ConservativeHome's Platform

Randy Brandt: Deficit reduction and wealth creation go hand-in-hand with helping poor families

Randy Brandt is the Director of the program to promote and protect America's freedom at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, and former deputy staff director and counsel for the Senate Republican Conference.

Recently, some Catholic academics have criticized Speaker John Boehner for his support of the 2012 budget as immoral and inconsistent with the tenets of his faith. Not for  infidelities on life or marriage issues, but for his commitment to deficit reduction and their view that it fails to “preference the needs of the poor.”  I am not Catholic, but all Christians, and most Conservatives for that matter, can resonate with the importance of helping the poor.  

Yet, we can also resonate with the wisdom of the Catholic and a similar Protestant principle of subsidiarity that recognizes that solutions to problems should be implemented at the closest possible level to the problem and sector being addressed.  To quote the prominent contemporary Catholic scholar and thinker, George Weigel, “Catholic social thought is about the empowerment of the poor.  It is not about failed policies of social assistance that treat poor people as problems to be solved rather than as people with potential to be unleashed.  It is not about using public policy to create generation after generation of serfs on the state welfare plantation.”

In an era where we are waking up as a nation to the seriousness of the deep financial hole in which we have put ourselves, we need to think creatively and direct limited resources strategically if we are to help poor families.  We also need to embrace the reality that in most cases solutions work best when they are closer to those in need. 

Our goal should be to promote growth and opportunity through encouraging private sector initiatives and through strategic public private partnerships first at the local, then regional, then statewide, and federal levels.  Moreover, advocates for the poor and the social safety net for the vulnerable need to recognize across the political spectrum that all of these initiatives are at risk if we do not get our fiscal house in order.

Our policies can promote opportunity through building community and promoting assets with long-term value for those struggling or we can simply spend resources the way that we have been.  If we desire to assist with impactful efforts to break the cycle of poverty, there are several obvious places to start. 

• First, encourage economic growth that will encourage job creation and employment opportunities for the unemployed and poor. 
• Second, promote stable families and continue to unabashedly look for ways to support families with a mom and a dad to keep kids out of poverty, while supporting the vast numbers of single parents.   
• Third, promote meaningful educational opportunity for those who do not have it. Ironically, Speaker Boehner, single handedly, did just that for some kids in failing and struggling schools in Washington, D.C. by restoring the educational scholarship program over the objections of many Congressional Democrats and President Obama. 
• Fourth, promote wealth creation and savings opportunity for those who lack the access to capital which also enables people to break the cycle of poverty.  Let’s focus on wealth creation.

What are some policy ideas which build assets and represent a better long-term investment than many of our poverty fighting programs which are rarely assessed for outcomes?  Homeownership, education, and entrepreneurship are asset building priorities which warrant private sector and public sector seed money more than most government initiatives.

Homeownership has been a key to moving families out of poverty in America. We need to be careful to avoid an outcome where it becomes too difficult for families to begin that process in the backlash over the excesses of the financial scandals and mortgage foreclosure crisis.  For lower income families a tax credit to assist with a down payment is probably a better “investment” by the government than the home mortgage interest deduction in terms of poverty alleviation.  The deduction provides a financial incentive to not pay down one’s mortgage as quickly and thus produces a greater reliance on market fluctuations in order to build equity and thus financial stability.

Teaching low-income people basic financial literacy through partnerships with the community such as through churches can also be an important starting point.  When you combine relevant financial education with additional incentives to save you can produce a rare scenario which actually changes human behavior.  Parents and their children begin to see first hand the benefits of saving and adapt their spending and saving habits accordingly.  Responsible use of credit and creating a nest egg for tougher times becomes a better buffer than the myriad of government attempts to do the same. 

