Stimulating The Economy On The Backs Of The Poor

With the economy tanking, and the Dow heading to its lowest level since 1997, the country finally seems ready to tighten its collective belt.

I’m seeing it in my own part of the world; none of my friends who tend to make their own are suddenly buying store-made. Just the opposite; my friends who normally buy store-made are asking how they can make their own. They’re ready to try something new. They want to spend less because it’s clear that now is not the time to be borrowing. Now is the time to pay back what you’ve borrowed.

We all know that it’s the failure to pay back debt that started our current economic crisis. When people can’t pay back what they borrow it hurts everyone, even those not facing foreclosure and repossession. But it hurts those in debt the most.

Last summer, David Brooks wrote in the New York Times that our current debt culture was the result of a “loosening of financial inhibition.” There are many institutions to blame for that loosening, but Democrats in Congress top the list. They wanted the poor to have easier access to credit and home ownership, and created both incentives and mandates for lending institutions to ensure that happened. The resulting default crisis didn’t give the poor access to homes... for long. Instead, it’s set them even further back. What the Democrats hoped would help the poor, has ended up hurting them.

How long will Democrats keep encouraging the poorest among us to spend and consume their own wealth? Probably for as long as it seems “wise” to voters on the left. A Democrat friend, defending the stimulus, eagerly pointed out to me the wisdom of the welfare payments (disguised as refundable tax credits) because they’ll be putting money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it - the poor.

Did you get that?

Translation: “We can rely on the poor to sacrifice what they get for the good of the economy.”

My Democrat friends believe that what the economy needs right now is more spending and easier access to debt (I mean, credit), They have no concept that spending and debt is what causes poverty in the first place. They feel no obligation to teach anyone to save. No wonder they distrust capitalism; they have such a distorted view on how best to employ it.

The problem for our country is that the people ready to return to thrift - to make their own and save their money - are not poor. They're pretty well off because they tend to behave in ways that result in their being pretty well off. And as long as the Left continues to encourage the poor to consume themselves, a greater divide will exist between these two groups. It’s time for the GOP to send a different message to voters on the left - that the poorest among us can build wealth, too. We can invite everyone to join us in thrift. All they have to do is stop draining what they have through consumption and debt just because the Democrats tell them to.