Controversy erupts over Campus Republicans bake sale plans

[bbarrick8383]

An interesting quote:

"The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely, break up the black family.”

–black economist Walter Williams, author of the book Race and Economics.

Here’s an interview: foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/index.html#/v/1139912230001/winning-the-war-on-poverty/?playlist_id=87530

What I’ve noticed, living amongst a large number of people on who are on welfare. Those who feel they have a duty to repay, will find a way out. Those who look for a handout where there is not an individual tied to the handout will never have a desire to repay and will continue to take the handout as long as the handout is available.

 

[ringil]

This is a complex issue reflected in a crude, and perhaps immature caricature in the form of a “bake sale”.

First of all, somebody said this is counter to the “Catholic Faith”. I’ll let Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit shed some light into that;

So I don’t think affirmative action is counter to the Catholic faith, however my main problem with it is that it robs minorities of their accomplishments.

I’m Hispanic, and I’ve never received any preferential treatment because of my race, however based on the political tone seen in our current political discourse … I believe some segments of our society think highly educated minorities got to where they are unfairly due to achieving a privilege over a more deserving person. I think in most cases this is not the true, and I think even in some implementations of affirmative action this is not the case (you could say that all things being equal, race is taken into account and it favor a minority).

However, I don’t want anybody but God and my parents to take credit for my achievements. So in this sense, there is a problem with affirmative action unfortunately.

Yet the argument that there are minorities at a great disadvantage is there, and can’t be ignored. That’s why I don’t see this policy as some type of intrinsic evil, but it’s not an ideal solution.

I prefer programs who focus on giving preferential treatment to people that are economically disadvantaged over racial considerations. You’ll find that a lot of these people will also happen to include minorities, but they will also include poor white families which also need help.

I also believe in diversity, at school, workplace, etc. I think the real “affirmative” action that should take place is to fund programs that promote and focus on reaching out to certain groups that are not represented. For example, I am truly concerned that we don’t have enough women in engineering, I would love to help in programs to resolve this. I encourage employers and schools to fund minority and minority outreach groups, which is one thing we do at my workplace. I find that being Hispanic, I have a special way of reaching people that come from the same cultural background as myself. I feel this is the better and more organic way of helping these communities.

The irony is that I already see a need for these type of policies to be applied on non-immigrant Caucasians. For my Computer Science graduate program, they were a distinct minority (we had a lot of international, not immigrant students), which I found really odd at a state university. Plus remember Caucasians will be a minority in the US in the not too distant future.

AMEN! Excellent thoughts!

 

[JimG]

What I’ve noticed, living amongst a large number of people on who are on welfare. Those who feel they have a duty to repay, will find a way out. Those who look for a handout where there is not an individual tied to the handout will never have a desire to repay and will continue to take the handout as long as the handout is available.

Yes, but remember that it was LBJ’s war on poverty, which after spending billions of dollars with barely a perceptible reduction in poverty rates, hooked an entire class of poor people into permanent poverty through government dependence while encouraging breakup of their families. A drug pusher bears some responsibility for the resulting addiction.

 

[bellasbane]

An interesting quote:

"The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely, break up the black family.”

–black economist Walter Williams, author of the book Race and Economics.

Here’s an interview: foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/index.html#/v/1139912230001/winning-the-war-on-poverty/?playlist_id=87530

I must disagree with this quote. Mr. Williams may be a good economist, but he’s obviously a terrible historian.

 

[bellasbane]

Yes, but remember that it was LBJ’s war on poverty, which after spending billions of dollars with barely a perceptible reduction in poverty rates, hooked an entire class of poor people into permanent poverty through government dependence while encouraging breakup of their families. A drug pusher bears some responsibility for the resulting addiction.

You do realize that the poverty rate in the US has risen to 15%

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the nation’s poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in 2010, the highest level since 1993, and that some 46.2 million Americans are living in poverty, a year-over-year increase of 2.6 million people and the fourth consecutive annual increase. foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=353700014

Hmmm… I don’t think you can blame that on LBJ.

 

[JimG]

You do realize that the poverty rate in the US has risen to 15%

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the nation’s poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in 2010, the highest level since 1993, and that some 46.2 million Americans are living in poverty, a year-over-year increase of 2.6 million people and the fourth consecutive annual increase. foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=353700014

Hmmm… I don’t think you can blame that on LBJ.

