Left of Social Security

To many Libreals, Social Security is part of the safety net that helps keep our country secure.  It provides a way to ensure that the elderly and disabled are, at least partially, taken care of financially.  Their philosophy is based on the principle that a society is only as strong as its weakest members.  By providing money that will boost the income of those who don’t have enough income to live on because they have a disability or have reached the point in their life where they can’t work anymore, it increases their purchasing power and helps the incomes of those who pay the taxes that fund Social Security.

If the Libreal plans for Social Security are boiled down, it comes down to ensuring the future of the program by protecting the funds and ensuring that they are available for Social Security and disability payments, and that the money isn’t taken for other programs.  The biggest change that the Libreals have proposed is combining the accounts for Social Security and disability.

The money for both programs is kept in separate accounts and taken as separate pieces in income taxes.  When one program seems to be running short for a month, it has been common practice to shift money between the two.  There are some in Congress who want the practice to stop and who insist that if the program cannot sustain itself with the funding it has it should be cut.

The Democrats have proposed an alternative: rather than collecting separate payments for separate accounts, collect one payment for everything and place it in the same account.  This would remove the need to transfer money between the two, and since the money is handled by the same department, could reduce some of the redundancy in the programs.  Because both of the systems are built on the principle that people who can work pay in and people who can’t take out (with the assumption that they will be taking money when they can’t work), it makes sense to them to unify the two and put the money for both in the same pot.

The Conservatives have argued against this from the traditionalist point of view.  They insist that the system was set up as two different pots for a reason, and that when they were set up it was intended that they were to each be self-sustaining.  While I am sure they enjoy the thought of less government involvement that combining the two accounts would likely bring about, they argue that if one is not sustainable then they should not take money from the other to prop it up.  If one system lacks the funding to continue, then the eligibility criteria be changed to ensure that it has the money that it needs.

In a sense the Conservative plans of privatizing the retirement portion and the Liberal plan to combine the accounts both hope to ensure sustainability of the Social Security program.  While they both go about it in a different manner, everyone agrees that the system itself is important.  Just not how to keep it going.

Right of Social Security

The original Social Security Act was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on 14 August 1935.  The bill stated that it was “an act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws.”  The program is currently funded entirely by payroll taxes and handled by the Social Security Administration under the Department of Revenue.  It was intended as not only a retirement plan, but also a safety net for those who found themselves unable to work.

There are many who feel that the Social Security system will run out of money in the near future.  However, there are just as many who insist that it will not.  Because there is a large disagreement over whether or not the system can sustain itself, as it currently does, there is an equally large chasm between the liberals and conservatives who look to reform the program.

The Republican candidates (those still in the race and those who have since dropped out) almost universally attest that the way to ensure the future of the Social Security system in the United States is to privatize the system.  This would reduce the government’s role in the process and allow the people to decide how much money to put into the system, when to pay it out, and where it goes.  The vast majority of them also insist that the retirement age needs to be increased.  This would reduce the number of citizens who qualify for payments and would thereby reduce the cost of supporting them.  The name of the game here is reducing the cost and the governments roll.

While there are some very extreme policies that were proposed (Mike Huckabee proposed changing the accounts to 401K plans and Rick Santorum theorized that “abortion culture” was reducing the potential population and causing the problems) the majority of the candidates for president, and those in Congress agree that raising the minimum age (because people live longer) and privatizing the system will lead to a longer life with less cost to the average American and more choice.

The liberals will argue that while people do indeed live much longer than they did over 80 years ago, that doesn’t mean that they are still capable of working later.  Their bodies still change the same way that people did when the Social Security Act was passed.  They will also argue vehemently against privatizing the system.  The key argument in this case is that it will create a much larger risk.  If all of the citizens of the United States have all of their retirement plans invested in the public market then the accounts can lose their reliability.  The liberals would say it is putting all of your eggs in one basket; when the markets tank again and both private and Social Security accounts are controlled by that market then Social Security loses its ability to be an effective safety net.

Left and Right of Food Assistance

The Democrats are seen widely as the champions of food stamps.  Because their platform is partially built around helping the needy and attempting to uplift those who are struggling.  The largest program for food assistance is SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).  It provides monetary assistance to lower income families to help ensure that they get the food that they need.

