Do Democrats Understand What Government is for?

The Democratic Party is having an identity crisis.

My theory: The crisis arises from how most Democrats talk about and think about their party, which is entirely different from how the party actually functions.

The Democratic Party has been described as the “party of government.” But what does that mean?

The Founding Fathers believed that government should protect individual rights and promote the general welfare. Few would disagree with that. Our focus here is on everything else that the government does.

The founders knew quite well that in a democracy, politicians would have an incentive to take from Peter and give to Paul whenever the Pauls had more votes than the Peters, or (considering the role of money and in-kind help) whenever the Pauls could deliver more political support than the Peters.

In the first three decades of the 20th century, the Supreme Court struck down federal, state, and local laws whose only purpose was to reward special interests at the expense of the general public. However, with the coming of the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, those constraints soon vanished.

What happens when the government has almost unconstrained ability to manipulate laws and regulations to benefit some at the expense of others?

Just as supply and demand determine outcomes in the economic marketplace, the supply and demand for votes determine outcomes in the political sector. In the economic market, we get equilibrium prices and quantities. In the political sector, equilibrium occurs when there are no more opportunities to gain political advantage by taking from a random Peter and giving to a random Paul.

Of course, all this is true for Republicans as well. But for Democrats, this is their raison d’être.

The problem: Democratic politicians never explain to Democratic voters what they are actually doing and why. That gives rise to some important anomalies.

If the U.S. spends $16,722 per pupil on public school education, why are only 29% and 28% of eighth graders proficient in reading and math, respectively?

If the federal government spends $48,806 per household (2017) on families in the bottom fifth of the income distribution, why do one in five children live in “food-insecure” households?

Why does the federal government spend six times more (per person) on seniors than on children, even though parents of the children pay the bulk of taxes?

If Medicaid is such a blessing for the enrollees, why do they value it as little as 20 cents on the dollar?

When it comes to education, garden-variety Democrats probably think the party is pro-children. It’s not. The party is pro-teachers, from whom it receives votes and campaign contributions. Democratic politicians almost always support more education spending, but rarely education reform.

When it comes to poverty, Democratic voters probably think the party is anti-poverty. In reality, it has consistently been a pro-poverty industry. For most of the history of the Democratic-created War on Poverty, very little cash ever went to poor people. Instead, healthcare dollars went to the medical industry; education dollars went to the education industry; housing subsidies went to developers and landlords; and food stamp money went to agribusiness.

The earned income tax credit and the child tax credit (which give families cash) are mainly creations of the Republican Party. In recent years, Democrats also voted for these subsidies, but on the Left, they have much lower priority.

When it comes to child poverty, Democratic voters probably think eliminating it is a high priority for the party. In fact, during the Biden administration, lowering drug costs for seniors was much more important.

Seniors vote. Children don’t. This is why (if you believe the surveys) on some nights, millions of children go to bed hungry, while millionaires are cashing Social Security checks, getting government-provided medical care, and paying somewhat less for their drugs.

Democratic voters probably think the party vigorously defended Medicaid spending this year because it cares about the welfare of the beneficiaries. Yet the party knows that the lobbyists who traipsed from door to door on Capitol Hill to talk about Medicaid this spring were representing hospitals and insurance companies, not poor people.

You can count on Democrats in Congress to support Medicaid spending. But they have almost no interest in Medicaid reform.

These anomalies have created an opportunity for Republicans to solve many of the problems Democrats were merely pretending to solve. That means school choice, cash instead of bureaucratic welfare, and Health Savings Accounts instead of bureaucratic medicine.

No wonder the Democrats are having an identity crisis.