"I Feel Your Pain."

Do you? Do you really care?

Those were the words of President Clinton, who resided in luxury for which we paid. He lived, as do all our presidents now, in a residence cared for by numerous servants eager (and employed) to satisfy every whim.

According to The Hill, on President Obama's last Thanksgiving in the White House, the menu included, as the first course, "mini BLT's, chicken satay with pizza chili dip, mini crab cakes, pizza bites, fresh veggies and hummus and pigs in the blanket."

The second course featured "thyme-roasted turkey with garlic jus and cranberry-orange relish, a honey-baked ham with apricot-mustard glaze, prime rib and creamed horseradish with shallot marmalade, and fried chicken wings." I won't bore you with side dishes and desserts, but they were equally excessive in number and decadent in content.

How does someone eating like that, a meal prepared by an Executive Chef with 25 assistants, relate to a single mother who has no food to make for her children?

There is a disconnect between our leaders and us. I may not be poor, however I cannot help but see it. No rhetoric can cover it up, because the difference in life style between "the leader of the free world" and those whom he claims to represent (as well as the needy around the world), is flaunted and reported. It can't be denied by flowery and disingenuous words. We should prevent our leaders from using them.

Better. A way should be found to make the words true.

That's not so easy. People rarely go into politics with the aim of living like their constituents – of feeling their pain. Politics is the path upward, not downward – to power, not impotence. They don't want to feel that pain, however much they maintain that they do. They yearn for prime rib and creamed horseradish with shallot marmalade. They're not interested in starving. But they have to appear to relate to the suffering of the poor, so they issue pious declarations of their concern. People almost believe them. (President Truman said "Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not.") And they obediently vote for them.

That doesn't mean, however, that there aren't ways to deal with the disparity. I suspect there are other ways, but I'd like to suggest one. It's not guaranteed to bridge the gap, but it would be a start.

It would be useful if, at regular intervals (when no visiting dignitaries are expected), the president, and, for that matter, other politicians with significant input into the lives of our people, were required to live in settings similar to those of our most deprived citizens – to see how the other "half" lives and actually feel their pain. Allowance would have to be made for their responsibilities and for their safety, but it might make them more sympathetic to the genuine needs of the poor.

Perhaps it would mean the construction of an unheated and run-down shack in the rose garden. Perhaps the meals during the period of residence (perhaps a week at a time) would be spare or absent, but it would give them a taste of the lives of the lowest level of society – not the highest.

I'm not advocating the embarrassment of government officials, only a means or educating them to the real needs of our people. Foreign policy, and a variety of national needs require their attention but, at the moment, our own needy are getting little more than words – and words don't fill stomachs. I suspect that most of our leaders have never endured the deprivations of which they speak so knowledgeably, and don't relate to them at all – unless they are trying to gather votes. This would help them understand a little better what is the lot of so many Americans. And moreso the fate of so many around the world.

Requiring the rich – and all presidents are rich, no matter how they may deny it – to live, every now and then, the life of the poor may make them better understand the lives of the people around them, even it does not make them more sympathetic to their needs. And if, for no other reason than to improve the conditions for their next "sentence" to the life of the poor, they may consider measures that would help the needy. Really feeling the pain may sensitize them to their constituents' needs, in addition to their own.

June 13, 2017

Foundations For Charity

                                                                                   

Let me return to the issue of tax money as the source of funding of governmental programs which many would consider to be charity. Many contend that the decision to give charity should be their own – not forced on them by zealous public officials.

As far as I'm concerned, there's a lot to be said for their contention.ⁱ On the other hand, however, it is difficult to justify a society that leaves the hungry to starve, the homeless to live on the street, the naked to remain unclothed, or the sick to suffer and die without treatment. In all candor, we cannot disregard the needy. There's a lot to be said for that position as well, so some “middle ground” must be found that will allow us to address the problems without penalizing taxpayers as much as we are doing now. But first we have to clarify what the problems are that we have to solve.

There are several questions that come to mind immediately:

1. There are poor and needy around the world. If our society is obligated to care for the needy, whom should we help?
2. What kind of help should we offer?
3. What is the level of help we should provide?
4. Who should decide the nature and extent of the assistance?
5. Who should be helped and to what level of aid?
6. Who should make these decisions?
7. What, if any, is the obligation to society of those helped?

If there is to be any equity in the continuation of an entitlement system supported by taxpayers, these questions must be answered. But there are other sources of funding and there are different kinds of aid that can be provided; and there are different requirements that can be imposed on the recipients. Let me give some examples to clarify these thoughts. Not all of these examples are of what most people consider entitlements,ⁱⁱ but the result is that certain individuals and groups are having their needs and wishesⁱⁱⁱ met at the expense of all taxpayers.