In an era of limited resources, many programs which have been not been evaluated for their impact on actually reducing poverty should be considered for new resources to enable matching programs for savings for low-income citizens. This can be done in conjunction with private sector philanthropy through existing and proposed models such as individual development accounts or kids savings accounts which are geared for asset building purposes. Perhaps limiting the use of the funds is too restrictive for our libertarian friends, but it will produce dramatically better long term returns on public or private sector “investments” than many government programs which do not effectively promote change and opportunity.  I also believe that tax policy should not punish savings by double and triple taxing it and the more Americans who appreciate this view the better for our long term economic growth. 

Finally, Social Security reforms should include the option of personal accounts for at least a percentage of payroll taxes. Though only half of Americans pay federal income taxes, most Americans pay payroll taxes.  Allowing folks to choose to direct some of these “contributions” toward a real savings and investment account in their own name would enable them to make the choice whether or not to take more risk and thus historically to increase their return on their hard work. It would also enable minorities such as African American males with shorter life spans on average to get a better “return” on their payroll tax “investments.” Providing all Americans the option to pass along any unspent Social Security personal account savings to the next generation would help break the cycle of poverty and assist children, grandchildren or charities.  Allowing some of these resources to be used for low-cost annuities and life insurance could also have a powerful impact on generational poverty and family well-being. 

It requires more resolve, creativity, and a clearer sense of priorities when we must spend less as a nation.  Yet, the reality of our massive collective debt should focus our minds on ways to redirect more limited resources toward investments that are actually shown to reduce poverty and are likely to promote economic growth and opportunity for all Americans, including the poor among us.  Let’s get to work.

Ryan Messmore: Civil Society: Key to Fighting Poverty, Expanding Opportunity

Another installment in the Clapham Group-ConservativeHome series on conservatism, poverty, and opportunity in America.

Ryan Messmore, D.Phil., is the William E. Simon fellow in religion and a free society at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org) and lead writer for “Seek Social Justice,” a DVD-based study for small groups.

Many conservatives fault government welfare programs for being too expensive or for running afoul of the proper constitutional boundaries. But there’s another point to consider: Civil society offers better hope and opportunity for escaping poverty than any government program can.
 
Advocating limited government goes hand in hand with trusting in the capacity of institutions of civil society such as families, churches and local businesses to meet human need.
 
Step 13, a ministry in Denver, is the sort of effort that can help forge that conviction.
 
Located a few blocks from Coors Field, Step 13 is a non-profit transitional living program for homeless drug addicts. Its founder and president, Bob Coté, has devoted his life to helping broken men recover their dignity and get back on their feet.
 
But Coté’s love often takes a tough form. He expects the men to treat each other and the facilities with respect. He sets a high bar for behavior, and holds the men accountable.
 
Once, upon finding graffiti in a restroom, Coté locked it shut for six weeks. Having to use the restroom at the nearby bus station persuaded the men to think twice about defacing Step 13 property again.
 
Coté also conducts random tests for drug use, knowing that these men must overcome their addictions if they are to escape poverty.
Why put up with Step 13’s strict rules instead of taking advantage of local government shelters?
 
“I tried those shelters over and over again, but they didn’t force me to give up my drugs,” one participant says. “I knew I needed the kick in the pants that Step 13 gives—I needed the random urine tests.” 
 
Step 13’s approach demonstrates several basic reasons why civil society often serves the poor more effectively than government programs do.
 
First, these local institutions can understand and target the root of the problem. Simply giving taxpayers’ money to poor people doesn’t overcome poverty. In America, material poverty usually is a symptom of deeper problems, including depression and fatherlessness or other broken relationships.
 
Groups such as Step 13, often equipped with a biblical worldview, are able to diagnose the root problems of poverty and social breakdown. They have a leg up on addressing the problems effectively.
 
Second, those who are part of institutions of civil society have the advantage of personally knowing the folks they help. People have different needs at different times. Effective solutions tailor assistance to the need at hand. The one-size-fits-all approaches of government programs lack this personal knowledge.
 
Distant bureaucracies aren’t able to see what Bob Coté sees: One man’s drug addiction is rooted in childhood abandonment, but the next man’s addiction can be traced back to a learning disability. Personally knowing these men enables Step 13 to provide necessary help.  
 
