Whose policies do people prefer?

So if Democratic policies seem to produce so much better results for the masses than Republican policies, then why don't those Democratic economic policies dominate public opinion?

Actually, in some ways they do. Polling done in 2002 and 2004 suggested that 56% of Americans believe that the rich pay less in taxes than they should, whereas only 13% believe the rich pay too much. In contrast, 8% of Americans believe that the poor pay less in taxes than they should.¹ This falls in line with the Democrats’ policy of shifting the tax burden towards those at the top of the economic food chain, and is in opposition to the Republicans’ history of repeatedly lowering taxes on the rich.

At the same time, public support for an increase in the minimum wage has remained above 60% for over 40 years, with many polls showing support as high as 85%.² Once again, this is in full agreement with consistent Democratic policies and in diametric opposition to the Republican platform.

Unfortunately, voters are not always able to match these goals to actual policy.

While the overriding effects of the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 were to further reduce the tax burden for those wealthy taxpayers that most people agreed were paying too little, public opinion was generally in favor of the measures. This was likely due to the effort to paint the policies as a tax cut for “everybody”. Unfortunately, this was nowhere near the truth. For example, the average tax cut in 2001 for a person in the top 1% of the income spectrum was 100 times higher than the average break for those in the bottom 60%, and by 2010 over half of the total savings will be going to those in the top 1%.³

Even when low-income voters aren't decieved about legislation, legislators have shown a tepid response to public opinion on that end of the economic scale. Larry Bartels examined the results of voter polls in all 50 states after the Senate elections of 1988, 1990, and 1992, and compared them to the actual voting records of each state’s corresponding Senators from 1989 through 1994.⁴ He found that when looking at each Democratic senator, the opinions of the lowest 30% of wage-earners in their state (all those who earned less than $30,000/year in 2005 dollars) had no influence at all on the senator's actions. The opinions of the voters in their state in the upper 30% and middle 40% carried approximately equal weight. Republicans senators were even more slanted towards the wealthy, matching the views of the upper 30% of their constituency twice as much as the middle 40%, and once again not being influenced at all by the views of the bottom 30%.

On certain important issues, especially during the Bush administration, the imbalance was even worse. The votes of senators on a proposed minimum wage increase in 1989 perfectly reflected the views of the upper 30% of the voters in their respective states, with no weight at all given to the rest of the voters. On the 1991 proposal to extend and increase civil rights protections, senators gave a very small weight to the voters in the middle 40%, but once again almost perfectly matched the views of the upper 30% of their constituencies. In fact, there was not one significant bill during that first Bush administration in which the views of the richest 30% of the population did not dominate the rest of the population in determining the senators’ votes.

Bartels isn‘t isolated in finding this relationship between the decisions of politicians and the views of their wealthiest constituents. In a broader 2005 study on the policy preferences of U.S. citizens, Martin Gilens found that, “influence over actual policy outcomes appears to be reserved almost exclusively for those at the top of the income distribution.”⁵ The lack of response to the concerns of the majority of the population caused Gilens to add that, “representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society.”

So why is this happening, and what do we do? It is true that lower-income Americans tend to vote less than higher-income Americans, but the difference is small enough (about 25%) that it could not account for an almost total focus on the upper classes.⁶ A somewhat greater gap exists between the rich and the poor in their knowledge of policy decisions and therefore their chances of mounting a response to specific legislation.⁷ But the most likely explanation is the significantly greater access that the upper classes have to elected officials and other power-brokers, and the enormous historical gap in campaign contributions between the rich and the poor.⁸ Politicians will not reflect the will of the people if they do not hear the will of the people, and they will most listen to those people who are providing them with the funding to continue their stay in power.

What are we to do? Stand in the gap and advocate for the poor. Speak out about their needs however you can, wherever you can, whenever you can. Let our politicians know what we stand for and where true justice lies. Educate the poor so that they are able to stand up for their own causes. Encourage Christian politicians to follow their faith rather than their sources of money. And never, ever let others use money and the power it brings to cloud our own judgment.

We can have a democratic society or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.

- Louis Brandeis⁹

What differentiates oligarchy and democracy is wealth or the lack of it. The essential point is that where the possession of political power is due to the possession of economic power or wealth, whether the number of persons be large or small, that is oligarchy, and when the unpropertied class have power, that is democracy.

- Aristotle¹⁰

In a political system where nearly every adult may vote but where knowledge, wealth, social position, access to officials, and other resources are unequally distributed, who actually governs?