The liberals will generally fight to increase funding for the program citing statistics showing that there are 48.8 million food insecure people in the United States, of that 16.2 million are children.  With more funding, at least in theory, fewer of those people would be without food.

The conservatives look at the rapidly inflating cost of SNAP and argue that the nation cannot afford it.  The liberals propose that the funding come from other programs.  They contend that feeding those who are hungry is too important to skip.  To the Democrats, SNAP is essential.

For many liberals the inflation of food assistance spending stems from a bad economy.  Because the economy has been doing poorly people have lost their jobs.  Because they lost their jobs they need to use food stamps to ensure that they are still eating.  The key point of the liberal plans for food assistance is that it is something that the government cannot scrimp on.  The cost may be temporary while people are out of work or it may be longer term if people have trouble finding long term, gainful employment.

Either way, the liberals believe that the program should receive all of the funding it needs.  The money to fund the program can be found.  The typical proposal is what the conservatives usually call a “Robin Hood Tax.”  The taxes on the wealthiest Americans is increased and then used to fund programs that help the poor.

By collecting this extra revenue the liberals hope to find the money that is needed to fund the ever growing number of people who receive food assistance from the government.  By finding a way to cover more people the goal is to reduce the number of people who are food insecure in the United States.

The conservatives lean in the other direction.  Rather than attempting to increase funding to cover more people, they hope to reduce the government’s role.  While most will admit that it is impossible to get rid of the program that so many of their constituents benefit from, they will argue that there are better ways to handle it.

Most conservatives will argue that it is important to address the root causes of the food insecure families in the nation.  Rather than providing a way to get food through government assistance, they hope to help those individuals find jobs that will give them the income needed to provide the food themselves.

This would allow the government to reduce the deficit and reduce its role in everyday life.  If you were to boil the conservative plans down to the bare essence, it would be to focus on jobs and allowing the free market to ensure that the food is easily accessible.  The biggest argument made by those on the right is that by propping up the people with food stamps they are removing the incentive to fix the problems that leave them needing the assitance.

Right of Education

The conservatives in the United States have not been nearly as vocal about their beliefs regarding the higher education system.  However, a lot of their views can be gleaned through looking at the legislation they pass and their policies when in power.  The vast majority of it is pretty expected.  They pass laws reducing government funding of public K-12 and public colleges/universities.  The goal being to reduce government’s role in the system.

The most radical of the conservatives would argue that the government should not be providing education to the public, and that it should be provided, and maintained, by the free market.  The principle argument is that if the schools make themselves too expensive students will not attend because it is affordable.  If the schools are run privately, yes they could charge whatever they wanted to, but they would also have to be competitive.  This not only applies to the cost but to the quality of the education.  By privatizing the system it would allow for greater competition and choice.  It would potentially eliminate exorbitant out of state tuition because the state isn’t paying, and it would bring a better balance between cost and quality.

The more “mainstream” policy stance among conservatives is the desire to reduce federal college loans and instead replace them with insured private loans.  This could create greater transparency in the system and allow students and their parents to make a more informed decision when deciding to take a loan and how much they will borrow.  It also gives them a choice of where they can borrow which would lead to competitive interest rates.  The goal in the end is to greatly reduce, or remove, the government cost of education.  This shift would, in a way similar to privatizing the schools entirely, allow for the free market to decide how students will pay for their school and by changing the availability of funding, it could potentially reduce the overall cost of the education.  They also believe that there should be a higher focus on community college and trade schools built around job specific skills that would better lend themselves directly to a profession.

Most liberals would have essentially the same argument for both plans.  The free market would not result in an equal outcome.  For the extreme policy they would insist that because corporations and people are built specifically to make a profit, the quality of the education would suffer.  Because they would be trying to make the most money possible, they would likely hire substandard teachers because they could be paid less and hike up tuition to increase the bottom line.  They would argue against both points in the second proposal for many of the same reasons.  By privatizing the loans it would allow for less regulation of interest rates and allow more predatory lending.  It would also reduce access to the funding that many families rely on to send their children to school.  They would speculate reducing the access to education it would reduce the ability to pay for the next generation’s access down the line and nearly kill off upward mobility in the economy for lower class families.