Mr. Williams blames the breakup of poor families on the Great Society welfare programs. He blames the welfare state for locking millions into permanent dependence. He knows more about it than me. You might want to watch the interview, not that it will convince you, but it’s worth seeing his point of view. He mentions that at one point in the 1940’s black unemployment was lower than white unemployment; he mentions that until the emergence of the welfare state, black families were mostly intact. The chief cause of family breakup was government.

 

[SanAgustin]

The chief cause of family breakup was government.

Do you remember how this was explained by him? I mean unless the welfare came with an incentive to get divorced, I’m not imagining how this is actually plausible.

 

[JimG]

Do you remember how this was explained by him? I mean unless the welfare came with an incentive to get divorced, I’m not imagining how this is actually plausible.

The actual quote can be found in this interview at about minute 5:45. Apparently a woman with no husband gets a check, a woman with a husband does not. Welfare made Uncle Sam the daddy and made real fathers a liability. The result was that rates of out of wedlock children in single parent homes skyrocketed during the Great Society years.

 

[rlg94086]

This is a complex issue reflected in a crude, and perhaps immature caricature in the form of a “bake sale”.

First of all, somebody said this is counter to the “Catholic Faith”. I’ll let Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit shed some light into that;

So I don’t think affirmative action is counter to the Catholic faith, however my main problem with it is that it robs minorities of their accomplishments.

I’m Hispanic, and I’ve never received any preferential treatment because of my race, however based on the political tone seen in our current political discourse … I believe some segments of our society think highly educated minorities got to where they are unfairly due to achieving a privilege over a more deserving person. I think in most cases this is not the true, and I think even in some implementations of affirmative action this is not the case (you could say that all things being equal, race is taken into account and it favor a minority).

However, I don’t want anybody but God and my parents to take credit for my achievements. So in this sense, there is a problem with affirmative action unfortunately.

Yet the argument that there are minorities at a great disadvantage is there, and can’t be ignored. That’s why I don’t see this policy as some type of intrinsic evil, but it’s not an ideal solution.

I prefer programs who focus on giving preferential treatment to people that are economically disadvantaged over racial considerations. You’ll find that a lot of these people will also happen to include minorities, but they will also include poor white families which also need help.

I also believe in diversity, at school, workplace, etc. I think the real “affirmative” action that should take place is to fund programs that promote and focus on reaching out to certain groups that are not represented. For example, I am truly concerned that we don’t have enough women in engineering, I would love to help in programs to resolve this. I encourage employers and schools to fund minority and minority outreach groups, which is one thing we do at my workplace. I find that being Hispanic, I have a special way of reaching people that come from the same cultural background as myself. I feel this is the better and more organic way of helping these communities.

The irony is that I already see a need for these type of policies to be applied on non-immigrant Caucasians. For my Computer Science graduate program, they were a distinct minority (we had a lot of international, not immigrant students), which I found really odd at a state university. Plus remember Caucasians will be a minority in the US in the not too distant future.

Very well stated. :clapping:

 

[rlg94086]

I must disagree with this quote. Mr. Williams may be a good economist, but he’s obviously a terrible historian.

So, where do you think he’s wrong? He sounded 100% accurate to me.

 

[rlg94086]

You do realize that the poverty rate in the US has risen to 15%

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the nation’s poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in 2010, the highest level since 1993, and that some 46.2 million Americans are living in poverty, a year-over-year increase of 2.6 million people and the fourth consecutive annual increase. foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=353700014

Hmmm… I don’t think you can blame that on LBJ.

Nope…we’ll blame it on Obama.

 

[rlg94086]

Mr. Williams blames the breakup of poor families on the Great Society welfare programs. He blames the welfare state for locking millions into permanent dependence. He knows more about it than me. You might want to watch the interview, not that it will convince you, but it’s worth seeing his point of view. He mentions that at one point in the 1940’s black unemployment was lower than white unemployment; he mentions that until the emergence of the welfare state, black families were mostly intact. The chief cause of family breakup was government.

 

[Suudy]

You do realize that the poverty rate in the US has risen to 15%
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the nation’s poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in 2010, the highest level since 1993, and that some 46.2 million Americans are living in poverty, a year-over-year increase of 2.6 million people and the fourth consecutive annual increase. foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=353700014
Hmmm… I don’t think you can blame that on LBJ.

What is considered poor varies greatly. Direct from the US Census website (here, emphasis mine):
They are intended for use as a statistical yardstick, not as a complete description of what people and families need to live.
Further, the problem I find with metrics like this is that they aren’t defined consistently. Again, from the same website
Authority Behind Official Poverty Measure
The official measure of poverty was established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Statistical Policy Directive 14
To be used by federal agencies in their statistical work.
Government aid programs do not have to use the official poverty measure as eligibility criteria.