- Robert Dahl¹¹

Unless formally restrained, the richest citizens [in the Italian republics] tended to use their privilege to molest fellow citizens with impunity and direct the workings of government toward their own benefit rather than toward that of the general citizenry...If a popular government or republic is not to veer dangerously toward an unaccountable oligarchy, natural or not, institutional affirmative action for common citizens is necessary.

- John McCormick¹²





All material in this post is inspired by Larry Bartels's book Unequal Democracy

^[1] 2002 and 2004 National Election Study survey
^[2] Roper Center‘s iPOLL archive
^[3] "Year-by-Year Analysis of the Bush Tax Cuts Shows Growing Tilt to the Very Rich,” Citizens for Tax Justice, June 12, 2002, www.ctj.org
^[4] Bartels, Larry M. 2002 “Economic Inequality and Political Representation.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.
^[5] Gilens, Martin. 2005 "Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness." Public Opinion Quarterly 69: 778-796.
^[6] Senate Election Study. Conducted by the National Election Studies research team. http://www.umich.edu/~nes
^[7] Bartels, Larry M. 2008 Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pg 277.
^[8] Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvad University Press, pgs 194, 565.
^[9] Phillips, Kevin. 2002. Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. New York: Broadway Books, pg 418.
^[10] Aristotle. Politics, T.A. Sinclair, trans. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962), books II and III, 117.
^[11] Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pg 1.
^[12] McCormick, John P. 2006 "Contain the Wealthy and Patrol the Magistrates: Restoring Elite Accountability to Popular Government." American Political Science Review 100: pgs 147, 161.

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Democrats or Republicans: Who is better for the economy?

Ever since Reagan, there has been a serious conversation in this country about whether its economic policies should focus on helping everyone, or whether we should focus on the largest wealth-generators at the top of the income brackets. This used to be a debate in my head too – I honestly believed that making the rich prosperous could possibly be the best step towards making the poor prosperous. But I believe that I've seen enough evidence now that I can say this very clearly:

The policy of looking out for everyone has worked out much better for everybody than the policy of looking out for the rich. All available data points in favor of this conclusion.

Here are some of the simpler numbers:

Unemployment under Democratic presidents since WWII: 4.6%
Unemployment under Republican presidents since WWII: 6.3%¹

Real income growth under Democratic presidents since WWII: 2.8%
Real income growth under Republican presidents since WWII: 1.6%²


If you like data, there’s a lot more where that came from.



Here are Larry Bartels’s breakdowns that show what effect differing policies have had on those at different income levels.

Between 1948 to 2005, 26 years of Democratic presidencies showed the following real income gains (lagging impact by 1 year after the president took office):³*

20th percentile: 2.6±0.8%
40th percentile: 2.5±0.6%
60th percentile: 2.5±0.5%
80th percentile: 2.4±0.5%
95th percentile: 2.1±0.7%


In that same time frame, the 32 years of Republican presidencies showed the following results (with the same 1 year impact lag):

20th percentile: 0.4±0.6%
40th percentile: 0.8±0.5%
60th percentile: 1.1±0.4%
80th percentile: 1.4±0.4%
95th percentile: 1.9±0.5%

* According to Bartels, the 1-year impact lag is consistent with macroeconomic evidence regarding the timing of economic responses to monetary and fiscal policy changes, and results in a 4-5% better fit to the data than 0, 2, 3, 4, or 5-year lags.


The devil’s advocate in me would want to play the middle, say that those Democratic gains are only possible because of what the Republicans did before them. In the short-term, however, that is certainly not true. Whenever you have consecutive Democratic administrations, the economic strength was emphasized. Whenever you have consecutive Republican administrations, the economic disparity got worse.

Looking only at the 14 years of Democratic terms that followed Democratic terms:

20th percentile: 3.0±1.2%
40th percentile: 2.8±0.9%
60th percentile: 2.9±0.8%
80th percentile: 2.6±0.8%
95th percentile: 2.3±1.1%


Now, looking only at the 16 years of Republican terms that followed Republican terms:

20th percentile: 0.2±0.6%
40th percentile: 0.5±0.6%
60th percentile: 1.0±0.6%
80th percentile: 1.3±0.6%
95th percentile: 2.0±0.7%


The longer that Democrats stay in office, the better the situation gets for the majority. The longer that Republicans stay in office, the more the difference between the rich and the poor grows.

When Bartels did this study (found in Unequal Democracy), he tried to see whether a few outliers could explain the results. Yet he found that:

significant partisan differences continue to show even when any 1 or 2 administrations are omitted, if years on both ends of the spectrum are ignored, or if election years and/or transition years are ignored.

