Tom Watson

Hide Them Away

Are poverty's 15 minutes over?

Remember the days immediately after Katrina ripped a bleeding, jagged wound into the southern coast, when we all discovered that there were - gasp! - poor people living in squalid conditions in one of America's great cities? Yes, that brief time when every TV talking head raced to cover the suddenly popular poverty beat, when the Great Society was briefly recalled, when even Republicans battled to see how just much government could spend - and how quickly? It was a heady time in America, though understandably brief. Unemployment, sub-standard housing, failing schools, urban blight, disease and desparation .... well ... they're just not as nifty as a new iPod model or a Supreme Court nominee.

During the recent Katrina Era - when poverty briefly supplanted the mythical (and vote-popular) "security" as an issue of the major parties - it fell to First Mutha (er, Mom/Lady) Barbara Bush to put the capstone quote on the fading epoch:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

We all jumped on that at the time (chuckling slightly) as a sign of just how out of touch the class of Americans represented by the Bush mater really is. But of course, she was right. For many refugees (and they were) even a rough and tumble bus ride to Houson was a ride out of crushing poverty, at least for a time. I've had this Washington Post column by Steven Pearlstein in my bag for about a month (the Katrina Era was in its last days when he wrote it) and Pearlstein (a business guy, at heart), in my opinion, nailed it:

In their hearts of hearts, of course, Republicans draw no connection between tax cuts and income inequality. For if you are secure in your knowledge that a rising tide raises all boats and that every American has the opportunity to grow up to be an owner of the Texas Rangers, you know that growth-enhancing tax cuts will be good for all Americans.

Only one problem: It's not true.

And that's because poverty is growing, in the U.S. and in our greatest cities. New Orleans was the perfect emblem. In the rising tide, the poor, leaky craft sank; whilst the luxury yachts grew ever more bouyant. This, of course, is the central failure of conservatism - growth doesn't solve any societal problems; it merely creates wealth, which is then consumed by the most able. Inequality is not a by-product of conservatism - it is a tenet of conservatism, which values the true market more than the great society.

Balance sheet conservatives know numbers don't lie - not the basic ones, anyway. Poverty in America has grown every year of President Bush's administration, after decliing over the previous decade. Here in New York, we celebrate a "renaissance" and a long growth trend, but New York was one of nine major cities to see its poverty rate rise over the last two years. [Census Bureau stats here].

As Andrea pointed out, perhaps the President's suspension of the law requiring prevailing wages for workers will allow business growth - allowing the profits to eventually trickle down to those very same workers. But don't bank on it. The Katrina Era is over. We've grown bored by poverty, and even the urban liberals don't seem to care. And the poor have boarded buses on the lost highway.

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Posted at 2:29 PM, Oct 12, 2005 in Progressive Agenda
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