• Many government aid programs use a different poverty measure, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) poverty guidelines , or variants thereof.
• Each aid program may define eligibility differently.

Official poverty data come from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), formerly called the Annual Demographic Supplement or simply the “March Supplement.”
So, not all government organizations use the same metric. So how are we to know who is really poor and what kind of benefits they are eligible for? Indeed, even the OMB redefined the poverty level in 1980 (follow the link to Directive 14).

And finally, what bothers me is that the government gets to decide what the poverty level is. It seems that this is the purview of the agency that needs the metric, which is at the whim of executive’s appointees. So, if the HHS secretary wants to look good, they can re-define the poverty line to make poverty during their tenure good, but bad for his/her predecessor. I’d prefer to see some 3rd party analysis of the poverty level, and how its applied across all time frames.

 

[bellasbane]

So, where do you think he’s wrong? He sounded 100% accurate to me.

Based on Mr. Williams own numbers, 25% of slave women had children from more than one father. How does that compare to the free population at the time? How many free women in 1850 had children from more than one father? He doesn’t say. Hmmm.

Let’s say it was 5% - I think that’s reasonable. So the conclusion is that under slavery, a slave woman was five times more likely than a free woman to have children from more than one father.

Now lets bring that comparison into the 21st century. What is the gap between the number African American single parents and white single parents? According to the 2010 Census, 66% of African American children live in single parent homes compared to 35% of white children. So today, an African American child is about twice as likely to grow up in a single parent family.

You could say that Slavery didn’t destroy the Black family if you interpret that to mean that they were able to RECOVER from slavery - once African Americans were free, their family patterns became more normative. Nevertheless, while in force, slavery itself was 2.5 times worse for African American families than welfare.

 

[bellasbane]

What is considered poor varies greatly. Direct from the US Census website (here, emphasis mine):
They are intended for use as a statistical yardstick, not as a complete description of what people and families need to live.
Further, the problem I find with metrics like this is that they aren’t defined consistently. Again, from the same website
Authority Behind Official Poverty Measure
The official measure of poverty was established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Statistical Policy Directive 14
To be used by federal agencies in their statistical work.
Government aid programs do not have to use the official poverty measure as eligibility criteria.

• Many government aid programs use a different poverty measure, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) poverty guidelines , or variants thereof.
• Each aid program may define eligibility differently.

Official poverty data come from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), formerly called the Annual Demographic Supplement or simply the “March Supplement.”
So, not all government organizations use the same metric. So how are we to know who is really poor and what kind of benefits they are eligible for? Indeed, even the OMB redefined the poverty level in 1980 (follow the link to Directive 14).

And finally, what bothers me is that the government gets to decide what the poverty level is. It seems that this is the purview of the agency that needs the metric, which is at the whim of executive’s appointees. So, if the HHS secretary wants to look good, they can re-define the poverty line to make poverty during their tenure good, but bad for his/her predecessor. I’d prefer to see some 3rd party analysis of the poverty level, and how its applied across all time frames.

I am assuming that the US Census bureau who reported the 15% number used a common metric to calculate poverty rates across each year of the analysis. That is how trends are analyzed. I don’t think the US Census is particularly partisan.

People in Somalia are living in poverty - The question is how close to that do we want to get in the United States? I believe most Americans would support a standard of living where people’s basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, health care and education are met.

On the other hand, I fear conservative economists would be happy to see the United States turn into a third world nation - where we have third world labor costs and third world environmental regulations. After all, it’s so great for business! The mistake they make is in thinking that progressives don’t “get it” - but progressives do “get it” all too well.

 

[SanAgustin]

What is considered poor varies greatly. Direct from the US Census website

Err … that link is not saying it varies greatly at all.

So, not all government organizations use the same metric. So how are we to know who is really poor and what kind of benefits they are eligible for? Indeed, even the OMB redefined the poverty level in 1980 (follow the link to Directive 14).

OK, let’s see …

census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/ombdir14.html

For the years 1959-1968 the statistics on poverty contained in the Census Bureau’s Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 68, shall be used by all executive departments and establishments for statistical purposes. For the years 1969 and thereafter, the statistics contained in subsequent applicable reports in this series shall be used.