Third, local families and congregations often are equipped to address a wider range of needs than government can. To thrive, individuals need not only physical things such as clothes, shelter and food but also intangibles such as encouragement, hope, training, correction and good role models.
 
Sometimes they just need someone to provide helpful feedback or to advocate for them. And they need a sense of purpose, meaning and belonging.
 
Government anti-poverty programs often focus on a reduced set of needs, a perspective that hinders their ability to change lives. Families and faith-based ministries, in contrast, are equipped to meet a much broader range of needs, including spiritual, familial, emotional and interpersonal. So organizations of civil society offer a more realistic path to human flourishing.  
 
Fourth, personalized approaches can connect assistance with accountability and discipline. Many forms of government welfare require little or nothing in return from recipients of cash assistance and other aid—no thank-you note, no promise to repay the money, no increased standard of good behavior, no effort to improve their own situation.
 
This approach dehumanizes the needy by treating them as passive recipients, with nothing to contribute to the common good. It also cultivates an entitlement mentality, as well as dependence on government handouts.
 
Organizations such as Step 13 operate differently. They realize that tying assistance to accountability and discipline is a more dignified and loving approach. It recognizes that poor people have gifts to share and helps them escape cycles of dependence.
 
There’s a lesson here for government welfare programs. In 1996, when a new federal program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) began to tie benefits to work, millions escaped the welfare rolls and child poverty decreased significantly.
Recognizing that discipline is a form of care, conservatives should promote similar work requirements in other welfare programs.
 
Fifth and finally, our institutions of civil society can devise innovative ways to promote work and service. The most effective tool for escaping poverty in America is earning a paycheck. Non-government organizations not only can provide employment directly, but also can help unemployed men and women train for, find and keep jobs.
 
In Denver, Coté equips the men in Step 13 with computer-based education and training programs as well as by teaching basic life skills. He vouches for their character and work ethic when asking local business owners and executives to give these men a chance.
 
Businesses agree because of Coté’s presence as a mentor who holds the men accountable. Such human dynamics are simply lacking in most government welfare or “job creation” programs.
 
What government program run by Washington bureaucrats can show itself so well-equipped to help lift individual Americans out of poverty, expand their opportunities and prepare them to flourish?

Local solutions are still the best counter-attack to Washington's default progressivism

William A. Schambra is the director of the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. Prior to joining the Hudson Institute in January of 2003, Schambra was director of programs at the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee. The article below is excerpted from his remarks on December 3 at the Hudson Institute's event on The New Promise of American Life and the 112th Congress.

The New Promise of American Life, published in 1995, came not from some abstract ideological doctrine, but rather from work a number of us were doing on the ground in the low-income neighborhoods of Milwaukee. 

For decades, those neighborhoods had been supervised by cadres of social service professionals who claimed to know better than everyday citizens how their affairs should be managed. 

The results there, as elsewhere across America, had been disastrous – decaying families, dysfunctional schools, rising crime. 

In Milwaukee, though, we saw -- and the Bradley Foundation encouraged -- the first indications of a populist rebellion against the regime of experts, namely, parental choice in education. 

For the first time, low-income parents were able to make one of the most critical life-choices on their own, selecting the school their children could attend with public support.  The notion that parents knew better than experts about such matters was of course anathema to the teachers unions. 

But it proved equally unsettling to anyone possessing a professional social service credential.  That certificate of expertise surely merited willing and even grateful acquiescence from “ordinary” Americans, who would badly mismanage their own affairs without professional supervision.

As a great battle raged in Milwaukee around these questions, Lamar Alexander and Checker Finn -- who had managed to overcome their own handsome credentials in order to side with parents in the struggle for education reform -- began to explore the intellectual underpinnings of what Lamar came to call government’s “arrogant empire.”  And that led us all to Herbert Croly and the progressive movement of the early 20^th century.

Croly is best known as a proponent of the centralization of public policy.  But he argued for its professionalization as well. 