What does this all have to do with today? Right now we are experiencing the consequences of having Republican presidents for 20 of the last 28 years. The discrepancy between the rich and the poor has now grown the to highest levels since before the Great Depression. Over 80% of the income growth since 1980 has gone to the top 1% of income-earners, who now control 22% of all income (and half of that is controlled by the top 0.1%).⁴ The average real income of the top 0.1% has more than tripled since 1980, from $400,000 to $1.4 million in 2005 dollars, and the average real income of the top 0.01% has gone up by a factor of five, from $1.2 million to $6.1 million, whereas the average real income of the middle class and the working poor has remained virtually unchanged.

Why hasn’t the growth in the upper sectors helped the average American? It’s all about priorities. In the 16 years between 1989 and 2005, sales growth in the luxury retail industry averaged over 10%/year.⁵ At the same time, the living standards of poor children in American ranked 12th out of 13 rich democracies, approximately 20% below Canada and France and 35% below Norway, despite the fact that America had greater overall wealth than any country on that list.⁶

Continuing to play Reaganomics, cutting the taxes of the rich, promoting business at the expense of the average citizen, and relaxing regulations in order to increase their ability to make wealth, did not help the poor. Cutting government spending and removing the support networks for the poor did not help the poor. The focus on keeping inflation down over striving for full employment did not help the poor. Doubling the wages of CEO’s over the course of ten years while the real value of the minimum wage continuously dropped did not help the poor.

When I used to listen to conservative talk radio and almost trust them (I’m talking Praeger and Medved and Hewitt, not the total crazies), the economic arguments were believable. I could imagine a world where free competition created the most prosperity for all. I could imagine how a low minimum wage and minimal workers’ rights might enable businesses to create more jobs. I could imagine how low taxes on the rich might create greater investment power that trickled down to the poor. I could even imagine that now. But the facts show that that’s not the world we live in. Eight years of Reagan and twelve years of Bushes have given us a much different picture. During George W. Bush’s first term alone, real incomes of middle-class taxpayers decreased 1% and real incomes of the working poor decreased 3%. Yet the 99th percentile saw a 7% increase in real income, and among the 99.99th percentile it was 18%!⁷ Every president redistributes wealth to some degree. The complaint Republicans have right now is with who it’s being distributed too.

It’s long past time that the pendulum swung back to the 99% on the bottom.


^[1]Piketty, Thomas, and Emmanuel Saez. 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998." Quarterly Journal of Economics 118: table A4. Updated data listed here can be found on Saez's website The numbers listed are only through the end of 2005 and do not factor in the significant increase in unemployment that occurred in the final years of the Bush administration
^[2]Calculated by Bartels from Census Bureau Historical Income Tables. These numbers are also only through the end of 2005 and do not factor in the significant decrease in real income growth that occurred in the final years of the Bush administration
^[3]Census Bureau Historical Income Tables
^[4]Piketty and Saez 2003 (updated in 2008)
^[5]Anna Bernasek, "The Rich Spend Just Like You and Me," New York Times, August 6, 2006, BU 4.
^[6]Osberg, Lars, Timothy M. Smeeding, and Jonathan Schwabish. 2004. "Income Distribution and Public Social Expenditure: Theories, Effects, and Evidence" pgs. 826-834 in Kathryn M. Neckerman, ed., Social Inequality
^[7]Piketty and Saez 2003 (updated in 2008)

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Posting again

I'm going to start posting regularly on a wide range of poverty issues. I want to start off with a quote I read today.

Today there is a heretical teaching that is an absolute plague in American Christianity. It is the dogmatic and unexamined credo that whatever we gain is ours to do with as we please. If we earn $50,000, how we spend it is our private affair. Perhaps we will concede that it is legitimate for the church to talk about tithing, but the other 90 percent is none of its business.

How utterly self-consumed and provincial! In no way can we twist the Scripture to justify such a belief. Out lifestyle is not our private affair. We dare not allow each person to do what is right in his or her own eyes. The Gospel demands more of us: it is obligatory upon us to help one another hammer out the shape of Christian simplicity in the midst of modern affluence. We need to love each other enough to sense our mutual responsibility and accountability. We are our brother's (and our sister's) keeper.

Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

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Minor Update

Due to financial disclosures as the campaigns proceed, I have been able to update the personal financial statistics for some of the candidates that I didn't have complete information on before. You can check the Edwards, Giuliani, and Richardson posts if you want to see the new information.

