Listen for the twisting of words
The front page of the Sunday, Christmas Eve, Spokesman carried the headline “Half of WA Babies Born into Poverty” (defined in the article as a birth funded by Medicaid). The sub-headline read “Proposed law would create funds for low-income families to address state’s growing wealth gap”. [The article title at that link differs from that in the paper version—as is often the case.]
For a state like the State of Washington, where in 2020 “the median Washington household net worth was 150% higher than the national median household net worth” to be also the state in which “Half of WA Babies [are] Born into Poverty” is a standout statement. The gulf between the wealthy and the poor in Washington State is further illustrated by the following quote from the same document: “According to an Office of Financial Management (OFM) analysis, in 2010 over half of the total household wealth within the state was concentrated within the 5% wealthiest households.”
The Spokesman article goes on to discuss a bill proposed to the Washington State Legislature, SB 5125 – 2023-24, which is meant to offer a modicum of help to the children born in our state, who, by no fault of their own, are born into families that are unable to offer their children the financial leg up that wealthier families can afford.
The concept of SB 5125 – 2023-24 isn’t a hard one. The economic rules developed over the last forty plus years under Republican and Democratic neoliberal administrations have put the first rung of the economic ladder further and further out of reach for families starting at the bottom. The road to gainful employment and the accumulation of even modest wealth requires seed capital to apply to an education, an apprenticeship, licensing fees, and/or downpayment on a home. In a “baby bond” program, the general idea behind SB 5125, the state deposits into a trust fund managed by the state a small sum of money each year per baby born into poverty. When the cohort of these babies born in that year reach a certain age they become eligible to apply for money to be withdrawn from the trust for the purposes outlined above—at least if their family remains eligible based continued marginal financial status. Voila! A small chunk of money is made available to the youngster to help in reaching that first rung of the economic ladder.
Unsurprisingly, the Spokesman article quotes a prominent Washington State Republican legislator, State Senator Mark Schoesler (Ritzville), who stands doctrinally opposed to SB 5125. Let’s look at the rhetoric of his objections:
Schoesler, a former longtime state Senate minority leader, also worries the program would take away from the state’s current investments in education.
This is a classical Republican rhetorical twist: funding for any government program is a zero-sum proposition. Any new program is posited to threaten funding for a different program that the listener is presumed to value. We might call this the “We’d rob Peter to pay Paul” argument. The presumption is, of course, that the state legislature would never dare to consider additional sources of funding.
“I represent two universities, and I probably know the students and their parents better than most. They’re tired,” Schoesler said. “Ask the average hardworking taxpayer what they’re paying in taxes. They’ll say they’re already paying too much in taxes to start a new entitlement.”
Schoesler, like every Republican (and especially U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers), cannot utter the word “taxpayer” without adding the qualifier “hard-working”. The rhetorical intent is right out of the Republican trickle-down playbook: the listener is supposed to puff up with pride over the compliment—and, more tellingly—the listener is bidden to imagine a horde of lazy slackers constantly demanding more from their “hard-working” taxpayer selves. Schoesler wouldn’t want the listener to think of a single mom with no familial support working two or three minimum wage jobs trying her best to keep her family of two housed and fed. That scenario might arouse sympathy, and, God knows, we wouldn’t want to have that. (Irony alert.)
Finally, in a state in which 5% of households control more than half of total household wealth, Schoesler not-so-subtly suggests the listener should look down, not up, to see the threat from the lazy folk he considers “entitled”.
But who are the entitled and what are the real entitlements? First, sticking to the baby bond idea for the moment, consider 529 college savings plans. 529 Plans were developed under U.S. law and are administered through the State of Washington (and through other states). These plans work like baby bonds for the wealthy. The State of Washington 529 Plan offers a taxpayer who possesses the extra money a chance to squirrel away as much as $500,000in a tax-advantaged investment vehicle for the benefit of a prospective student (often a child or grandchild). “Under these plans, you contribute after-tax money and your money grows tax-free, and all withdrawals are tax-free, when used for tuition, room and board, and other qualified higher education expenses.” Nationwide only 2.5% of families participated in a 529 Plan in 2013 according to the Federal Reserve.
529 Plans sound like a nice perk, an incentive to plan ahead for the high cost of education—but the people who most need to plan ahead for these expenses are precisely those people who are least likely to possess the personal or familial wealth—or the financial awareness—to take advantage of the program. And here’s the twist: The taxes NOT paid on the growth of a 529 clearly represent an “entitlement” only the well off can and do take advantage of.
Going slightly more afield, consider that, while constantly harping on the woes of “hard-working American taxpayers”, the wealthy have disproportionally benefited from steady reductions in marginal income tax rates over the decades since 1980. At the same time the families of the wealthiest among us have disproportionately benefited from consistent Republican-backed efforts to slash estate taxes. These reductions allow the wealthy to retain ever greater multi-generational familial wealth.
When the wealthy add to their wealth by making “capital gains”, realized gains in monetary value of investments, they are privileged with the lower tax rates leveled on such gains. Are we not “entitling” the wealthy to even greater wealth by not treating capital gains the same as wages for the purpose of taxation? We need to quit thinking of “entitlements” as only applying to the poor.
So, in summary, The Washington Future Fund that would be established by SB 5125 – 2023-24 would be one small investment to foster the ability of the least advantaged children among us to mount the first rung of economic ladder. Anyone who wishes to tar this investment as an “entitlement” needs to understand that “entitlement” is a politically loaded word used by Republicans to mistakenly focus attention downward. It is time to realize that the most well off in society benefit from a host of entitlements. Republicans just don’t want us to see them as such.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry