Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Ending the End of Welfare as We Knew It
The Democrats’ new child benefit is a very big deal.
The era of “the era of big government is over” is over.
The relief bill President Biden just signed is breathtaking in its scope. Yet conservative opposition was remarkably limp. While not a single Republican voted for the legislation, the rhetorical onslaught from right-wing politicians and media was notably low energy, perhaps because the Biden plan is incredibly popular. Even as Democrats moved to disburse $1.9 trillion in government aid, their opponents mainly seemed to be talking about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head.
What makes this lack of energy especially striking is that the American Rescue Plan doesn’t just spend a lot of money. It also embodies some big changes in the philosophy of public policy, a turn away from the conservative ideology that has dominated U.S. politics for four decades.
In particular, there is a sense — a strictly limited sense, as I’ll explain, but real nonetheless — in which the legislation, in addition to reviving the notion of government as the solution, not the problem, also ends the “end of welfare as we know it.”
Eugene Robinson: Going big on the border will neutralize Republicans’ line of attack
The children in detention need to get out as soon as possible, no matter what it takes.
Both for humanitarian and political reasons, the Biden administration needs to get ahead of the developing situation at the southern border. The surge of would-be migrants is predictable, and the solution is clear: Just do the right things, and get children out of detention as soon as possible. And do it right now.
It should surprise no one that asylum seekers and others clamoring for entry into the United States would think they have a better chance of success now that racism, xenophobia and deliberate cruelty are no longer official U.S. policy. It is only logical that increased numbers would present themselves at the border or try to make their way into the country without permission.
It also should surprise no one that Republicans would react not with understanding but with political calculation. They know that immigration is an issue that riles up the GOP base and that also gets the attention of many independents — it was, after all, the most consistent theme of former president Donald Trump’s winning 2016 campaign. Republicans have already begun trying to paint the significant but hardly overwhelming border surge as a full-blown “crisis” that they hope will help them win House and Senate seats in 2022.
President Biden and his team need to neutralize this political ploy before it gains traction. That means the administration must act swiftly and decisively to get these children to people who love them — while remaining true to its stated values of compassion and respect for all who seek to come to the United States in search of safety and opportunity.
Catherine Rampell: The oldest president ever just handed a landmark triumph to the youngest Americans
The $1.9 trillion relief package is expected to cut child poverty by more than half.
Sure, President Biden may be the oldest president in U.S. history. But in signing his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law, he just delivered the biggest legislative victory for the young in generations.
For decades, the general trend in federal fiscal policy, with some limited exceptions, has been to transfer wealth away from the young and toward the old. The federal government spends about six times as much per capita on older Americans (primarily in the form of Social Security and Medicare) as it does on children, according to the Urban Institute’s annual “Kids’ Share” report; if you include state and local governments, which are responsible for most educational spending on kids, the per capita old vs. young ratio shrinks to “only” about double. [..]
It’s no surprise, then, that children have long had the highest poverty rates of any age group in the United States. They also have the dubious honor of notching one of the highest child-poverty rates in the developed world, largely because other rich countries invest considerably more in children than we do.
Thanks to Biden’s legislation, though, the United States will see a (partial) reversal of decades of de-prioritizing kids. The covid-19 package is expected to cut overall poverty by about one-third — and child poverty roughly in half, according to an analysis from the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. Among the biggest beneficiaries of this law will be young children of color.
Greg Sargent: The real lesson of the feud between Susan Collins and Chuck Schumer
Our discourse around ‘bipartisanship’ is hopelessly confused.
Many senators are supposedly shocked, shocked by a feud that has erupted between their colleagues Charles E. Schumer and Susan Collins. According to a Politico report, the Democratic majority leader and the Republican from Maine are barely speaking amid his alleged failure to reach out to her during the stimulus debate.
Many GOP senators are treating this as a teachable moment: If Schumer (N.Y.) and Democrats want bipartisan support in the future, by golly, they’d best treat the most gettable Republican with a whole lot more respect!
This is a teachable moment, but in an entirely different way: It shows yet again how confused and obfuscatory our discourse is around “bipartisanship.” [..]
The real moral of the Collins-Schumer feud is that Republicans badly want to confuse you on this point. That’s why they attacked Schumer for alienating Collins personally, even though that’s not remotely relevant to what actually happened. They want to be able to argue that when no Republicans support future bills, this was a general failure of leadership on Democrats’ part, with little discussion of the truism that only the most enormous specific concessions (if those) could have ever won their support.
It’s a neat trick. But we don’t have to play along.