Commentary: The poverty of Democrats' ideas for cities
By Glenn Beck
CNN
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Editor's note: Glenn Beck is on CNN Headline News nightly at 7 and 9 ET and also hosts a conservative national radio talk show.
Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck says Democrats have ruled many of the poorest cities for too long, and it's time for a change.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- "I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty but leading them or driving them out of it."
What hate-mongering politician would be so politically incorrect as to suggest that things like higher minimum wages and more government handouts don't actually help the poor? I'll identify the culprit at the end of this column, but for now, I'm more interested in figuring out why that statement sounds so controversial.
Poverty is one of the few national issues that, at least on the surface, unites us all. It's not a political condition; it's a human one. After all, when's the last time you've heard a politician campaign on a pro-poverty platform?
But although the problem may unite us, the solutions don't. And perhaps nothing illustrates that better than what's been happening in Detroit, Michigan, and Buffalo, New York.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly a third of the residents in those cities are living beneath the poverty line, the highest rates among large cities in the entire country.
No matter what side of the political aisle you're on, that is nothing short of appalling. Yet if you ask people what we should do about it, you'll probably hear answers that inexplicably break down right along party lines.
Is there a perfect answer? Probably not. But what bothers me is that people stubbornly stick to their solution, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's not working.
For example, Detroit, whose mayor has been indicted on felony charges, hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961. Buffalo has been even more stubborn. It
Unfortunately, those two cities may be alone at the top of the poverty rate list, but they're not alone in their love for Democrats. Cincinnati, Ohio (third on the poverty rate list), hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1984. Cleveland, Ohio (fourth on the list), has been led by a Democrat since 1989. St. Louis, Missouri (sixth), hasn't had a Republican since 1949, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (eighth), since 1908, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (ninth), since 1952 and Newark, New Jersey (10th), since 1907.
The only two cities in the top 10 that I didn't mention (Miami, Florida, and El Paso, Texas) haven't had Republicans in office either -- just Democrats, independents or nonpartisans.
Over the past 50 years, the eight cities listed above have had Republican leadership for a combined 36 years. The rest of the time -- a combined 364 years -- they've been led by Democrats.
Five of the 10 cities with the highest poverty rates (Detroit, Buffalo, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Newark) have had a Democratic stranglehold since at least 1961: more than 45 years. Two of the cities (Milwaukee and Newark) have been electing Democrats since the first Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1908.
Two cities, 100 years, all Democrats.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, the asylums in those cities must be as full as the soup kitchens.
Not too long ago, I had the great honor of being invited to a charity dinner hosted by Chris Gardner. He's the guy whose rags-to-riches life was portrayed by Will Smith in the movie "Pursuit of Happyness." Chris had been on my show a few times, and I've always admired his story and his message of hope through personal responsibility.
As I prepared for the dinner and looked into Chris' charity, I started to get nervous. The roster was filled with liberals, most of whom would probably hate me. Hillary Clinton, Mario Cuomo, Alan Alda, Kenneth Cole and Charles Grodin were just a few of the people I was worried about running into.
But the question I kept asking myself was, why? Why can't people from wildly different political stripes come together in support of a common cause without feeling alienated? Why is an issue like poverty "owned" by one political party?
I consider myself a conservative, but I consider myself an American and a human being first. When people whom I normally agree with screw things up, I call them on it. Yet the people in these cities apparently don't. Newark keeps drinking the Kool-Aid, electing the same people with the same ideas, slipping down the poverty list (along with the "Places Never to Visit Unless it's the Airport" list) and wondering why.
We've talked a lot about "change" in this country recently, but there's a much more important catchphrase that we've neglected: "All politics is local." Maybe instead of focusing so much on who we put in charge of our country, we should focus more on who we put in charge of our cities.
Oh, and before I forget. The hateful politician who suggested that we should be "driving" or "leading" the poor out of poverty? It was Benjamin Franklin.
Good thing he never tried to run for mayor of Newark
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
You Pay Too Much Tax: A Budget Breakdown
By Andrew Min • Sep 11th, 2008
It’s the fashionable thing for politicians to complain about high taxes and unbalanced budgets. Are we paying too much tax?
How much are you being taxed?