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Presidential Candidates Address Faith and Poverty

On Monday, June 4, the leading Democratic presidential contenders – Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards – will join Jim Wallis for a conversation on faith, values, and poverty broadcast live on CNN.

Every year Sojourners organizes a conference of church and political leaders to address issues of poverty. This year is hugely significant because the three leading Democratic candidates are going to attend and speak about their emphasis on these issues (Jim Wallis has promised a similar presentation for the Republican candidates in Iowa in the fall).

Since I'm on the mailing list, Sojourners invited me to host a watch party. For some reason that's just not me (organized political events feel really strange to those of us who came from apathetic college atmospheres). But this is exactly, exactly what I've been hoping for in this campaign. The major candidates are going to directly address poverty and bring it to the forefront of the campaign, at least for a day. So please watch it and see what they have to say. We need to make sure they know how much we care about this.


One quick aside - due to public demand, I have added links in the top right corner to all of the presidential candidate posts, so you don't have to go looking for them anymore.

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Help Fight Hunger

Church World Service is having their annual CROP Walks to fight hunger across the world. Communities across the United States have walks to raise funds - 25% of the money goes to local hunger-fighting efforts (including food pantries such as ours) and 75% of the money goes to international hunger relief efforts. Our LAX community (Inglewood, Lennox, Hawthorne, Westchester, and El Segundo) is having their hunger walk at 8AM on May 19. The walk is a 10K through the Inglewood, Hawthorne, and Lennox neighborhoods, but there's also a 2K for those of you who don't want to go quite so far. ;)

If you would like to walk with us, go here to sign up:

WALK WITH US

If you would just like to help the hunger efforts financially, you can pledge here:

RAISE FUNDS WITH US

Thank you so much ahead of time for those of you who join us in support of the hungry.

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A Powerhouse for the Poor

A short introduction to Bob Greenstein from the Washington Post:

For the past 25 years -- starting with the Reagan budget cuts of the 1980s, through the Republican takeover of Congress in the 1990s and continuing through the Bush tax cuts and entitlement reforms -- Greenstein & Co. have been there for every hearing, every amendment and every budget reconciliation, ensuring that the interests of the poor and working class are considered.

Their weapons in these battles are reliable data, sound analysis and an ability to deliver it when needed. They know when and how to cut and deal. And thanks largely to the center's work, programs like food stamps, nutrition for mothers and children, and the earned income tax credit have grown despite decades of cuts in domestic programs.

Read the rest of the article here.
Learn about the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities here.

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Bill Richardson

Richardson has had an interesting career in the public eye. He has moved from representing a single district to occupying federal posts, returned to state politics, and now is seeking a federal position again (the biggest one). In some respects this made him harder to research than other candidates - there doesn't appear to be a great resource for recording what the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. or the U.S. Secretary of Energy does in their posts. So I did the best I could with the information available, and if anyone else has more than I'd be happy to have you share it.

Since I already gave my personal opinions on the major candidates, I'll break from structure and give my full opinion on Richardson at the end of the post. But please read the facts first so you can develop a picture of him yourself.

What does Bill Richardson think about helping the poor?

Political History

Bill Richardson was a U.S. Representative from 1983-1997, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. from 1997-1998, the U.S. Secretary of Energy from 1998-2001, and the Governor of New Mexico from 2003 to present.

U.S. Representative 1983-1997

• Sponsored bills to bring humanitarian aid to El Salvador¹, protect some American Indians from forced relocation², increase health care programs in the Peace Corps³, promote economic development among American Indians^{4 5 6 7 8}, extend the National Health Service Corps⁹, improve health programs for Hispanics and other minorities^{10 11}, allow social service block grants to be made directly to tribes¹², establish a program to fight fetal alcohol syndrome^{13 14}, consolidate community health centers¹⁵, and provide federal funding for foster care and adoption for American Indian children¹⁶.
• Served on the Helsinki Commission on Human Rights.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. 1997-1998

• Helped negotiate peaceful transition of power in Congo.¹⁷
• Made general calls for the need to protect human rights across the world.

U.S. Secretary of Energy 1998-2001

• Wikipedia states that Richardson pushed through a number of initiatives to benefit Native Americans - the statement was unsourced and I have been unable to find other corroboration on this point.¹⁸

Governor of New Mexico 2003-present

• In 2005, initiated home heating relief for low-income families¹⁹.
• In 2006, signed legislation to create savings accounts for low-income families²⁰.
• In 2006, signed an increase in the minimum wage to $7.50.
• In 2006, signed a large tax cut for low-income families²¹.
• In 2006, Offered tax breaks to companies that paid higher than the prevailing wage²².
• In 2006, led effort to call for full federal funding of the CSFP (a food program)²³.
• In 2006, signed bills and proposed legislation to expand health care coverage to more workers²⁴.
• In 2007, was part of effort to urge federal government to fully fund SCHIP (a children's health insurance program)²⁵.

