As it is my first "No News Tuesday" (no essays about any current events all day) I am fortunate that life provided me with some material as soon as I woke up. It took me a little while to realize that Providence was supplying me with material, rather than annoying me with loud noises, but once I realized how fortunate I was, I decided to share my good fortune with my readers.

You see, I have at least two red-headed woodpeckers that visit my new home. I really had very few interesting birds around my old house (except for the occasional goldfinch and two peregrines that sometimes circled overhead or rested on lamp posts), so I am thrilled to have these two woodpeckers.

The problem is that I live in a wooden house, one the woodpeckers think look a lot like a tree. So from time to time it sounds like a woodpecker is going to come right through the wall, as it did way too early this morning. Of course, it was the sound of inspiration, but I did not realize it at the time. When first I heard it, it was just an annoying thumping.

My problem is this. Anything I do to scare these woodpeckers away from my house is likely to drive them away completely, at least drive them far enough away that I won't be able to watch them in my yard. So I am left with the choice of protecting my siding (and sleep) at the expense of not being able to watch my beloved woodpeckers, or keeping the woodpeckers, but losing a little sleep and a few shingles.

By now, my regular readers probably know that I have a point coming soon. For the benefit of everyone else, I will tell them that there really is a purpose to all this, and one beyond talking about birds and house exteriors.

To every decision we make in life there are both costs and benefits. Logically there must be. If something exists with benefit and without cost, there would be no decision, everyone would do it. (Perhaps breathing falls in this category, as it costs nothing except a small amount of energy, yet it makes life possible.)  So, if we must decide to do something, then it has some costs and some benefits, and we need to consider both before deciding.

Take my woodpecker example. had the banging upset me so much that I lost sight of cost-benefit analysis, I might have jumped up, and immediately set to work attaching various types of bird deterrents to my house (fake plastic owls, noise makers, tame hawks, whatever). Had I done this, I would have come to regret my decision, as all the bird I enjoy watching would suddenly have vanished from my yard. But, at that point, it would be too late to repent of my decision, as, even were I to remove everything, it would be a long time before the birds would return.

Which brings me to my main point, that many political decisions seem to be made in a manner similar to that I described. A problem is discovered, a solution proposed, and little thought given to the consequences.

A perfect example is our ongoing efforts to eliminate poverty. The problem of poverty is obvious, anyone can see that we have people who are poorer than the rest*. Whether or not the government should be involved or private charity will suffice is a valid debate, but we will ignore that for the moment. Assuming that we have agreed the government should help eliminate poverty (or relative poverty [see footnote]), the question is how best to approach that goal.

The problem comes in when people, often overcome with an excess of zeal for a project, propose the "obvious" solution, without any thought about consequences. Which is probably how we ended up giving money to people based solely on their poverty. If anyone had thought for even a moment about this, they would have realized that this subsidy would both remove incentives to get a job and increase the number of poor.

How so?

First, let us look at the incentive to get a job. If you have no income, the incentive to work is obvious. You have an income of zero, every dime you earn is a dime of improvement. However, if you get, say $500 a month for doing nothing, then you have less incentive. If the job available pays less than $500 a month, you would be a fool to work, as you would effectively have a negative salary, as working would make your income go down.

But even if your salary were greater than $500 a month, you would not have as much incentive to work as the person receiving no welfare. Someone not getting welfare would see a $600 a month job as paying $600. Someone getting $500 a month for doing nothing would see that $600 a month job as paying only $100 a month**, the difference in income between working and not working. Thus, the welfare payments make jobs less attractive to the same degree they subsidize unemployment.

Nor is that all. As many other benefits accrue to those receiving welfare (rent subsidies, medical care, food stamps, job training)***, the salary of the job has to not only more than equal the welfare income lost, but also all of the benefits lost by working. As most welfare recipients both lack most skills and have a spotty employment record, the chances of them getting a job with pay equal to welfare payments, medical assistance, and rent subsidies are very small, so the incentives against working are very strong.

Not only that, but welfare's "safety net" can also create unemployment. For example, assume you are earning $400 a month, and your neighbor earns $500 a month for doing nothing. Some people may still continue to work for non-financial reasons (eg. pride), but from a purely financial viewpoint, you would be foolish to waste several hours to earn less money than you can by doing nothing.

But that's not the only way welfare can create unemployment. The other is by lessening the negatives of unemployment. If there were no welfare, your perspective would be different than if welfare exists. For example, if your boss is terribly difficult, you would probably tolerate more if there were no welfare than you would if you could quit and still be guaranteed some income.

Nor is our war on poverty the only area in which we ignore consequences. Another example is unemployment insurance. Whenever a crisis strikes, congress extends benefits another 16 weeks or more. Yes, this does help those who are having trouble finding work, but it also serves to increase unemployment numbers as well, because those who are looking for work now have more time to find the best job possible rather than feeling they must take whatever they can. It may be a good things to do so, but we should also recognize that it tends to prolong unemployment and raise the numbers of unemployed workers whenever we extend benefits.

The list could obviously go on and on. But my point is very simple. Whenever a problem arises, and the state feels compelled to do something about it, rather than acting first and then worrying, it would be best to look at all of the "obvious" solutions and ask what the consequences (that is, the costs) are likely to be.

I would like to think that the legislature does this, but the facts argue against it. Had they thought things through, would any legislature think subsidizing poverty would create FEWER poor people? It is clear in this case, and in so many more, that a goal they thought noble, and an answer they thought obvious, was enough for them to forget all about the need to examine the consequences of their decision,

Which gives me yet one more opportunity to say something I have said many times before in several different ways:

If ever we manage to destroy the United States, it will likely be from an excess of good intentions.

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* To be honest, I can actually make an argument that the US has very little poverty. At least in global terms. If you look at the "poor" in the US, they actually qualify as at least middle class, if not rich, in most of the world. We are a very wealthy nation, and even our poor are rich. Now, of course there are a few poor people who actually lack a home or food, but nowhere near the number that our "poverty" statistics would suggest. When people speak of poverty in the US, they actually mean relative poverty in most cases, ratehr than soem sort of absolute, no-food/no-shelter type poverty.

** The fact that benefits are not cut off when someone starts working (in most cases), but are pro-rated at low salaries does not change this fact, it simply makes the calculations more complex. And, as most pro-rated benefits are reduced to zero well before one reaches a living wage, the pro-rating has little effect except on those taking the most tiny of part-time jobs. An average teenager earns enough at a summer job to be disqualified for everything but a pittance of food stamps [unless the rules changed a lot since last I looked], so the pro-rated benefits can safely be ignored in almost all cases. (And in the case of disability, all benefits [except maybe prescription assistance] do drop to zero the minute even $1 is earned.)

** As I did work for social services, I know that many of these benefits do not apply to all poor people. I know that medical assistance, for example, tends to go to women and children, though the disabled also qualify. I know that rental assistance is applied in a rather convoluted fashion as well. My point is not that every poor person gets these benefits, just that whatever benefits they do get are factored in to the decision whether or not they should take a job.

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POSTSCRIPT:

This "No News Tuesday" is killing me. I have seen all these people trying to whitewash the Wright scandal by saying "But McCain was endorsed by Hagee" and I want so badly to show the stupidity of that argument.

But I have promised to avoid current events one day a week, so I will make myself wait until tomorrow. For today, nothing but general topics. Also, I still feel I have spent too much time on Obama and Wright, to the detriment of other topics, so perhaps this is a good idea after all.

As I said on Friday, this is a trial run. I have to see how I feel about it when midnight rolls around, and decide if I will continue with the experiment next week.