‘The $10,000 Solution’

Regarding the premise of Professor Murray’s book “In Our Hands: A Plan To Replace the Welfare State,” and Timothy Kane’s take on it [“The $10,000 Solution,” Arts & Letters, March 27, 2006]

First, welfare does not “degrade the traditions of work.” People who receive welfare are working – they, largely women caring for children, are just not getting paid. If these mothers, according to Mr. Kane and Mr. Murray, are “not working,” why are they suddenly considered to be “working” if they go get a paid job in “child care?” It’s the same activity, is it not?

Second, Mr. Murray’s “plan” will keep mothers poor just as much as our welfare state does. The official Heath and Human Services Department poverty line for a mother with one child is now $13,200, considered by most experts to be pegged too low to be realistic.

Getting $10,000 a year, a mother with even one child will still be below the poverty line. By contrast, a woman or man with no dependents will get just as much under Mr. Murray’s plan as someone who has to feed and clothe two children. Clearly, the way Mr. Murray proposes it will not end poverty for children and their parents.

For that to happen, people with dependents would have to get more than a single person. Since Mr. Murray is a well-educated man with much research under his belt, he surely realizes this flaw, but perhaps doesn’t consider it to be a flaw. A policy like this reinforces the myth that work done outside the paid labor market has no economic value. A pity, since the robust United States economy would collapse without the care mothers, and, yes, even mothers on welfare, provide.

There are many people and organizations that believe in the inherent logic and efficiency of replacing welfare with a guaranteed income. Many have been working on it even while Mr. Murray was busy talking about dismantling welfare and replacing it with – nothing. In laying out his ideas he should give credit to all who have been keeping the concept alive since it was killed politically in the early 1970s, especially since he is arriving relatively late to the party.

Anybody who “takes economic growth seriously,” as Mr. Kane says, cannot continue to believe it is okay to structure anti-poverty plans based on the ridiculous belief that unpaid care-giving has no economic value. That lie is the foundation upon which our current failing welfare system rests. If it is the foundation of Mr. Murray’s plan, his would be just as disastrous for the poor.

DIANE PAGEN
Bronx

‘Feingold’s Censure Ruse’

Regarding “Feingold’s Censure Ruse Popular With Democrat Voters,” National, March 27, 2006]

I know The New York Sun proudly mixes its politics with its reportage, but today’s headline – “Feingold’s Censure Ruse Popular With Democrat Voters” – is more Post-like than Sunnish.

“Ruse”? As in trick, detour, artifice? I know you don’t agree with censuring (or even criticizing) the president, but can’t you even give Russ Feingold credit for meaning what he says?

FLOYD ABRAMS
Manhattan

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