Statements About the Poor

"America needs to lead the global fight against poverty – which is the basis of so much violence. We must promote equitable trade agreements, to create more jobs in all countries. And through our example and our diplomacy we must encourage all rich countries honor their UN Millennium goal commitments. A Commission on Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals, composed of world leaders and prominent experts, should be created to recommend ways of meeting Millennium commitments.
America needs to lead donors on debt relief, shifting aid from loans to grants, and toward greater focus on primary health care and affordable vaccines. We should pressure pharmaceutical companies to allow expanded use of generic drugs, and we should stimulate public-private partnerships to reduce costs and enhance access to anti-malarial drugs and bed nets."²⁶


"For all the talk we hear about the perils of globalization, a simple fact is often ignored - open economies are poverty's enemy. In fact, a recent World Bank report indicated that East Asia's rapid economic growth over the past generation reduced by half the number of people living below the poverty line. Far-sighted economic policies implemented 20 years ago mean that today 350 million people do not live in poverty. These extraordinary advances are occurring around the globe. And frequently, the catalyst is free trade and open economies. Yet, with all the benefits that come from free trade and American engagement in the international arena, there are those on both sides of the political aisle who are not getting the message."²⁷


"In the past few years human rights abuses from Bosnia to Rwanda captured the world's attention and showed us once again that the struggle for the recognition and acceptance of universal human rights is a constant process. So long as women are denied educational and economic opportunity, so long as discrimination based on religion, ethnicity or skin color continues, and so long as war criminals can elude justice, we must remain vigilant."²⁸


"Think for a moment about the quality of life for an undocumented worker. No protection from unscrupulous employers. No job benefits. No health care, no pension, no Social Security, no workers compensation, no Medicare or disability insurance.
Yet – despite what some people would have you think -- almost all of these workers pay taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes. Because in order to find work they must either use someone else’s Social Security number or make one up. Since they will never collect benefits, these illegal workers are subsidizing our Social Security and Medicare trust funds with their payroll taxes. And those who are not paying into Social Security and Medicare are working under the table, and are at even greater risk of being exploited. No minimum wage, no safety standards, no over-time, no protection against sexual harassment or even sexual abuse."²⁹


"And let’s not forget what kind of lives the vast majority of illegal immigrants were living in their home countries – what propels them to come here in the first place. Economic opportunity and upward mobility in Mexico and Central American countries are limited, and half of all Mexicans live in poverty and a fifth live in extreme poverty. When there are hundreds of thousands of relatively good paying new jobs available every year a few hundred miles to the north the result is completely predictable."³⁰


The President should talk about that tragedy [Sudan] every day and try to get not just nations to join and pressure Sudan and the rebels to get together but the international community, the United Nations. The United Nations should be more vigorous. And this is where I would try to become a moral leader as a nation again. Participating [in the effort to end] the tragedy in Darfur, find ways to be a leader in the effort to fight global climate change, find ways that we try to eradicate poverty in the world with progressive aid programs, do something about AIDS and refugees and those issues that nobody wants to talk about, genocide. That's how I believe we can restore America's role in the world.³¹


A robust economy with successful companies translates into higher levels of healthcare and coverage for all. However, in the short term, we can make some fundamental changes to how we approach healthcare in New Mexico and improve the results. We need to find a way to make healthcare more affordable and ensure that all New Mexicans have the access to the care that they need.
My approach requires innovation, proven solutions, and use of best practices to shift New Mexico from fragmented care delivery to purchasing organized and accountable systems of care. It combines good ideas from other states, with increased efficiency and preventative healthcare.³²

Private Life

• Richardson is worth around $5-7 million dollars, which he holds in investments and rental properties. His income is evenly divided between the governor's pay, investments, and income from the rental properties. I was not able to find any information about his charitible donations.
• Richardson has been routinely criticized by political opponents for what they consider to be lavish excesses in his governor's lifestyle. He pushed the New Mexico legislature to fund a $5.5 million private jet for his use.³³
• Has been the Chair of Freedom House and participates with Big Brother/Big Sister of Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Jaycees.
• Has made trips to Sudan to negotiate with leaders there and push for peace, and has frequently called out U.S. and international political leaders on the need for peace and human rights in Sudan.³⁴

I was not impressed while researching Richardson's record. Like McCain, he has shown some concern for Native Americans and human rights overseas (actually, not even as much as McCain), but otherwise he rarely focuses on the poor. His record is fairly similar to the Democratic platform, which on this issue is better than the Republican platform. But unlike the other three Democratic candidates in this race, he hasn't shown any special concern for those in need or any desire to focus on the issues that pertain to them. I don't know that his tenure as president would be bad for the poor. But I don't have the confidence that their needs would be a priority to the degree that it would for Edwards, Clinton, and Obama.

