Although steeped in the lingo of social welfare, most handouts now go to wealthier-than-average people.
Although steeped in the lingo of social welfare, most handouts now go to wealthier-than-average people.
P oliticians’ actions don’t always match their words. This appears especially true of today’s Democrats. On the campaign trail and while in public office, the party’s leaders — from President Biden on down — criticize the wealthy and promise to help the poor. While most Democrats want to raise taxes on businesses and people with high incomes, the policies they’ve introduced over the past few years heavily favor and subsidize these same groups. Democrats are fast becoming the party of handouts to the rich.
My home state of Michigan is a case study. If you listen to the pronouncements of Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, you’d think her policy agenda is focused on subsidizing workers and low-income families. In fact, key programs promoted by Whitmer and the new Democrat-controlled legislature throw huge sums of taxpayer money at the wealthy.
Consider her plan to subsidize people who buy electric vehicles. Whitmer wants to provide $2,000 rebates to EV purchasers. She also supports exempting these vehicles from the state’s sales tax, costing the state budget an estimated $48 million. Another $65 million of taxpayers’ money she wants to spend on charging stations, and she intends to hand out billions to the corporations making the batteries and the vehicles. Who benefits from these policies? Not low- and middle-income families. They can’t afford electric vehicles, even with all this government assistance. It’s mostly the rich who will benefit from Whitmer’s handouts.
It’s a similar story with subsidizing college. Michigan taxpayers send more than $1.5 billion annually to public colleges and universities, with Whitmer proposing more every year. The biggest beneficiaries are relatively wealthier students, because they are more likely to complete college. Whitmer now wants to provide free community college for nontraditional students, including those from wealthy families who can easily afford the tuition.
The governor wants to expand programs initially designed for low-income families. Whitmer supports broadening the eligibility of Michigan’s state-funded preschool program, Great Start, so that wealthier families can qualify. The same applies to her plan to provide free school lunches to every student. Taxpayers already cover lunches for students from low- and middle-income families. Somehow, the wealthy struggle to afford their kids’ lunches, too.
What’s happening in Michigan is a microcosm of what Democrats are calling for nationwide. Plenty of blue states — from California to New Mexico, from Colorado to Massachusetts — are seeing more and more taxpayer support for affluent families. Then there’s President Biden, whose agenda is built around handouts to the rich.
President Biden is nationally supercharging many of the same policies that Governor Whitmer supports in Michigan. He’s doubling down on electric-vehicle tax credits and subsidies, throwing billions of taxpayer dollars to wealthier buyers. He’s called for taxpayers to pay for the preschool costs of well-off families. For his student-loan bailout, as much as two-thirds of the $1 trillion cost will go to families in the top half of America’s income brackets. Eighty-seven percent of the country doesn’t have student loans, yet their tax dollars will largely go to wealthier Americans who do.
Finally, consider the economic-development racket, whereby politicians give handouts to a select group of businesses or industries. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gives billions of dollars to the chosen few, while the American Rescue Plan shoveled billions more to the business community. And state leaders such as Governor Whitmer are playing the same game. In some of her first actions this year, she signed into law $3 billion in taxpayer cash to her companies of choice. It’s a new Gilded Age: Brazen state handouts to the wealthy and well-connected seem more common than ever.
Government assistance programs should be designed to help people who need it. Democrats claim this as their aim, but their actions suggest otherwise. Although steeped in the lingo of social welfare, most handouts now go to wealthier-than-average people. This provides no social benefits, wastes taxpayers’ money, and consumes resources that could be used to help people genuinely in need.