Privatizing Welfare

Thanks to Karen Backman for sending this article to Democracy for Washington from the Wall Street Journal:

Privatize the Welfare State, by HOWARD HUSOCK

This is a really interesting article, from a high powered advocate of changing the current system of social funding into a market driven system of private charities. There are several assumptions that Mr. Husock has made when writing this article, and quite a few questions that I have that I would like to put on the table.

It is not a certainty that “the federal government will continue to devote billions to activities known as ‘social services.’” Starting the article with that assumption shows how far away from reality the author is. The Conservatives in the Republican Party have been working hard to eliminate the social services funding that so many people in our country depend on. I don’t want to say that they want to eliminate the actual services, just the funding coming from the government. Never mind that the Constitution says it is one of the purposes of the Federal Government to ‘promote the general Welfare’.

Mr Husock refers to ‘robust public debate’ about ‘whether … parts of the New Deal legacy still make sense’. What are the positions in this debate? He doesn’t say.

Then he goes into ‘a historic confluence of circumstances’. The wave of charitable giving forgets the fact that the Baby Boomer generation is defined by it’s own watchers as the most selfish generation in history. Consumerism runs rampant, and has since the phrase ‘keep up with the Jones’ came into our lexicon. TV puts thousands of advertisements in front of our eyes on a daily basis. In the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck”, the Aluminum and Tobacco industry commercials were real. That’s how the news media was funded in the 1950’s, and the only thing that has changed since is that the corporations now own the media outlets themselves outright. Another assumption that he is presenting is that the Federal Government will be for the foreseeable future just as incompetent and unable to be responsible with the public money as it has over the last 5 years. I have to agree. As long as the Republican party is allowed to stay in power, that will be true. Remember, Cheney has said openly that “Reagan showed us that deficits don’t matter”. We knew that was false when he said it, and we’re seeing the results.

Then he comes to the concept of a new generation of social entrepreneurs. This I strongly agree with. But the question he’s not asking is why. Here’s my take. I think the non-profit industry is seeing a massive upsurge because we see the generation after the Boomers coming to terms with the fact that without this upsurge this country won’t be worth living in. Let me put it another way. The youth, meaning the children of the Boomers like me in Generation X, are seeing that the Federal Government has failed us. This administration is not keeping the promises set forward by the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. They have been fighting against the policies of social responsibility since FDR's administration put them forward in the 1930's. And they have arranged the current political system such that we (GenX) are unable to gain access to the political process enough to be able to try and fix what we see as wrong. Paul Hackett. Debi Golden. How many others?

I'm not attacking the Boomers. I'm asking you to take a look at the world that your generation has created, and judge for yourself if that world is something you are proud of. And I'm asking you to join Generation X to fix this mess.

Let me give a personal example. I am saving money for my future. I’m saving as much as I possibly can, to the detriment of my life today. Why? Because I don’t think that Social Security will be there for me when I need it. Because I can’t trust my government to keep it’s promises. Twist that any way you wish, but that’s the way I feel. I’m going to fight until the end of time to fix the system, from within the political process and from without, but I feel so powerless politically I’m having to do everything possible to protect my own foundation. And that prevents me from donating to any of the charities and political efforts that contact me every single day, either by phone, letter or email. How many others are in my position? Too many.

So, this is a massive influx of non-profit effort, funded by the Boomers who suddenly have all their retirement benefits that corporations are trying to steal, and managed by a generation of people who are tired of seeing their civil society being destroyed by that theft.

This is something to be proud of? I don’t think so.