But what do you think? Has he done more than I've seen? Or does he have competence that overshadows the efforts of the other candidates and would do more practically to help the poor? On a personal level, does Bill Richardson hear the cry of the poor?


^[1]A bill to authorize assistance to help alleviate the human suffering...
^[2]A bill to place a moratorium on the forceable eviction...
^[3]A bill to provide for a 2-year pilot program in the Peace Corps...
^[4]A bill to provide for and promote the economic development of Indian tribes...
^[5]Indian Development Finance Corporation Act
^[6]Indian Finance Corporation Act
^[7]Indian Employment and Investment Act of 1993
^[8]Native American Financial Services Organization Act of 1994
^[9]National Health Service Corps Revitalization Act of 1990
^[10]Hispanic Health Parity Act of 1990
^[11]Minority Health Improvement Act of 1997
^[12]To grant authority to provide social services block grants directly to Indian tribes.
^[13]Comprehensive Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Act
^[14]Comprehensive Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Act
^[15]Health Centers Consolidation Act of 1996
^[16]To amend part E of title IV of the Social Security Act to provide for Federal funding...
^[17]White House Press Release, June 18, 1998.
^[18]Bill Richardson, Wikipedia entry.
^[19]Press release, September 20, 2005.
^[20]Press release, March 8, 2006.
^[21]Press release, March 17, 2007.
^[22]"Bill Richardson content to start slow in White House race", Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2007.
^[23]Press release, April 12, 2006.
^[24]Press release, July 20, 2006.
^[25]Press release, Feb. 28, 2007.
^[26]"The New Realism and the Rebirth of American Leadership ", Speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Feb. 8, 2007.
^[27]USUN Press Release, pertaining to remarks made at City of Denver's 18th Annual Free Trade Day Dinner, May 19, 1998.
^[28]Speech made at the UN General Assembly's third committee, Nov. 14, 1997.
^[29]Speech on comprehensive immigration reform, Dec. 7, 2006.
^[30]Speech on comprehensive immigration reform, Dec. 7, 2006.
^[31]"MyDD Interview with Bill Richardson", www.MyDD.com, Mar. 26, 2007.
^[32]"Priorities", www.RichardsonForGovernor.com, Oct. 24, 2002.
^[33]Profile of Gov. Bill Richardson, About:Liberal Politics:U.S.
^[34]Press Release, Jan. 7, 2007.

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The Democrats

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder--alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware--is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

Suffice it to say that the perspective of the Democratic candidates in this race contrasts against the Republicans a bit.

Republicans and Democrats are going to adopt different solutions to solving poverty. And they're going to emphasize their fight against poverty in different ways. But this election seems to be shaping up as a special contrast between parties in terms of how often and how forcefully the poverty issue will be publicly addressed. While a couple of the Republicans are running away from even their own efforts in support of the poor, the Democrats are approaching it head on. And because of the publicity that's surrounded the candidates' proposals, we hear more about what they are saying about the issue than what they have actually done. So who has had the most to say, and who has done the most to back it up?

And now for the Democrats:

John Edwards
John Edwards has picked up an image as the "candidate for the lower-class". He ran in 2004 on the theme of "two Americas", a powerful and a powerless. And Edwards has spent much of his time the last two years campaigning for rights of the poor, running a poverty studies center at UNC, and undertaking a demonstration of his college aid proposal. His 2008 campaign has taken on much of the same themes as the 2004 campaign, with even greater vigor.

What worries me about Edwards is the disconnect between his recent public life and everything else he's lived for in the 53 years he's been around. As others pointed out already, if there are two Americas, he's a member of the rich and powerful one. So what was he doing for the poor in his law career? At what point are the poor going to take priority over his enormous house and bank account? And if he is so single-minded for this issue, why did he have such a paltry record in the Senate on it? Unlike some of the candidates I mentioned yesterday, John Edwards doesn't need to say more on behalf of the poor. He needs to explain how everything he says aligns with what he's done, and show specifically why his presidential service would look different than his Senate service and the rest of his life.

