What Happened To The Future?

Americans have always had faith in the future, that it would be better than the present, and way better than the past.   That's been the foundation for generations of Americans who believed that if they worked hard and focused on a goal, they could improve their lot in life as well as secure their children's future.  This notion has been used as a way to distinguish America from "those other countries" where economic mobility was difficult, if not impossible, to improve.

Apparently, that's not actually the case, and it's questionable if it ever was.  As recently reported on Marketplace, according to research conducted by Pew's Economic Mobility Project:

(the project) has calculated that about 60 percent of Americans whose fathers’ incomes were in the top fifth, stay in the top two-fifths themselves. And the same is true at the bottom. About 65 percent of those from the bottom fifth don't make it past the bottom two-fifths by the time they're adults.

What's this mean?  It means that your economic future looks pretty much the same as your father's was.   Whether you started at the bottom or the top of the economic ladder, you'll probably stay there.  

What could be worse than that?  Another researcher has compared the economic mobility, the ability to change your economic status, of Americans and citizens of other developed countries.  Guess what?   Our belief that we're better off than others in our ability to move up the ladder is unfounded as well

Miles Corak is an economist at the University of Ottawa. He's compared the U.S. to other rich countries, and found that Americans have less mobility across generations than Canada, Australia, and most of Europe.

I find this research very disturbing, both from the standpoint that our children seem to be trapped in whatever economic rung of the ladder that their parents occupy (of course, it's not so much "trapped" if you're nearer the top rung), as well as the realization that the United States, land of opportunity, offers less economic opportunity than most of Europe.

Has our "future" changed or was it an illusion all along?

A Simple Proposal

Terry Newell, Founder, Leadership for a Responsible Society, recently made what he called a "simple proposal" to address two problems with the current public appetite with budget cutting.  The first problem:  Americans have very inaccurate understandings of what their government currently spends money on.

For example, almost three-fourths of Americans in a 2010 Zogby Poll think we spend 6% or more of the federal budget on foreign aid. More than a third think we spend 11% or more. We actually spend about 1%. Needless to say, cutting foreign aid -- often the most popular choice of Americans to fix the budget, wouldn't make the dent in the deficit we might think.

The second problem is that a depressing number of Americans don't understand how they personally benefit from Federal spending and tax policies.   A simple example:

... 60% of those who claim the mortgage-interest deduction report that they "have not used a government social program." Percentages for student loans (53.3%), social security (44.1%) and Medicare (39.8%), to cite three other examples, highlight the fact that those who attack "social spending" are attacking their own benefits in many cases.

Newell proposes a "simple solution."   He suggests that the government issue an annual report to each citizen which sets out in two pages how Federal money was spent in the past year and how those funds applied to that citizen.   Much of the data can be culled from everyone's tax return, and other data is already in government computers.   His idea is very similar to the one proposed last year by the The Third Way, a think tank, about which I blogged last October.  It also relates to another post from April of 2010 which contained a long list of government programs and benefits which many people use, but don't often think about when demanding cuts to all those "socialist entitlements" that other people get.

Either proposal would go a long way to counter the current uninformed budget cutting fever, which is based on ignorance, rather than intelligent debate.

Taking the Pledge?

I received a fairly clever email recently in which the unknown author (if you know who wrote it, I'll be happy to attribute it) deflates the Right-wing rhetoric which disparagingly refers to the recent health care reform as "socialized medicine."  The email is in the form of a pledge to avoid a lengthy list of other "socialist" services (the email is at the end of this post).

In the US, the term "socialized medicine" came into common use in the late 1940s as part of the American Medical Association's opposition to President Harry Truman's health-care initiative. The original use of the term referred to health care systems in which the government operates health care facilities and employs health care providers, such as the British National Health Service.  More recently, the term has been expanded to refer to virtually any publicly funded health care system.  It's clearly used as a derogatory term, playing on the irrational fear of "socialism" in the US.  And it was part of the successful defeat of efforts to expand health care to a broader segment of the US population for decades.

