Self-interest and the Democrats

By Marcus Ebenhack

I'd like to begin by setting aside ideology to establish, what would seem to me, to be very natural human behavior.

In a society where government redistributes wealth - that is, takes money from one group of people, we'll call them ‘the rich', and gives money to another group of people ‘the poor', that most of us will cast our votes relative to which side of this redistributionist equation we find ourselves on (remember, we've set aside ideology.)

If one political party wants to take more money from ‘the rich' to give to ‘the poor', and you happen to find yourself among ‘the poor', you will most likely cast your votes for members of this party. Likewise, if the other party wants to take less money from ‘the rich' to give to ‘the poor', those fortunate enough to be among ‘the rich' will probably vote for members of this party.

This is nothing to be ashamed of. Self interest is a very basic human condition. But what happens if one goes from being poor to being rich? The Democratic Party (don't pretend you didn't know who I was talking about) loses a vote! If we could wipe out poverty tomorrow a large component of the coalition that keeps the Democratic Party in power would vanish. Oh, to dream...

I'm sure others have made this observation before, but think for a minute about what it really means. If you are a poor black inner city kid your best chance to break the cycle of poverty is to receive a quality education. But as spelled out above, Democratic politicians, from your local city councilman all the way up to the President of the United States of America, have a very real and vested interest in seeing that this does not happen, and if it must, to limit it as best they can!

What is the easiest way to keep poor people poor? To construct as many barriers as possible between poor children and quality education. And how do Democratic politicians achieve this goal? They vote overwhelmingly and consistently to oppose education reforms (school choice and voucher systems) that have proven successful everywhere they have been tried.

The education issue is the daily double for the Democratic Party. It allows them to keep poor people poor, providing many of the votes they need to stay in power, while at the same time furthering the interests of big labor unions that provide money (and even more votes) needed to keep them in power.

The next time you hear a Democratic politician say ‘it's all about the kids' just remember, that politician would (and regularly does) throw poor underprivileged elementary school kids so far under busloads of big labor fat cats so fast that most members of the media can't even see it.

Do you remember the outcry across the media landscape when Rush Limbaugh declared he wanted President Obama to fail? Why is it that none of these same media giants will speak to the trickle down failure and cycle of poverty institutionalized by 80 plus years of ‘Progressive' policy?