As a side note, I also worry whether he is concerned with the foreign poor. In his populist tack, I see inklings of a protectionist ideology that "protects" the American worker while ignoring the plight of those overseas. This may help win votes among the working poor, but I would not consider it a good indicator of someone whose heart is truly in line with the needy.

Hillary Clinton
Before doing this research I had assumed Clinton was basically an average Democrat in regards to concern for the poor. It was nice that I could be surprised by the record of someone who has had so much public exposure. Clinton's concern for children, women, and health care has been strong throughout her life, from volunteer work during her college years, through her professional life, her terms as First Lady, and her Senate career. And it hasn't stopped with those concerns - her effort on other poverty issues has been strong as well. She has both talked the talk and walked the walk in these manners, and I believe her feelings on this issue are legitimate.

A question I have about Clinton is whether she will be effective in addressing her concerns. During the 6+ years she has spent in the Senate, only one of the poverty-relevant bills she sponsored became law, and that one was buoyed by 9/11 sentiments. She attacked Republicans on their lack of concern...but in such a way that I felt would have been more appropriate from their constituents, not from a lawmaker they have to work with. A second concern that I have about her effectiveness is whether she understands these issues at the root. All of her work for the poor has come from "helping" them from above - working as a lawyer in courts and dictating policy from public office. As wordcat mentioned earlier, she's a little bit of a wonk. Does that mean she won't make good policy? No, but I worry that there might be something missing from it.

What I really want to hear from Clinton is this - how have your own personal experiences informed what you are going to do for the poor from the presidential office? Are there things that you have learned from all your time in public service? What good things have you done that you will replicate, and what mistakes have you made that you will learn from? And with a country whose parties are so incredibly divided right now, how will you work with the rest of government to make sure that the things you want to happen actually come to pass?

Barack Obama
Because of his more recent appearance on the national scene, Obama was the candidate whose public record I had probably known the least about when I started blogging. I was amazed to find him to have a longer and more personal record on these issues than any major candidate in my lifetime. The first part comes from spending part of his childhood in a third-world country, spending part of his adult life as a community organizer in the inner city, and choosing to work as a civil-rights attorney when he entered the legal world. But the important part is that he matched this personal experience with ten years of public service that show a consistent concern for the poor across all demographics - domestic and foreign, working and unemployed/homeless, majority and minority. I haven't imagined that we would get a candidate with such a broad set of experiences working on behalf of the poor, and that such a candidate would be intelligent, elegant, and bipartisan-minded enough to make me believe that he could get [i]significant[/i] things accomplished on their behalf as well.

The greatest questions that need to be raised about Obama's candidacy have to do with his unfamiliarity with the national stage. The presidential office would be substantially different from the positions he's held so far - what is he going to do on behalf of the poor when he gets there, and how will he get it done? What policies will he follow that will look different than what the other Democrats plan to do? And how has his personal experience informed the policy that he will make? He needs to answer these questions very specifically in order to quell the concerns of some that he is too much of a political neophyte to thrive on the biggest stage in the world.


As I mentioned at the beginning, the Democrats have shown far more of a response to the cry of the poor than the Republicans have shown so far. But this does not mean that they don't each have their own weaknesses that they need to address. Before my research I shared the mistaken impression of many that Edwards was the candidate who cared the most about the plight of the poor - can he show that he actually does care despite his light public record on the issue, and can the other candidates show how they will continue their own strong records while in the presidency? And can all three candidates show that their policies will be successful in an ideologically split nation where Congressional control could flip once Bush leaves office and stops dragging down Republican sentiment?

Most of all, can we as the voters keep these issues on the forefront of the campaign? Can we make enough noise that Obama and Clinton will speak as often about poverty as Edwards does? Can we even, in the brightest of hopes, make enough noise that this becomes a deciding issue in the general election where the Republican candidate will be forced to address our concerns and respond to his opponent's proposals?

Only if we hear the cry ourselves.

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The Republicans

My previous posts were attempts to objectively analyze the record on poverty of each presidential candidate (and don't worry, I will get around to Richardson at some point). Now I want to tell you how I really feel about these people. This can function as the crib notes for readers who don't favor 3,000 word blog entries.

When I started profiling politicians, I was open to many of the potential nominees. As an independent who disagrees with both parties, I had also seen things to like about candidates on both the right and the left. In fact, I had considered voting for five of the six current frontrunners at some point in the last two years.