A number of Federal agencies have been using statistical series on the number of persons and families in poverty, and their characteristics, in analytical and program planning work. The basis for these series has been the classification of income data collected by the Bureau of the Census in accordance with a definition of poverty developed by the Social Security Administration and revised by a Federal Interagency Committee in 1969. This definition provides a range of income cutoffs adjusted by such factors as family size, sex of family head, number of children under 18 years of age, and farm-nonfarm residences.

1969 … ok, that was quite a while ago.

The it was revised in the 80s;

(After this Directive was given, another federal interagency committee met in 1980-1981 to revise the poverty definition. These modifications affected the number of poor and poverty rate only slightly, and were documented in P60-133, Characteristics of the Population Below the Poverty Level: 1980. See also the entry for “Poverty” in Current Population Survey Definitions and Explanations.)

Key phrase is “only slightly”. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t been changed more.

And finally, what bothers me is that the government gets to decide what the poverty level is. It seems that this is the purview of the agency that needs the metric, which is at the whim of executive’s appointees. So, if the HHS secretary wants to look good, they can re-define the poverty line to make poverty during their tenure good, but bad for his/her predecessor. I’d prefer to see some 3rd party analysis of the poverty level, and how its applied across all time frames.

Can you show some proof that this person changes it to make the administration look good? The metrics are very public, and haven’t really changed much. I think it’d be your responsibility to show some proof in order to make your claim be believable.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Education is a great thing. But is low income early in life really a sufficient explanation for poor performance in life? I’m not sure it is.

I know some Vietnamese “boat people” who came here and made good. Nobody was poorer than them, and they couldn’t even speak English. Some can’t do all that well at English now, but they all seem to thrive in this society, and they seek education like a frog seeks a pond. No affirmative action exists for them. There might be some Vietnamese who stayed poor in this country, but I never met one.

The most recent of all immigrants around here are the Hmong; Mountain people, largely from Laos, of almost unbelievably primitive origins and background. Most I have met can barely speak any English, and yet they thrive. They also value education and their kids do well in school. No affirmative action exists for them. Today, one of them in a bank, who could speak English only rather haltingly, solved a difficult technical issue in my presence; made the computer system practically sing and dance.

College of the Ozarks was precisely designed for impecunious students. They pay no tuition. They work it out, and not in easy ways, either. It’s proud of its monicker “Hard Work U”. Their graduates do well upon graduation.

I’m not sure it’s poverty so much as it is culture that keeps people down; their own culture. The really terrible (white) subculture described in the novel and movie “Winter’s Bone” is said to be set in the very same county as College of the Ozarks, and the students of C of O are drawn almost entirely from the very same local areas and ethnic origins as the people in “Winter’s Bone”. They go to the very same grade schools and high schools. Why do some young people sink into the dregs while some who are not a bit wealthier or better educated to start with pull themselves out? In my opinion it has to do with the culture or subculture, perhaps most importantly including that of the family, more than anything else.

THe #1 reason why people “stay in the dregs” is a sense of entitlement. The Vietnamese boat people that you talked about had no expectation that they would be “taken care of”. They knew that they would come here and have to put their nose to the grindstone. And they succeeded. That is the legacy of our big, nanny state government. It has created vast swathes of people who expect that society is going to take care of them, thus, they don’t bother to do it for themselves.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

I am assuming that the US Census bureau who reported the 15% number used a common metric to calculate poverty rates across each year of the analysis. That is how trends are analyzed. I don’t think the US Census is particularly partisan.

People in Somalia are living in poverty - The question is how close to that do we want to get in the United States? I believe most Americans would support a standard of living where people’s basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, health care and education are met.

On the other hand, I fear conservative economists would be happy to see the United States turn into a third world nation - where we have third world labor costs and third world environmental regulations. After all, it’s so great for business! The mistake they make is in thinking that progressives don’t “get it” - but progressives do “get it” all too well.

Because it is every American’s birthright to own a McMansion and have a career that pays $150,000 a year.

 

[Hastrman]

THe #1 reason why people “stay in the dregs” is a sense of entitlement. The Vietnamese boat people that you talked about had no expectation that they would be “taken care of”. They knew that they would come here and have to put their nose to the grindstone. And they succeeded. That is the legacy of our big, nanny state government. It has created vast swathes of people who expect that society is going to take care of them, thus, they don’t bother to do it for themselves.

Why does this remind me of a scene in a Japanese show I saw, where a NEET (“Not in Education, Employment, or Training”) says, “Only a highly wealthy society can afford to let people like me lounge around! We’re a status symbol!”

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

I must disagree with this quote. Mr. Williams may be a good economist, but he’s obviously a terrible historian.

Because obviously you have more experience with the black community than he does.