I found the email humorous because it pokes holes in the socialist "boogie man" -  as pointed out by Wikipedia:  "Most industrialized countries, and many developing countries, operate some form of publicly-funded health care with universal coverage as the goal. According to the Institute of Medicine and others, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care."   The term "socialized medicine" has become a ridiculous pejorative because it considers that shared responsibility and shared support is somehow bad.   That is, public funding of health care is bad because it is based on some sort of "socialist" model in which citizens pool resources (taxes) to provide health care to all citizens, rather than the capitalist approach of "every man for himself."

The fact is, shared resources and shared benefits are part of daily life of most Americans, but we don't think of them that way and we don't call them socialist. It seems clear that most Americans wouldn't consider such shared benefits as indoor plumbing attached to working public water and sewer systems a bad thing.   And Medicare.   And products of National Public Television like Sesame Street.  And highway rest areas.  And police, fire, and emergency services.

At any rate, here's the text of the email; see how many of these shared activities and benefits you're willing to forego.

I, ________________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:
I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
US Postal Service
Roads and Highways
Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
The US Railway System
Public Subways and Metro Systems
Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
Rest Areas on Highways
Sidewalks
All Government-Funded Local/State Projects. This means every single road that is not a toll road is off limits to my use.
Public Drinking Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
Public and State Universities and Colleges
Public Primary and Secondary Schools
Sesame Street
Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
Public Museums
Libraries
Public Parks and Beaches
State and National Parks
Public Zoos
Unemployment Insurance
Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government grant or research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape, heart monitors/defibrillators and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
Use of the Internet, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops that were grown with, fed with, raised with or that contain inputs from crops grown with government subsidies.
If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forgo my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care.
I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of free-admission/taxpayer subsidized socialist locations, including but not limited to:
Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
The socialist Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Jefferson Monuments
The government-operated Statue of Liberty
The Grand Canyon and all national/state/regional/local parks, forests and monuments
The socialist World War II, Korean and Vietnam Veterans Memorials in every town
The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC. This also includes Post Offices, fire departments, police departments, public schools, libraries and zoos.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF ____________ IN THE YEAR 2010

SIGNATURE:

Footnote: On Shopping Carts

If you were interested in my 7/10/09 post, Red Lights and Shopping Carts, you might be interested in Michael Josephson's take on why you should return shopping carts to their corrals. It's not to impress anyone:

People of character do the right thing even if no one else does, not because they think it will change the world but because they refuse to be changed by the world.

Read Josephson's article here.

Red Lights and Shopping Carts

When I drive in the Chicago suburbs, I invariably encounter people who don't really seem to understand they're piloting a couple of tons of steel around the streets and highways. They frequently seem to be preoccupied with other activities, often involving a cell phone, and to be blithely unaware of the existence of other vehicles. I think it's just too easy to get a driver's license.

As a bike rider, I pay close attention to other traffic on the streets, and it's appalling how many people think stop signs are just advisory, and roll on by.

Right turns on red, are another cause of concern for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vehicles. A ridiculous number of drivers don't recognize that right turns on red are supposed to only be made after stopping not instead of stopping: "drivers must come to a complete stop and yield the right-of-way to oncoming traffic and pedestrians before turning" ). Because so many people don't seem to feel the need to stop before turning, or pull out without yielding to oncoming traffic, I think the right turn on red rules are among the worst rules enacted during my adulthood. I can't remember when the rules were changed to allow turning red at stop lights, but I'm pretty sure it was after I took driver training in high school back in the Pleistocene. I suppose it's too much to expect that people who don't stop at stop lights will stop at stop signs...

Too many people seem to think the rules only apply to others and that they are too important to have to slow down, stop, or otherwise change their course.

Those are probably the same folks who can't be bothered to put their shopping carts into the "corrals" in store parking lots, and prefer to just abandon them in parking spots. Recently I noticed two large lumber carts left in parking spots at a local home supply store lot, when a storage area was about one space away. Who are these people? Why are they in such a hurry? Why do they not care about anyone else's car getting dented or scratched because they abandoned the cart?

Anyone out there remember the concept of a "social contract?" I think the contract is broken.