Left of Education

            There is currently a debate in the United States over higher education.  A sound public education is already guaranteed through the 12^th grade to everyone in the country but go beyond that and the cost can be astronomical.  The government provides assistance to those who qualify to help them go to some kind of school, be that a technical school, or a four year university/college.  The largest portion is dispersed as subsidized (the government pays the interest while the student is in school) and unsubsidized (the interest accrues during school) loans.  Pell Grants are given to the lowest income students and the amount is adjusted yearly based on the Consumer Price Index.

            The liberals in this country have a fairly clear picture in their minds of what, at least public, higher education should look like.  Like most issues, some people are more extreme than others.  One of the biggest promoter of reforming the programs that help students continue their education beyond high school is Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.  One of the major planks of his platform in his presidential campaign is that public colleges and universities should be free for people to attend.  This system would be similar to those in the United Kingdom, Germany, and many other countries.  He attests that because a bachelor’s degree is pretty much required to find a good paying job, the programs that allow people to go school should be expanded to ensure that everyone has equal access.  This would create an entirely new social program.  Sen. Sanders says that the program could be funded by reallocating tax revenue and increasing the taxes on the highest bracket.

            A much less extreme liberal idea is to control the cost of public institutions.  The problem as viewed by many is that the money the government provides for school that does not require repayment has grown at the rate of inflation, but the cost of schools has outpaced it by more than 405%.  Many find that if the cost of attending a school was more tightly controlled, the current budgeting would be enough to cover it.

            The biggest arguments against almost every liberal idea is the cost and the government intervention required to make them happen.  If the cost is controlled, the conservatives are likely to say that it is a governmental overreach.  If the funding is increased to the social programs that help low income individuals go to school they say that it is hurting the countries budget and taking money from other, more important things.

Health Care Programs

We are going to start off with a huge topic, and try to condense it a bit.  This is something that has been, and likely will always be, highly polarized and controversial.  It isn't the health care part that causes the controversy.  I haven't seen any people saying that health care should not be available.  The thing that people cannot agree on is how that health care should be provided, and how things like insurance and the care itself should be handled and charged.

In the United States there are two main programs that the U.S. Government administers: Medicare and Medicaid.  Both programs came into being in their current form when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act to help further his war on poverty.

Medicare is available for citizens over the age of 65 who have lived in the United States for the previous 5 years and people who are receiving Social Security Disability.  Medicaid is a bit more complicated.  Each state has their own eligibility requirements, but in general, Medicaid is for low income individuals and people who are unable to work.  What constitutes low income differs from state to state.

In the United States, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, there are more than 55 million recipients of Medicare, and 70 million recipients of Medicaid.

In total those two programs cover nearly 33 percent of all Americans.

The questions that are before the public are fairly simple ones.  How much, if any, should the government pay to subsidize health care in the United States?  How much, if at all, should the government control the procedures that are available and the cost thereof?

The meat and potatoes of it all is: how much should the government get involved in the healthcare system.  It is a simple question, but it has very complicated and personal answers.

The extreme left would point to the biggest difference in the health care systems in the United States and the rest of the first world.  Almost every developed nation on earth offers universal healthcare.  In other words, the government collects taxes to pay physicians, dentists, surgeons, optometrists, etc.

Countries in green offer universal healthcare

When an individual goes to receive care they pay very little, if anything at all.  The benefit of this is that no matter the individual’s income they can receive care.  This is the argument for it.  Those who support this system do so under the belief that health care is an unalienable right framed in the Declaration of Independence (the right to life).

There are two main arguments against this extreme option.  The first is that the poor are carried on the backs of the wealthy.  Because the poorest cannot afford to pay the taxes that support the system the rich will, more or less, be footing the bill.

The second argument is that having healthcare universally available without cost will lead to an overburdening of the system.  With everyone going to the doctor whenever they want the medical professionals will not be able to keep up with the work load and the wait times will increase.

The liberals would likely counter these arguments by saying that with the system as it is, the poor already cannot pay the cost of their healthcare and that is passed onto the rich through increased procedure cost.  The second argument would likely be countered by pointing to the system in the United Kingdom.  Not every procedure is covered, this reduces the likelihood that the doctors will have their time filled with less meaningful cases and the giant backlogs that are proposed would not exist.

The extreme right would likely propose a free market solution.  There should be an open market where the providers and insurers decide the cost and availability of procedures and doctor visits.  This would allow for greater competition and lead to the best possible outcome for the consumer.

There is really only one main argument against this: people are greedy.  The companies will not respond to market pressure because the alternative is no care.  Effectively it could end up as an unregulated monopoly.  Companies would be able to decide who they insure and for how much.  People with pre-existing conditions could be refused coverage or the cost could be astronomical.

The conservatives would likely counter this by saying that the people have a hard choice to make, but if they make the choices with care or create an alternative within the market it would force a change.  If the competition charges lower, then all the prices would likely drop or that company would cease to exist.

There is more than the extreme view in this argument.  There are two much more centrist proposals for the healthcare system.  The more moderate liberal suggestion is similar to the Affordable Care Act.  Companies are allowed to administer their day to day operation, but it is regulated by the government.  The government ensures that prices are kept fair and that everyone (in theory) is covered, but the companies are allowed to handle how things are covered and the services that are provided.

The standard conservative argument against this is that the system only works if everyone pays into the system whether they use the healthcare or not.  The only way to ensure this is for the government to force you to buy a service (as the ACA tries to do through a tax for those who are uninsured).  This government intervention is viewed by most conservatives as an overstep and a power grab.

The liberal counter for this is generally that the system did not work as a completely free market.  Skyrocketing cost leads to fewer people insured, which in turn increases the cost of the health care and insurance.

A moderate conservative proposal is generally a combination of the two extremes.  There is a government provided option that is affordable, but does not cover more than the necessities and an option to buy healthcare from the private market.  This would allow everyone who wants insurance to get it and provide an option for even the low income individuals.

The argument that many liberals bring up is that this could lead to a “pay to win” system.  In a nut shell, the people with more money can get better coverage and care, while the poor are left with substandard coverage and options.

The conservatives would likely counter this by saying that the quality and availability of coverage and service would be up to the free market.  They would argue that it is not the government’s job to control what businesses can and cannot do.

There are a plethora of options for how the healthcare system in the United States could be reformed.  Of the near infinite options, none of them are absolutely correct or incorrect.  It is all a matter of opinion.  In general though the conservatives hope for less government intervention and more free market economics, while the liberals believe that the governments job is to ensure equal access to care. 

A Preview of Things to Come

A lot of things fall under the umbrella of Social Welfare.  Food assistance, tuition assistance, unemployment insurance, healthcare programs, retirement help and a plethora of other things all count as Social Welfare programs.  We’ll start with a definition: a program that provides assistance to needy individuals and families

While this is a very broad topic, it is not impossible to find themes when examining both conservative and liberal beliefs regarding them.  The right is generally going to lean towards the angle of fewer programs to reduce the cost, relying instead on the free market to solve the problems.  The left tends to support increasing the number and scale of the programs to help those at the bottom of the pack make their way to the middle.

Regardless of anyone’s individual beliefs, there is no right answer.  I am not here to claim that there is.  No, like much of life this is something that is so fiercely individual that no one answer can cover everything.

If you deal in absolutes then two possible answers seem to rise to the top.  However, the world is not simply black and white; there is a lot of gray.  While many liberals seem to support increasing the number of Social Welfare programs in the United States, there are undoubtedly just as many who believe that those that are in place should simply be expanded, or funded differently, or any other number of possibilities.

Because there are a near infinite number of things that could be changed or stripped, given more or less funding, covered or left alone, there are a near infinite number of opinions.  It is something that affects everyone in the United States.  Even if you do not directly receive benefits it still plays a part in your life.  At the very least, it is assumed that you pay your taxes and fund the programs.  Maybe you work in a store that people use food stamps to buy food.  Maybe you have retired and receive benefits from Medicare.

Social Welfare has become so divisive in the United States because if it affects everyone, then everyone has an opinion.  While each opinion is just as valid and correct as the others.  I will not be able to cover all of them.  It is unfortunate, but that is life.  The goal of this blog is to take something that is this broad and look at the individual pieces.

Taking the pieces and looking at both sides will not give everyone the answer they might be seeking, but it will certainly give them a chance to see what the other side looks like.  That is the beauty of this country.  Both sides are equally valid but we have moved towards a system where we frequently ignore the things we do not personally believe.

In this blog we will likely be looking at arguments and beliefs that you hold to be valid, but we will definitely cover things that you do not believe.