Kittens Can Become Lions: How We Can Build on New Programs, Despite the Frustrations

History of Great Society programs and even Social Security was all about starting small and making them bigger over time.

Instead of an FDR-level lion of a reconciliation bill, it looks like at best we will get a bunch of half-size or even quarter-size kittens, half-ass programs that fail to cover many of the people who need the help.

But that is probably the best strategy for now, since kittens can grow.

Yes, the rumored final deal will provide what may sound like anemic versions of policies covering far fewer people than need the help:

• The Child Tax Credit may be means tests and limited in other ways.

• Paid family leave may be available only for four weeks rather than twelve.

• Home care spending for the elderly looks to be slashed in half.

• Funding for child care and pre-K may be cut back.

• Community college help may be pared down from “free tuition” to expanded scholarships.

• And so on

This can sound depressing but worth remembering that the Great Society was actually kind of pathetic at the time LBJ left office, a bunch of programs launched but most reaching very few people and spending only a tiny bit more than when he assumed office. In 1967, government spending programs lifted only 4 percent of Americans out of poverty. 

But despite all the complaints about “neoliberal” Democrats, they steadily expanded those Great Society programs to the point that according to analyses by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), 42 percent of people in poverty leave poverty due to help from programs ranging from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), EITC and SSI.

Part of the problem is the official poverty line measurement, which ignores non-cash benefits like SNAP/food stamps, rent subsidies and tax credits.  Anti-poverty advocates themselves often underplay the success of anti-poverty programs for fear that will be an invitation to conservative legislators to slash them.  When you look at both gains from government spending and additional earnings over the last fifty years, the average household income of the bottom fifth of Americans (counting cash and non-cash benefits) was more than 75 percent higher in 2011 than in 1964.

Take Food Stamps. In 1968, they were available to only 2.5 million people and delivered only $45 per recipient (in 2016 dollars).  By 2015, 45.8 million people were receiving SNAP (its current acronym) benefits averaging $126 per recipient- and those have since been raised above that level.  As participation has become so much broader, the stigma once associated with the program has faded, encouraging greater participation in turn as the program becomes a more universal safety net for all low-income families.

The Earned Income Tax Credit started off equally pathetic in the 1970s when introduced, But after repeated expansions over the years, the program now delivers up to an additional 45 cents for every dollar earned with a maximum benefit of $5948 each year by 2015. After repeated expansions over the years, the program now delivers up to an additional 45 cents for every dollar earned with a maximum benefit now of $6,728.  Just under 20% of all American households claim the EITC, but that percentage is as much as one-third of households in a poorer state like Mississippi.

This is a chart I put together from budget documents a few years ago on the growth in anti-poverty spending. Against some conventional wisdom on the left, there has been pretty massive growth in the programs due to persistent advocacy by progressives year-by-year (and note these numbers are adjusted for inflation). The orange band in particular is nutrition assistance which barely existed at the end of LBJ’s term but is now a program available as a cornerstone of help for low-income people across the nation.

Note that Medicaid has followed a similar trajectory. It covered just 7% of the population when LBJ left office - just 14 million people - but by the end of Obama’s term, 23% of the population was on Medicaid - or 73 million people.

Even the supposed paradigm of universal benefits, Social Security, that many progressives cite as their model for “going big and universal” was neither upon its launch. The first checks didn’t even go out until 1940. Various exclusions largely designed to exclude many black workers but also local government workers meant that only 50% of the workforce was initially covered.

And the benefits were tiny, far less than advocates had demanded. Where the so-called Townsend Movement - the “Medicare for All” movement of its day - wanted checks of $200 per month ($3500 per month in 2016 dollars), the first Social Security checks averaged only $22.71 per month ($386 per month in 2016 dollars) when first issued.

But they grew over time, first in 1950 and then significantly more in 1972, when they were also indexed to inflation and additional coverage added. create a minimum retirement benefit, the first time a real element of universal benefit entered the social security system.  Over the years, more categories of workers would be covered as well as adding disability insurance for disabled workers below age 65, disabled adult children, and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) system for various categories of non-elderly recipients.  By the end of Carter’s Presidency, the average benefit would be nearly two and a half times what it was in 1940, and would be $1338 per month, three and a half times as large as Obama’s Presidency was nearing its end.  

Starting Small and Growing Has Worked

The lesson here is that progressives have never been able to get what we wanted when programs were first introduced - and we’ve been pissed at the half-ass compromises approved each time,

Under the New Deal, the Townsend movement was harshly disappointed when the Roosevelt-aligned House leaders had the Townsend plan voted down, with just 56 House members supporting what was the political equivalent of the single payer plan of the day.  Speaking for the bitterness felt by many Townsend Plan supporters, California Representative John McGroarty dismissed Social Security as amounting to “nothing.” A similar plan in California would get 45% of the vote on the ballot in 1938 and as late as 1949, 179 House members sought a discharge petition to force a floor vote to replace Social Security with the Townsend Plan but they failed. But Social Security continued to grow.

• So if we only get four weeks of paid leave enacted this year, the program is in place and we can fight to expand the number of weeks and the pay provided in future years.

• If child care and elder care benefits are too small and cover too few people, we will fight to expand those in the future.

• And the fight to increase college affordability will build on whatever is passed this year.

• And increased funding for the Child Tax Credit will no doubt remain a flash point in budget fights for years to come.

But having those programs in the budget in the first place is a major advance. As conservatives endlessly - and correctly - complain, once a program is enacted, it is very hard to eliminate because they are popular with the public. So getting ANYTHING passed is a giant step since then we can build on it incrementally in future years.

The bottom line is when Biden was elected last November, his agenda looked to be a big fat zero with McConnell in control of the Senate. With the victory of two Georgian Democratic Senators in January, we were delivered the endless frustrations of the barest majority dependent on Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema but if we can get a bunch of programs in the budget, that will give us a platform to expand for the future.

Again, not all we hoped for but that means fighting for additional Senators and expanding margins in the House so we can grow these new programs bigger and bigger year by year. The kittens can become lions in the future.