This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Backtalk


Our Economic Decline Caused by Cultural Decay


T


wo phrases that daniel patrick moynihan put into America’s political lexicon two decades ago are increasingly pertinent. They explain the insuffi cient


dismay about recent economic numbers. Moynihan said that when deviant behaviors — e.g.,


violent crime, or births to unmarried women — reach a certain level, society soothes itself by “defi ning deviancy down.” It destigmatizes the behaviors by declaring them normal. And sometimes, Moynihan said, social problems are the result of “iatrogenic government.” In medicine, an iatrogenic ailment is inadvertently


induced by a physician or medicine; in social policy, iatrogenic problems are caused by the government. When the economy grew by just 2.6 percent in 2014’s


fourth quarter, The New York Times headline cheerfully said “Economy Pulls Ahead.” The story said the U.S. economy is “an island of relative strength” in a world facing “renewed torpor and turmoil.” This was defi ning failure down.


The Wall Street Journal said “U.S. Economy Hits Speed


Bumps,” as though speedy growth had been normal for a while. The speeding had consisted of one quarter (2014’s third) of 5 percent growth. But the economy had gone 43 consecutive quarters without 5 percent growth, the longest such period since the government began keeping the pertinent records in 1947. And even with this third quarter, growth for 2014 was just 2.4 percent, making this the ninth consecutive year under 3 percent. During the recovery from the recession of 1981-82,


there were fi ve quarters of 7 percent or higher growth, and fi ve years averaged 4.6 percent growth. There also was triumphalism about November’s job growth of 353,000. This was just the fi fth month of 300,000-plus growth in the 68 months since the sluggish recovery began in June 2009. In the 1960s, there were nine months of 300,000- plus job creation — and at its highest, in 1969, the nation’s population was nearly 118 million smaller than today’s. By the time (April 2014) the economy returned to the


number of jobs it had before the recession in December 2007, there were 15 million more Americans. Nicole Gelinas writes in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal:


90 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2015


GEORGE WILL


GUEST COLUMNIST


“A healthy economy should add 200,000 new jobs every month, even when it’s not recovering from a recession. By that standard, America should have 133 million people working in the private sector, not 118.4 million.” Economic weakness — new business formations are


at a 35-year low — is both a cause and a consequence of alarming cultural changes. In 1960, 12 percent of 25- to-34- year-olds were never married; today, 49 percent never have been. Although the population was 27 million larger in 2010 than in 2000, there were fewer births in 2010. The lingering economic anemia is astonishing, given plummeting energy prices.


he business burdens and uncertainties created by the Aff ordable Care Act are just part of the Obama administration’s regulatory mania (3,659 new regulations fi nalized in 2013 and another 2,594 proposed, according to Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute). That the employment picture is not worse may owe


T


much to the end of an iatrogenic policy. The Economist reports that during the recession, unemployment benefi ts were extended from 26 weeks for most workers to an average of 53 weeks, and 73 weeks in three states. Then in December 2013, Republicans blocked reauthorization of Emergency Unemployment Compensation. Now a study of 1,000 counties shows that employment


grew fastest in counties where there were the biggest declines in the duration of unemployment benefi ts. Barack Obama’s plan to tax the earnings from parents’


“529” college savings plans lived just long enough to indicate why some progressives perhaps prefer slow rather than rapid economic growth. Rapid growth reduces the appeal of redistributive


policies and the need for the bitter, jostling, divisive politics that advance such policies. The 529s help enable families to achieve self-suffi ciency. This excites progressives’ dislike of any private provision that impedes implementation of their dependency agenda.


George F. Will is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, a leading conservative writer, and a commentator for Fox News.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92