We Could Have Had Bennet
Poverty is bad. I know, hot take. But as I was getting ready to write this piece, I realized that despite poverty being bad, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I rarely hear people talk about poverty as much anymore. So, I fired up Google Trends, and lo and behold, it’s true. We’re talking about poverty less than we used to.
Lots of seasonality here, but since 2004 mentions of “poverty” online are in a steady decline.
The decline in American’s concern for poverty likely reflects broader trends, particularly demographic shifts in the Democratic Party. In 2004, roughly the same number of Americans with postgraduate degrees identified as “lean Democrat” as they did “lean Republican.” By 2017, there was a 63-31 gap in favor of Democrats. A similar trend took place for college graduates, while the Republican Party made gains with those with a high school degree or less. The policy priorities of the Democratic Party reflect these new affluent demographics: higher education and healthcare are more salient, and issues like poverty have fallen by the wayside.
But the deprioritization of poverty as an issue is bad because poverty is really bad. The research into the effects of poverty – particularly on children – is sobering. In one working paper, economists found that the children of recipients of an early 20th-century welfare program called the mother’s pension program lived on average one-year longer and attained 4 additional months of schooling compared to those who weren’t in the program. In another study, a cash transfer to poor pregnant women in Uruguay reduced the incidence of low birth weight by 15 percent, a condition that is highly predictive of worse health outcomes, lower educational attainment, and higher crime rates.
Michael Bennet bucked this trend in the Democrat Party. He threw his hat into the crowded ring in May 2019, running on a platform that repudiated the division in Washington, DC by proposing solutions that he thought both Democrats and Republicans could support:
He proposed Medicare X, a public option bill that would allow Americans to buy into the existing Medicare program, gaining access to the program’s doctors and the rates current Medicare recipients receive.
Bennet’s presidential platform highlighted free trade, noting that globalization has added $2.1 trillion to the American economy.
Proposed the creation of a “climate bank,” which would provide public financing to private green technology innovation, with the goal of exporting those technologies to other countries.
Drafted a plan to provide one-time grants to municipalities that reduce their zoning restrictions, particularly around mass transit.
Proposed a regionally adjusted minimum wage that would scale up or down depending on the local cost of living.
But what really set Michael Bennet out from the rest of the Democratic primary field was the emphasis he placed on his proposals that benefitted children – and in particular combatted child poverty. As a Senator, he introduced the “American Family Act,” along with Sherrod Brown (D-OH). The plan would pay out a monthly cash transfer to families with children under the age of 16. The monthly part of the plan is important. Unlike other cash transfers like the CTC (Child Tax Credit) or the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) which are delivered as a lump sum during tax season, the American Family Act would smooth the incomes of poor families and allow them to plan their finances better. And while the program is means-tested, the benefits don’t start phasing out until $130,000 for single-parent homes, and $180,000 for married couples – the 89% percentile of household income. The effect of this program would be huge: the percentage of children in poverty would fall from 14.8 percent to 9.5 percent, lifting four million children out of poverty. In addition, the number of children in deep poverty would be cut in half, lifting 1.6 million children out of deep poverty.
The American Family Act is one of many anti-poverty programs proposed by Democratic presidential candidates, but there is reason to believe it stands a better chance of being enacted than competing plans. For starters, the Senate version of the American Family Act received 37 co-sponsors (all Democratic). The House version proposed by Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) received 185 Democratic co-sponsors. And there is reason to believe Republican co-sponsors might sign on to the bill if it gained traction in Congress. So-called “national conservatives” have risen to prominence in Congress, signaling their interest in family-oriented policies to combat societal ills such as falling marriage and birth rates. Senators like Marco Rubio (R-FL) have been particularly supportive of these policies. He along with Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) introduced a bill that would allow new parents to use a portion of their social security benefits to finance paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. Ivanka Trump has done similar advocacy in the executive branch, helping to get paid family leave for federal workers included as a rider in the most recent Department of Defense appropriations bill.
The American Family Act embodies the potential of transformative yet non-polarizing figures like Michael Bennet. But we live in an environment where politics is becoming increasingly polarized and the media’s incentives are increasingly skewed toward radicalization. So, it is no surprise that Michael Bennet and moderates like him have failed to catch fire under the primary election paradigm. But history tells us that Bennet’s odds in a general election would likely fare better. The last Democrat to defeat a Republican incumbent in a presidential election was Bill Clinton, who famously ran a campaign that cross-cut issue lines. More recently in the 2018 midterms, the House was flipped by the New Democrats, a moderate colation that Barack Obama identified with from the onset of his presidency and Bill Clinton helped found.
The Democratic Party is at a crossroads. The nominee’s general election performance will decide what the future of the party is. If Bernie Sanders wins the primary and the general election, a long-term leftward shift in the party will take place. If Bernie Sanders loses the general election, the Democratic Party will be left in without an identity and scrambling to find a new one. In that scenario, it’s hard to predict what will happen. But I can hope that the Democratic Party refocusses on an ambitious agenda that is pragmatic to not polarize large swathes of the country. Michael Bennet and his agenda might just be what is needed to lead that change.