The Beckel Baby Postulate

On The Five, liberal host Bob Beckel postulates that a poor minority crack baby has less of a chance to succeed than a white baby born into wealth. I do not disagree with Beckel (although I disagree with his introduction of race into the equation), but let’s examine the reasons why (liberal policies) the probability of Beckel’s hypothesis is correct.

Family Values – Some of the leading causes of substance abuse include a disturbed childhood, broken families, and irresponsible parents. In other words, strong family values preached by conservatives such as the avoidance of single parent families, faith, and responsibility are some of the best ways to fight drug addiction.

Success – If the rich white baby grows up to be successful because the family invested in the baby’s success than what is wrong with that. After all, the U.S. needs successful and responsible individuals to pay the taxes necessary to fund the entitlement programs liberals support. It is senseless to punish the rich child’s family with wealth distribution policies to the extent he or she cannot be successful – this is counterproductive. This is the same reason why Robin Hood education policies failed. These policies not only failed to turn around struggling schools, the performance at good schools suffered from a decrease in funds. Robin Hood policies turned out to be a lose-lose scenario for all involved. The same can happen if success is punished too harshly.

Taxes – Increased taxes on the wealthy will lead to fewer dollars being spent on poverty stricken Americans since it will lead to fewer dollars going into charitable contributions. And charitable contributions have a bigger impact on poverty than wasteful government programs. According to an article by James Edwards “The Cost of Public Income Redistribution and Public Charity” about 30% of federal welfare makes it to a poverty recipient compared to 70% of charitable contributions.

Immigration Policy – Liberals are outraged with conservative immigration policy because they want to build a big border wall to stop illegal immigration. However, the main purpose of the wall is not to stop illegal immigration as much as it is to protect American citizens from illegal drugs and dangerous drug lords from getting into the United States. And keep in mind; illegal immigrants do take jobs that could go to that poor crack baby. Besides, why do more immigrants come to the United States than any other country? For economic reasons – they have a better chance to succeed here than anywhere else in the world. The American dream is no longer what it used to be, but a poor child has a better chance to beat the odds and become wealthy in the United States than anywhere else around the globe.

The Wal-Mart Scapegoat Misconception – Liberals like to blame Wal-Mart and their low wages for America’s poverty and economic problems. But Wal-Mart jobs are in demand because it pays better than welfare. Also, increasing Wal-Mart employee salaries and benefits would increase the cost of the products they sell – which would be a tax on the poor who count on Wal-Mart’s low prices. Also, I have no empathy for liberals or Wal-Mart employees unhappy with their 36% increase for healthcare insurance. This is a direct impact of ObamaCare (the Affordable Care Act), which places the onus of healthcare reform solely on health insurance companies (Big Pharma, trial lawyers, hospitals, and other medical providers all got a pass and made no concessions to control rising healthcare costs). Everyone’s health insurance rates are going up, not just Wal-Mart employees. This is essentially a tax on all responsible people who purchase healthcare insurance.

Substance Abuse and Mental Disorders – According to the National Poverty Center (NPC), people with mental disorders are 50% more likely to be on welfare and people on welfare are 80% more likely to suffer from drug and or alcohol abuse. For this reason, anti-poverty welfare programs were revised under Clinton to require work for welfare compensation. The NPC found that welfare recipients who did not comply with the Welfare work requirements were twice as likely to suffer from substance abuse. In other words, working people have less of a chance to be addicted to drugs or alcohol, but Obama removed the work requirement from welfare compensation this past year. In fact, many working Americans are required to be drug tested for employment. On the other hand, there is no drug testing requirement to receive welfare.

Anti-Poverty Programs are not working - In 1964; Lyndon Johnson started his war on poverty. Fifteen trillion dollars later the poverty level today is at 16% and rising. The homeless rate is also increasing. According to a 2011 Cato report, the federal government will spend more than $668 billion to fight poverty in 2012. State and local governments will spend an additional $284 billion, amounting to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three. Federal money for fighting poverty is divided amongst 126 separate anti-poverty programs. The programs include 33 housing programs, 21 food or food-purchasing assistance programs, 8 different health care programs and 27 cash or general assistance programs. Seven different cabinet agencies and six independent agencies administer at least one anti-poverty program, the report stated. The largest federal welfare program is Medicaid, with spending topping $228 billion in 2011, excluding funding for nursing home or long-term care for the elderly. With this kind of money going into anti-poverty programs there is no reason 1 in 6 people should be living in poverty. And remember these numbers do not include charitable contributions.

Abortion – The liberal approach to solve the Beckel Baby Postulate is to make abortion more accessible and affordable. If the child is dead then he or she has a 0% chance of succeeding.

If liberals want to make sure a crack baby succeeds, than they should reconsider their stance on taxes, anti-poverty welfare programs, family values, abortion, immigration, ObamaCare, and other policies.