The national average income as of 2007 was, according to a census.gov PDF, $50,233 (see page 14). A dinkytown.net tool puts this at approximately $5762 in federal income tax for a single, male, head of the household. Note that this is just your income tax. No sales taxes or any other type of tax is included here. Additionally, this does not include state, county, or municipal tax, so you most likely pay much more (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Wyoming are the only states that don’t have a state income tax, so chances are that you do pay something).
While we’re at it, let’s also talk about the “rich”. The highest tax bracket is for people who make $350,000 or more, so we’ll use $350,000 as our “rich” income. According to the dinkytown.net generator, that means the rich man pays $95,423 in tax. Again, this is minus sales taxes and any non-federal income tax for a single, male, head of the household.
Now, our tax goes to the president’s budget. Today, the budget is reckoned at about $3.1 trillion, which has a deficit of about $407 billion. I then went to the Wikipedia budget article and looked up the cost of each program. Then, I calculated what percentage each was of the federal budget. Then, I multiplied the decimal form of each percentage into the income (50233 and 350000) to get the resulting amounts of how much each cost. Since these are rounded estimates, the numbers don’t quite match up. They are rough numbers, not the exact numbers. I’m not good enough at Excel for that.
Speaking of Excel, I then compiled everything into a nice spreadsheet (link) and PDF (link), hosted by the wonderful folks at Scribd. So if you like spreadsheets, stop reading now and go take a look. If not, on to the results.
Social Security: Most expensive
Looking at the tax breakdown, it’s obvious that the most expensive part of the budget is Social Security (Iraqi War and War on Terror isn’t covered in the budget, but I’ll get to that in a bit). Social Security, our retirement pension plan, costs $644 billion, or 20.77% of our budget. The median income taxpayer pays approximately $10,569.02 a year (Social Security + Social Security Administration). Unfortunately, you don’t get anything until you’re about 65, according to Wikipedia. 65. In that time, the government has forced you to pay $10,569.02 a year. That means you pay the government $686,986.30 before you even get a penny back. And then, you only have about fifteen years (if you’re lucky) to enjoy that money. Sure, it supposedly keeps you out of poverty. But maybe you wouldn’t be in that position in the first place if you could just get your own money (and perhaps invest it in the stock market, government bonds, or even get some interest).
It’s even worse for the rich guy. He pays $73,640 a year for Social Security, meaning that he pays 4,786,600 before he even sees a cent. That’s almost five million dollars. And he doesn’t even get all of it back! In other words, the rich guy is working hard all of his life, then doesn’t even get all of the money he earned. It’s not like he stole it. He earned it.
Medicare: A killer
Medicare is almost as bad as Social Security. Weighing in at $408 billion (13.16% of the budget), Medicare takes the bronze medal for most expensive program on the books. It’s a great idea, but you don’t get the benefits until you’re 65, like Social Security. And like Social Security, Medicare costs a lot for the median taxpayer, who pays $6,610.66 a year, forcing him to pay $429,693.08 before he gets to see his benefits. Additionally, what if he invested in the stock market? What if he had put $400,000 in a startup called Google? I’ll tell you: he’d be sitting pretty on about $2,000,000.
Again, the rich man pays a lot as well. He pays $46,060 a year for a health plan he may not even need or be eligible for. He basically pays $2,993,900 before he’s even eligible. Sure, he’s helping to pay for the median taxpayer’s health care. But maybe if the median taxpayer had the money he spent on Medicare, he might not even need the help. Maybe. Not definitely. Maybe.
Education: $59.2 billion on failing schools?
We spend approximately $59.2 billion (1.91% of the budget) on federally funded education. It’s actually not a bad deal, really. It only costs the median taxpayer $959.45 a year to send his kid to a public school. However, it’s actually a little more skewed. If you have four kids born two years apart, you have your kids in a public school system for about twenty-four years. The Cato Institute says that 41% of all private schools cost $2,500 annually. Since each kid is in school for 18 years, that’s $180,000. But wait. You keep on paying education taxes even after your kids don’t go to school. Suddenly, the price is $76,756 (if you live 80 years) for all four kids. That’s still about a lot less. But wait. We haven’t taken into account state or municipal education taxes. Suddenly, private school might be more affordable. But only if the government (all of the governments) refunded all of your educational money. I’ll take a slightly more expensive but good private school over a failing cheaper public school. Why not at least give people the opportunity to choose?
War on Iraq and Terror
I can’t do an estimate on this, since it’s not actually part of the budget (it’s an appropriation). However, if you look at the federal budget in 1944, it’s obvious that all wars cost a huge percentage of the budget. Obviously, no one (in hindsight) believes that we shouldn’t have fought World War II because it cost too much. Therefore, cost cannot be the primary reason for not fighting a war. If you have issues with the war itself (maybe the direction it’s heading, or the fact that there are supposedly no objectives), that’s one thing. But don’t complain about the cost. It’s expensive. So was World War II. Cost can not be the sole reason of why we stop fighting the war on terror.
Debt costs a lot
If you haven’t noticed, one of the most expensive things on the budget ($260 billion, 8.39%) is the interest on the National Debt. As it grows, it gets much more expensive. As one of the fellas from Ocean’s 12 put it, “Boy, the interest just kills you”. Obviously, the National Debt needs to be paid off. There are several ways to do this.
The first way (the “liberal” way) is to stop the war in Iraq and on Terror. The Department of Defense and the Global War on Terror costs about $660.6 billion. The debt is about $9.7 trillion, so I’ll let you figure out how long it would take to pay it off (make sure you factor in interest and the current deficit of about $407 billion). Not that long.
The second way (the “conservative” way) is to eliminate Social Security and Medicare and begin privatizing it. I won’t argue the moral issues here, just the fiscal ones. If we eliminate Medicare, our deficit is gone. Eliminating Social Security (including the Administration) would give us $652.4 to work with. It would actually pay off faster than the war costs.
The third way (the “Ron Paul” way) is to kill both. Obviously, it would go twice as fast as either of the other options. So if balancing the budget is your most important prerogative, this is the quickest way.
Andrew Min /ˈændruː/ /mi:n/ (n): a non-denominational, Bible-believing, evangelical Christian. (n): a Kubuntu Linux lover (n): a hard core geek (n): a journalist for several online publications
Email this author | All posts by Andrew Min | Subscribe to this author's RSS Feed
By Andrew Min • Sep 11th, 2008
It’s the fashionable thing for politicians to complain about high taxes and unbalanced budgets. Are we paying too much tax?
How much are you being taxed?
The national average income as of 2007 was, according to a census.gov PDF, $50,233 (see page 14). A dinkytown.net tool puts this at approximately $5762 in federal income tax for a single, male, head of the household. Note that this is just your income tax. No sales taxes or any other type of tax is included here. Additionally, this does not include state, county, or municipal tax, so you most likely pay much more (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Wyoming are the only states that don’t have a state income tax, so chances are that you do pay something).
While we’re at it, let’s also talk about the “rich”. The highest tax bracket is for people who make $350,000 or more, so we’ll use $350,000 as our “rich” income. According to the dinkytown.net generator, that means the rich man pays $95,423 in tax. Again, this is minus sales taxes and any non-federal income tax for a single, male, head of the household.
Now, our tax goes to the president’s budget. Today, the budget is reckoned at about $3.1 trillion, which has a deficit of about $407 billion. I then went to the Wikipedia budget article and looked up the cost of each program. Then, I calculated what percentage each was of the federal budget. Then, I multiplied the decimal form of each percentage into the income (50233 and 350000) to get the resulting amounts of how much each cost. Since these are rounded estimates, the numbers don’t quite match up. They are rough numbers, not the exact numbers. I’m not good enough at Excel for that.
Speaking of Excel, I then compiled everything into a nice spreadsheet (link) and PDF (link), hosted by the wonderful folks at Scribd. So if you like spreadsheets, stop reading now and go take a look. If not, on to the results.
Social Security: Most expensive
Looking at the tax breakdown, it’s obvious that the most expensive part of the budget is Social Security (Iraqi War and War on Terror isn’t covered in the budget, but I’ll get to that in a bit). Social Security, our retirement pension plan, costs $644 billion, or 20.77% of our budget. The median income taxpayer pays approximately $10,569.02 a year (Social Security + Social Security Administration). Unfortunately, you don’t get anything until you’re about 65, according to Wikipedia. 65. In that time, the government has forced you to pay $10,569.02 a year. That means you pay the government $686,986.30 before you even get a penny back. And then, you only have about fifteen years (if you’re lucky) to enjoy that money. Sure, it supposedly keeps you out of poverty. But maybe you wouldn’t be in that position in the first place if you could just get your own money (and perhaps invest it in the stock market, government bonds, or even get some interest).
