As an official member of the baby-eating, puppy-kicking, minority-hating, Oppressor Class, I was struck by Rep. John Lewis’ recent remarks on the House floor regarding the continuation of unemployment benefits (or, rather, the lack thereof). On June 30th, Rep. Lewis stated:
It is a shame and a disgrace that we did not extend unemployment insurance. Every single member who voted no yesterday should be ashamed of themselves. People are suffering! They are hurting! They are in pain! They cannot make ends meet. And too many, just too many, on the other side of the aisle turn a deaf ear. I ask my Republican colleagues: Can’t you hear? Can’t you feel? Can’t you see? Where is your heart? Where is your compassion? Where is your concern? Extend unemployment benefit and extend it now!
There are two issues here: (1) the fact that Congress is in the habit of passing this type of legislation (i.e., extending unemployment benefits) without actually figuring out how to pay for it, and (2) the question of whether or not extending such benefits actually increases the duration of a recession – at least with respect to unemployment figures – since the unemployed have less incentive to find work while they are on the dole. Should Congress figure out exactly how to pay for an extension, the bill would almost certainly gain enough support from both parties and pass. My concern is with the second point.
There is some evidence (e.g., this report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Fransisco) that extended unemployment benefits do have the effect of extending high levels of unemployment, albeit a marginal one – roughly 6% of the increased unemployment rate we’re currently experiencing. However, I think I’m starting to see a pattern which is cause for concern: Congress seems determined to extend such benefits with no end in sight. Unemployment is and always will be a fact of life, and legislators can always point to an unemployment rate, declare it to be too high (often with an emotional appeal about single mothers, starving babies, etc.), and demand yet another extension of unemployment benefits be passed. Since it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact date on which a recession comes to an end, it’s unclear when Congress would feel it is no longer necessary to extend unemployment benefits.
And therein lies my concern. An unending provision of unemployment insurance from the federal government would, in many respects, amount to a new welfare state. I am by no means suggesting that this development is a certainty – I’m simply suggesting that passing an extension of unemployment benefits is far from a no-brainer (unless, of course, you’re trying to buy votes).
John Lewis doesn’t see it that way, but – based on the above statement – this position is based almost exclusively on influences I deem suspect. He rails on about compassion, heart, pain, etc., yet he makes no rational argument whatsoever. I’ve heard the above quote repeated as a rallying cry by many on the left, and I consider this to be quite revealing. Do we really want our lawmakers crafting legislation based on their feelings?
Yes, Mr. Lewis, I do have a heart. It is guided by my values, which are a product of my mind. However, unlike you, my values extend beyond a basic emotive response to the suffering of others. They are informed by a wide range of scholarship, encompassing both empirical statements and normative assumptions. This knowledge includes a basic understanding of human nature and motivations, economic theory, and post-WWII, European “middle-way” economies, many of which boast double-digit real unemployment rates during even the best of times. Of course, many of these same countries have large welfare states, which tend to compensate (in the mind of their respective body politics) for the fact that large portions of their populations are without work.
You ask us to consider – “with our hearts” – the impact a failure to extend unemployment benefits will have on the unemployed. I, however, ask you to consider the larger effect a perpetual provision of unemployment benefits will have on the larger U.S. (and by extension, global) economy. You can always make an emotional appeal to help the unemployed, and there will always be people who, for a variety of reasons, simply cannot find a job. Emotional appeals such as this – that is, those which lack a coherent philosophical grounding – can be made with great vigor and success, regarding virtually anything. It was this type of appeal to base emotion which built the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, spent billions of dollars on toxic foreign aid (in the form of central planning, no less) to developing nations dictatorships, and has somehow convinced a substantial portion of the American public that they have a “right” to the labor of others in the form of health care.
The type of decision making you advocate is lethal to the long-term success of a republic such as ours. It is reactionary, literally thoughtless, and accountable to no one. It enslaves us to the most persuasive, emotional rhetoric while freeing us from the responsibility to think through problems and formulate our opinions rationally. If religion is the opiate of the masses, emotional appeal is the methamphetamine of the policymaker. It allows politicians to advocate ill-conceived, yet popular positions, and demonize their opponents should they have the audacity to apply their minds to a given issue. Appeals to emotion masquerade as compassionate and progressive, when they are, in fact, a return to the human race in a lower form – one more closely related to our primate ancestors than the great thinkers of history.
You stand at your pulpit, full of righteous indignation towards the producers in our society, and proclaim that those who vote against yet another extension of unemployment benefits lack compassion. I say that anyone whose opinion is finalized by your remarks is an intellectual whore, and you their pimp. Even if there is a compelling, rational reason to extend such benefits (a possibility to which I am certainly open), you have thoroughly desecrated the affirmative position with your deviation in oratory.
You ask me, “where is your heart?”
I ask you, Mr. Lewis, “where is your mind?”
6 Responses to “A Reply to John Lewis”
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I wasn’t going to comment on this post because I have been unemployed for over two years and anything I might say in disagreement could be seen as some sort of self-justification for continuing to live on government (i.e. taxpayer) charity.
But a news story on ABC’s Good Morning America this AM changed my mind.
