, and often ignores her parental chores because she's strung
out on methadone. As Kay Hymowitz notes in a brilliant (New York) City Journal
examination of Dasani's story, The Times can't distinguish between the
plight of hard-working New Yorkers like James' late parents and people
like Dasani's parents. "The reason for this confusion is clear: In the
progressive mind, there is only one kind of poverty. It is always an
impersonal force wrought by capitalism, with no way out that doesn't
involve massive government help."
The data say something else. Family structure and
the values that go into successful child rearing have a stronger
correlation with economic mobility than income inequality. America's
system is hardly flawless. But if Dasani were born to the same parents
in a socialist country, she'd still be a victim -- of bad parents.
No comments:
Post a Comment