Say Anything Blog

From The American Thinker:

NY Times Columnist: Don’t Judge Social-Program Spending By Cost Or Results

Not an Onion article. I solemnly affirm to Scrappleface: New York Times columnist Judith Warner doesn’t want social programs to be judged by how much they cost or whether they work.

Disclaimer notwithstanding, I bet you’re still dubious. “Come on, Finkelstein - that can’t be right. As liberal as the New York Times might be, there’s no way one of its regular columnists would come right out and say that.”

Wanna bet?

The particular government programs that Warner - the Times’s family-issues maven - discusses in The Real Value of Public Preschool [subscription] are what she describes as “free” pre-school for three- and four-year olds. And here’s what she says:

“I am finding the rhetoric in the debate over universal preschool disheartening. It’s all the usual stuff about cost-benefit and outcomes.”

All that cost-benefit and outcomes stuff. Disheartening. Yeah, tell me about it.

So how should spending be judged? Writes Warner: “The argument I would rather hear is: universal preschool is good for today’s families right now.” If it feels good, spend it!

Read the whole thing, if you can stomach it.

Of course, the lefties do use “cost/benefit” justification, but only half of it at any one time.  If they want to take our money for something, they talk only about the benefits, and ignore the costs.  When they want to eliminate something, they talk only about the costs, and ignore the benefits.
The real ignorance they demonstrate is when they advocate social spending.  To put it bluntly, the consumers of social spending don’t pay for it, and the payers don’t demand it, so there is no economic reason to supply it.  This is not true of defense spending, because it is in the interest of all citizens to have our country defended, so there is a demand for defense spending.
Furthermore, it can be demonstrated that social spending doesn’t work; it doesn’t return much, if anything, for its cost, which is why this particular person wants to silence that public discussion.  If social spending “worked”, it would be beneficial for all of us, and there would be a demand for it.
I think there should be social programs, and they should be designed to accomplish some useful purpose, rather than simply be “feel-good” programs for leftie politicians.  It is possible to benefit the needy, while at the same time, moving toward a more productive society; we just need to abandon the present system, and make one that works, in all ways.