In terms of examples (and I'll suggest only one – or at most, two – for each category) there are, first of all, some constitutionally mandated functions of government, like defense and the payment of debts, that are all of our responsibility. But of those that fall into the category of “general Welfare,” as decided after the Constitution was written, there are certain needs that can be considered basic, and sometimes are life-saving. An example of that is food. To use a trite expression, we can't live without it. Second are the important, but not life-saving, needs of society, like education. What constitutes education, however, is not defined.^iv And third are the “niceties,” like art, that don't provide life but make it more pleasant. And all of these, at least to some degree, are provided by tax money.

But there are other ways to fund such projects, in large part related to those who require those services. Some examples of this are also in order. Certainly all taxpayers are obligated to share in the cost of defense.^v And the taxpayers responsible for these services pay both Federal (Army, Navy, etc.) and State (Militia, Police) taxes. Private support for such security is not anticipated, although commercial security services are sometimes chosen in addition, by some firms, and even by some individuals.

Of the needs that have been assumed following the writing of the Constitution, there is, currently, a mix of sources to provide funding. Local, State, and Federal governments help provide food for those needing it, but so do individuals, foundations, and other institutions, like charities and religious institutions. So, too, is there mixed support for “luxury” services, like museums and concert halls, however a larger percentage comes from private sources and less from the government.^vi There are many who believe that the cost of these luxuries should be entirely private, coming from “The Patrons of the Arts,” and from those who attend specific programs.^vii Their view is that those who seek these extravagances should be prepared to pay for them.^viii Others, however, believe that the arts are so important to society as a whole that the government is responsible for supporting it – and that includes non-commercial “public” broadcasting stations, and music and arts programs in the public schools.

Somewhere between the life and death needs, and the luxuries, are infrastructure and services that many, but not all, of our population needs or wants, but the needs vary very much from individual to individual. For example, everyone may wish carrots that are trucked in over our highways, but they may not drive or ever use the roads themselves. In addition, there are many like me who pay school taxes but never send their children to public schools; and there are those who pay “list price” for higher education with no assistance from scholarships or government subsidized loans. It is often difficult to determine why some citizens should pay the costs so that others can benefit; why they should give mandatory charity mediated by Congress and the IRS.

I'm conscious of the fact that I've intertwined various issues that are sometimes connected and sometimes not. Among them are taxes, entitlements, charity, programs, subsidies and the like. And I know that the consequences of a program may be other than what was intended. I also know that the different recipients of the benefits^ix have a variety of expectations.

Consequently there is no simple solution to the problem. And there is no single solution either. The different kinds of costs require different kinds of funding. And the last question raised above^x – regarding the responsibility of the recipients of society's charity – is an important one to consider as we work toward resolution of some of the inequities. I'll suggest some paths in the next essay^xi that may help lead us to an answer while lowering the amount we pay as taxpayers to provide the services we want.

Next episode: “You Pay For What You Get” – Or for what someone else gets.

i      Some of it can be found in the essay dated October 24, 2010: “Giving And Receiving.”

 

ii     If it's something you demand be there when you need it, either free or at a reduced price, it's an entitlement. It may be clean water, government inspection of food and drugs, public education, the GI Bill of Rights, or clean streets, but it's an entitlement – something to which you're entitled. Your expectation may be justified or not, and that judgment will be based on each giver's and recipient's point of view, but it's something you expect and something to which you feel entitled.

 

iii    See: com/2013/04/21/world/europe/danes-rethink-a-welfare-state-ample-to-a-fault.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE

 

iv    Does it include classes no larger than 25 students each? How about football, debating team, and French Club? Should there be separate classes for “special” students? Or advanced classes for the gifted? If education is a basic human need that the government should support, what about features that add costs?

 

v      Perhaps better management is in order (no overpriced toilet seats for the Pentagon) but the function itself isn't in issue, nor is the question of funding.

 

vi     Foundations and other private sources are among the most important of the providers for educational institutions, museums, medical research, and concert halls and other music venues. Their contributions supply significant aid for their causes. And their contributions are voluntary. Indeed, whether they are individuals or institutions giving tens of millions of dollars or whether they are “working stiffs” who help out in their church's soup kitchen, voluntary donors play an important part in humanizing our mechanical society.

 

vii    On television it's called “pay per view.”

 

viii   As they do for a sports event.

 

ix     That includes rich corporations, industries, organizations, and individuals for whom special provisions are surreptitiously slipped into legislation designed to help others

 

x       Number 7.

 

xi      And, I hope, the last (though I'm not yet sure – I may need two more). I'm tiring of the subject, and there are others about which I'd like to write.