It’s even worse for the rich guy. He pays $73,640 a year for Social Security, meaning that he pays 4,786,600 before he even sees a cent. That’s almost five million dollars. And he doesn’t even get all of it back! In other words, the rich guy is working hard all of his life, then doesn’t even get all of the money he earned. It’s not like he stole it. He earned it.
Medicare: A killer
Medicare is almost as bad as Social Security. Weighing in at $408 billion (13.16% of the budget), Medicare takes the bronze medal for most expensive program on the books. It’s a great idea, but you don’t get the benefits until you’re 65, like Social Security. And like Social Security, Medicare costs a lot for the median taxpayer, who pays $6,610.66 a year, forcing him to pay $429,693.08 before he gets to see his benefits. Additionally, what if he invested in the stock market? What if he had put $400,000 in a startup called Google? I’ll tell you: he’d be sitting pretty on about $2,000,000.
Again, the rich man pays a lot as well. He pays $46,060 a year for a health plan he may not even need or be eligible for. He basically pays $2,993,900 before he’s even eligible. Sure, he’s helping to pay for the median taxpayer’s health care. But maybe if the median taxpayer had the money he spent on Medicare, he might not even need the help. Maybe. Not definitely. Maybe.
Education: $59.2 billion on failing schools?
We spend approximately $59.2 billion (1.91% of the budget) on federally funded education. It’s actually not a bad deal, really. It only costs the median taxpayer $959.45 a year to send his kid to a public school. However, it’s actually a little more skewed. If you have four kids born two years apart, you have your kids in a public school system for about twenty-four years. The Cato Institute says that 41% of all private schools cost $2,500 annually. Since each kid is in school for 18 years, that’s $180,000. But wait. You keep on paying education taxes even after your kids don’t go to school. Suddenly, the price is $76,756 (if you live 80 years) for all four kids. That’s still about a lot less. But wait. We haven’t taken into account state or municipal education taxes. Suddenly, private school might be more affordable. But only if the government (all of the governments) refunded all of your educational money. I’ll take a slightly more expensive but good private school over a failing cheaper public school. Why not at least give people the opportunity to choose?
War on Iraq and Terror
I can’t do an estimate on this, since it’s not actually part of the budget (it’s an appropriation). However, if you look at the federal budget in 1944, it’s obvious that all wars cost a huge percentage of the budget. Obviously, no one (in hindsight) believes that we shouldn’t have fought World War II because it cost too much. Therefore, cost cannot be the primary reason for not fighting a war. If you have issues with the war itself (maybe the direction it’s heading, or the fact that there are supposedly no objectives), that’s one thing. But don’t complain about the cost. It’s expensive. So was World War II. Cost can not be the sole reason of why we stop fighting the war on terror.
Debt costs a lot
If you haven’t noticed, one of the most expensive things on the budget ($260 billion, 8.39%) is the interest on the National Debt. As it grows, it gets much more expensive. As one of the fellas from Ocean’s 12 put it, “Boy, the interest just kills you”. Obviously, the National Debt needs to be paid off. There are several ways to do this.
The first way (the “liberal” way) is to stop the war in Iraq and on Terror. The Department of Defense and the Global War on Terror costs about $660.6 billion. The debt is about $9.7 trillion, so I’ll let you figure out how long it would take to pay it off (make sure you factor in interest and the current deficit of about $407 billion). Not that long.
The second way (the “conservative” way) is to eliminate Social Security and Medicare and begin privatizing it. I won’t argue the moral issues here, just the fiscal ones. If we eliminate Medicare, our deficit is gone. Eliminating Social Security (including the Administration) would give us $652.4 to work with. It would actually pay off faster than the war costs.
The third way (the “Ron Paul” way) is to kill both. Obviously, it would go twice as fast as either of the other options. So if balancing the budget is your most important prerogative, this is the quickest way.
Andrew Min /ˈændruː/ /mi:n/ (n): a non-denominational, Bible-believing, evangelical Christian. (n): a Kubuntu Linux lover (n): a hard core geek (n): a journalist for several online publications
Email this author | All posts by Andrew Min | Subscribe to this author's RSS Feed
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