In the complex and interconnected circumstances of the 20^th century, he held, the promise of American life could no longer be fulfilled by the idiosyncratic and amateurish workings of democratic individualism. 

The promise instead demanded that our national life be turned over to knowledgeable experts immersed in the new sciences of nature and society, which enabled us to manage the growing webs of interdependence. 

These purely public-spirited social engineers would be devoted heart and soul to a grand vision of national purpose or national community – a vision all too likely to elude ordinary citizens, trapped as they were in shabby local communities, still clinging to antiquated, parochial moral and religious myths. 

By the early 90s, we had seen the results of the Croly vision:  once-proud, self-reliant American citizens were being turned into passive, helpless clients, increasingly dependent on social services lavishly funded, but poorly designed and ineffectively delivered.

If this helped fuel the congressional elections of 1994, how much more is it true of the congressional elections of 2010. 

Once again, we see the fiercely proud, “don’t tread on me” populist spirit in full rebellion against an arrogant empire of professional elites, whose credentials allegedly qualify them comprehensively to remake our health, energy, and financial systems. 

Once again, the elites dismiss resistance to those sweeping plans as remnants of retrograde religious doctrines providing pathetic comfort against the complexities of global interconnectedness. 

And once again, the tone-deaf arrogance of the elite’s response only feeds the populist fires.

If we declared war against Herbert Croly in 1995, though, it seems that Herbert Croly won, at least that round.  How will things be different this time? 

Well, if the professional service state was becoming too expensive in the mid-90s, it is most certainly too expensive in 2010, and cut-backs unimaginable earlier are now going to be unavoidable.

If school choice and charters seemed a quixotic challenge to the unresponsive education bureaucracy in the 90s, consider how far we’ve come since then.  Today, major movies like Waiting for Superman promote charters and blame teachers unions, rather than the Bradley Foundation, for the problems of public education.

The New Promise was one of the first conservative projects to suggest that Herbert Croly’s utopian intellectual vision might be more a source of our problems than, say, FDR’s far more practical New Deal. 

Since then, it’s become clearer to us how much of our politics spins out of the tension between the progressive nationalist vision of a reign of experts, and the democratic, decentralist vision of the framers of the American Constitution.

Such arguments were once of interest only to a handful of intellectuals.  But they have today found their way onto the whiteboards of our nation’s leading news network, while well-thumbed copies of the Constitution now protrude from thousands of pockets at the nation’s Tea Party rallies.

One other thing will be necessary, though, if Croly is to be beaten in the next round.  In the summer of 1994, Lamar Alexander traveled across the country spending time with dozens of neighborhood leaders who were successfully addressing our social ills. 

Their approaches reflected the everyday common sense and traditional moral and spiritual principles of the American people, rather than elitist doctrines of professional expertise. 

In his book entitled We Know What to Do – that is, American citizens, not the elites, know what to do – Mr. Alexander described his visits to sites like Pastor Henry Delaney’s school for low-income children in Savannah, Father Jerry Hill’s shelter for the fragile homeless in Dallas, and Sister Jenny Lechtenberg’s job training program, PUENTE Learning Center, in East LA. 

His notion that we must look first to street-level problem solvers for wisdom rather than credentialed elites meant that Lamar was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool.

If things are going to be different in 2010, our new Congressional conservatives will have to follow Lamar’s example, and turn once again to the wisdom and experience of our grassroots leaders. 

But this time, they must show a steadiness of purpose that failed them in 1994, once they had their own hands on the levers of national power. 

As we seek ways to roll back government, the problems it sought to address aren’t going away. 

Alternatives must be found, and we will have to look again at the more effective, less expensive, decentralized solutions that, as Bob Woodson has argued for thirty years, appear in glorious profusion across America’s neighborhoods.

For conservatives, the next successful journey to the White House will begin with a tour like Lamar’s.  It will seek out the local wisdom of grassroots leaders, and explore ways to sweep aside the failed solutions of progressivism’s arrogant empire, so that such local wisdom can flourish.