Detailing their positions on the poor drastically changed my opinions of several of the candidates. I found that there is a difference between the public perception that develops around a candidate and the actual record they have behind them. The one I thought was the worst moved up into the middle, and the one I thought was the best moved backwards. I found that media rhetoric, both that of supporters and detractors, often failed to reflect a candidate's history.

So how do I feel that each candidate's record stacks up? And what do I think we need to be pressing each candidate to do to make poverty a front-and-center issue in this campaign?

Let's start with the Republicans:

Mitt Romney
I was fond of Romney coming into this analysis - with his experience as a conservative, religious governor in a liberal state (and his role in instituting universal health care), I thought that he might be the compassionate conservative that some hoped Bush to be in 2000.

Initially, Romney's record encouraged me further. His press releases while governor showed compassion towards the homeless and acknowledgement of the need for affordable housing. He also had a healthy concern for others in his private life. But detractors showed that much work for the poor during his tenure came over his veto, not because of his support. And I was most worried about his drop-off in vocal support for the poor during the last two years. Recently, I have heard that he is distancing himself from the universal health care bill he signed as well.

It is apparent to me that Mitt Romney views the Republican base as not caring about poverty issues, and does not believe he should focus on them to win the nomination. (He also strikes me as someone who bends everything he says around what he thinks he needs to say to win the nomination.) That's a sad situation, and something that voters need to do something about. Those of us who participate in political discussion need to make poverty an issue in the Republican primaries. Do Republicans care about the poor? Do religious conservatives believe there is a mandate to help the most vulnerable in our society? Or will ignoring poverty, homelessness, low-income housing, health care, disaster relief, and foreign aid be the best way to pick up the Republican nomination this year? This is a conversation we need to drive. Otherwise, candidates like Romney will continue to mold their message away from the issues that matter to the poor.


John McCain
McCain's record had a surprise for me. Despite his position in national politics for several decades, I had no idea that he cared so much about the state of American Indians (a map of reservations in the US helped me to see how this might matter to an Arizonian). McCain has chosen time and time again to sponsor bills and push legislation that assisted those living in reservations, especially the most vulnerable of them. He also showed a positive record in terms of foreign aid to populations hurt by oppressive regimes. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a consistent pattern of concern for the poor outside of these two groups, and McCain was the candidate for whom I had the hardest time digging up quotes relating to the state of the poor.

Can McCain's concern for American Indians and the foreign oppressed carry over to the rest of America's poor? Is he willing to put forth the initial political and financial capital necessary to make real change, or would something like universal health care be too great a financial investment to garner his support? Most of all, can we drive the public discourse so that he's forced to talk about these issues in his campaign? I really want to know what McCain thinks about poverty and what he's willing to do to fight it. I don't want the primaries to come and go without the public getting an upfront answer about it.


Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani was the one candidate whose presidential aspirations I had never remotely considered supporting. The spin I had heard from the media was that he didn't care about the poor, hated the homeless, and oppressed minorities in order to reduce crime. But time spent with his record showed a more nuanced picture. Yes, he cut welfare rolls by more than half - but part of his strategy was to increase accessibility to work, even using government money to directly fund jobs. Yes, he instituted a crackdown on the homeless - but he often did it by getting people into shelters, rehab programs, and job training that would help them to turn their lives around. Yes, he was aggressive in his fight against crime - but doesn't a dramatic reduction in crime have the potential to help the poor more than any other group?

The hardest thing to judge about Giuliani's record is his true motivation in all of this. Does he really care about the poor like he claims to in his public statements, or does he consider them a nuisance that needs to be swept away? Are his policies meant to help those on welfare, in the streets, and in high-crime neighborhoods, or is he just trying to contain the problem so we won't have to spend money or worry about them affecting the quality of middle-class life? Giuliani's detractors and supporters have very different views of his true aims in these issues. His private history doesn't seem to reflect a strong response in his heart to the cry of the poor. And I feel that understanding where his heart lies will go a long ways to figuring out whether his policies will address the problems or just make them a little less visible. Giuliani needs to be forced to directly answer these questions: Does he care about the end state of the homeless? Does it matter to him what happens to families after they leave welfare? And can he show a concern about these results in his policies?




While I started this blog really liking Romney and considering both Romney and McCain among my favorite choices for the presidency, my analysis of their records and current statements discouraged me. I don't have a favorite among the three Republicans anymore. My biggest question between now and the primaries is going to be this...Who is going to make poverty a real issue in the presidential race? Which one of these three is going to start addressing it in their campaign? Who is going to put forth policies that will legitimately help the poor?

And will we be able to raise our voices high enough to make them do it?

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