To begin with, the government extends all manner of benefits to a variety of people/institutions without having any clue as to the means to pay for it. That has been the pattern of our national government since at least 1933. My generation, the baby-boomers, has carried this practice to dizzying heights and deficit spending seems to know no partisanship. Republicans spend the future generations’ money on one set of values and Democrats on another. The present administration has spent a trillion dollars of your (not my) money rescuing the economy from a host of scoundrels (after the Bush administration had already spent an amount sufficient to dwarf the economies of all of Central America) and I am prepared to say that both administrations’ actions probably — the jury is still out — rescued the world from an international catastrophe.
As to the notion that extending unemployment benefits actually contributes to the length of a recession, I believe that is true. When I was “on the dole”, there was no sound economic reason for me to accept a minimum wage job because it would pay me almost the same amount per week as I was receiving from the taxpayers and make it impossible for me to accept interviews for more lucrative possible positions. More on that below.
However, some additional information needs to be added to this debate. I live in a country with an unemployment rate of almost 10%; in a state with an unemployment rate of 10.1%; in a region with an unemployment rate of 14% (dominated by the carpet industry); and an industry (construction) with an unemployment rate of over 23%. Remember, to be counted among the “unemployed” means that you are actively seeking work and the only way the state and federal labor sachems can know if that is the case for a particular individual is if he or she is applying for and/or receiving unemployment. Therefore, the ACTUAL unemployment rate is MUCH higher. Consumer reporter Clark Howard made reference some months ago to something called “Unemployment-6″ (the title is probably wrong, but pretty close) which makes the above point much more succinctly than I am able to conjure.
What does all this have to do with Good Morning America. The story concerned the “99′ers” — people who have received 99 weeks of unemployment and no longer get to bite the apple. The current bill oozing through Congress does nothing for them. What followed was a portrait of who these people largely are. They tend to be middle-to-older-aged people who once occupied the middle-to-upper levels of businesses and industries that went under — construction was specifically mentioned. One common experience mentioned by them was that they were not even able to secure minimum-wage jobs at McDonalds and Wal-Mart. Neither have I. Why should these firms devote time, money and effort on people who will leave once the economy turns the corner and even the construction industry comes back.
I no longer receive unemployment benefits and am not certain if I have already received 99 weeks’ worth, so I don’t know if passage of the current bill will help me personally or not. That is not the point. It’s bad enough to be young and unable to find work. It is frightening to be unskilled and unable to find work. But to be well-educated, skilled in a myriad of disciplines, and possessing decades of valuable experience and unable to find work FOR THOSE VERY REASONS is both terrifying and humiliating.
No piece of national legislation, no matter how high-minded, compassionate or sensible should be based on the experience of any individual. Nor should it be based on the “feelings” of any single Representative or coterie of same. The American people are completely entitled to issue a thundering “Ho-Hum” to the plight of any individual when the aim of that individual is to ease his plight at the expense of unwilling others.
But the situation in the United States Senate is intolerable and I will close with that. Back in the day, a minority of Senators could block a particular piece of legislation by “talking it to death” with a filibuster. Senate rules demanded that at least 60 Senators vote to end debate in a maneuver called cloture. But someone in that minority had to actually stand in the well of the Senate and actually talk. He could recite recipes, discuss the bill or read the newspaper aloud — it didn’t matter, but someone had to actually do the work implied in a filibuster.
The unemployment legislation, like the health care legislation was held up for weeks by the mere THREAT of a filibuster because the Senate changed its rules years ago and now, no one needs to utter a word or do any other hard work. The result is that passing legislation in the United States can be stalled or killed by 40 Senators; that’s less than 10% of the elected representatives in both houses and it is WRONG.
I should start off by saying that my main point was that rhetorical flourish and appeal to emotion is no excuse for a logical, well thought out position. Ayn Rand used to say that “a gun is not an argument.” Point well taken. Neither is an emotion.
In fact, I am actually inclined to think that the effect of extended unemployment benefits on unemployment rates is minimal, if it exists at all. Your point regarding the disinclination of employers to hire overqualified individuals who will almost certainly leave at the first opportunity speaks well to this point. Your own lack of success seeking employment is a tragedy, and I know the government’s assistance has been extremely helpful. However, as I said, none of that is relevant as to whether or not unemployment assistance should be extended.
I think we disagree regarding legislative deadlock. I like it. Actually, I LOVE it. You have often said to your clients and me – usually in response to my requests for personal advice – that the best and hardest thing to do is often nothing. That is some of the most valuable wisdom I have ever taken to heart. And it applies to our lawmakers in spades.
Keynesian economics is, in my opinion, a popular refuge for lawmakers who feel the need to do something – anything! – about impending economic doom. This is understandable and defensible to an extent; specifically, to the extent of about a trillion dollars the government doesn’t have. Whoops! Two trillion. Three? Who knows. There seems to be no end, and our lawmakers have absolutely no incentive to think about these things in extended chronological terms. They won’t live long enough (or be in office long enough) for it to matter. The economy has become one giant mouth sore that Congress just can’t stop goosing with its proverbial tongue. The damn thing would heal if they would just leave it alone. But they won’t.
So I think deadlock is swell. The fact that a minority party can hold up poorly crafted legislation that most people don’t want and the government can’t pay for is a testament to the resiliency of our republic. I’ve often said that I would gladly vote for any candidate who vowed to spend the entirety of her term in her home district. That may not happen, but keeping Congress talking endlessly (and probably getting sauced in DC area bars, trying unsuccessfully to wheel and deal) is probably the next best thing.
I was going to write saying I agree with most of what you said in response, but decided to take my own advice and do nothing.
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