Fudging the Numbers

Fox News’ O’Reilly states on his program that entitlement spending for the poor has actually increased during the Bush administration’s 2006 budget compared to the Clinton administration’s 1996 budget. Stating that poverty figures in the US under Clinton in 1996 were at 13.7 % of the population while now they are at 12.7%, he concludes that America is looking after its poor by, spending a "massive amount" ($368 billion was the number he quoted) even in the midst of a "war on terror". Stating that "dollars don’t lie", O’Reilly concludes that the "no spin zone" has rescued Americans from misinformation spread by "liberals".

This common tactic is often used by the main stream media: numbers are automatically supposed to impart authority on what are otherwise nonsensical claims. What is implied by the conclusions in these arguments is that blame lies not on the rich or their government, but on the poor, not only for their own ills, but for the ills of society at large. It is claimed that in their own irresponsibility, the poor squander all this money and help that the "generous" government gives them. Rather than outrage at why 37 million Americans are poor and chronically hungry in one of the wealthiest countries of the world, there is gloating over a fictitious one percentage improvement compared to a previous administration. In their petty squabbling among themselves, the elite in America often forget that the deprivation of the poor has life and death consequences for millions, and represents much more than sound bytes on a news program. Why neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have fixed this "public issue" and made it a priority is never discussed. The argument used by O’Reilly who is in command of the corporate news media in the US, is deceptively simplistic and brings to mind what C. Wright Mills wrote about this media half a century back. He said: "The second-rate mind is in command (through the mass media) of the ponderously spoken platitude. In the liberal rhetoric, vagueness, and in the conservative mood, irrationality, are raised to principle." (The Power Elite, 1956)

It is true, as O’Reilly mentions that "dollars" don’t lie, but numbers thrown out by themselves are mere bits of information. It is in the interpretation of the numbers that the lie is found. Poverty, a meticulously well-hidden phenomena in the US, both in social consciousness and actual visibility (due to segregation), signifies, even in the official figures of 12.7%, a failure of a social system that spends $2.2 trillion dollars a year, transferring wealth from the masses to the very rich, but cannot even feed a large percentage of its citizens. If we use "real" measures of poverty, based upon average incomes in the US and a current basket of goods, including health and childcare, this percentage is actually double that of the official figures (many private studies and models based on them have documented this). No mention was made by O’Reilly of the fact that the four years that Bush has been in office, poverty has consistently risen from 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% today, a greater increase than the 1% improvement over 1996 that he was gloating over. Also not mentioned by O’Reilly was the fact that even though the population from 2000 to 2005 increased by around 5%, the number of the poor (during the same period) increased by 19 % (31 million then, 37 million now). The real increase of course is much greater and masked by official measures as stated above.

The increase in spending that O’Reilly is talking about is the part of the budget that is "non discretionary" (i.e. mandatory) spending. That means that unless the law is changed by Congress, the current administration cannot increase or decrease it, it is based on predetermined formulas. As the number of the poor goes up, according to the formulas used, non-discretionary spending goes up as well. What those numbers show is not an improvement in the help given to the poor but merely the fact that their numbers have gone up, as has the cost of living. According to the office of Management and Budget, not only did this administration propose cuts in discretionary spending to help the poor, they made recommendations for reductions in "non-discretionary" spending as well (something that the executive branch has no authority over). Excluding Medicaid, spending on entitlements has remained at 1.3% of GDP since 1975, according to the budget report and non discretionary spending has not even kept pace with the rate of inflation (according to the Office of Management & Budget).

These miserly "private solutions" that keep the percentage of the poor more or less constant regardless of the regime in charge, reveals as C. Wright Mills suggested, that these programs, rather than help the poor, actually help the rich in rescuing capitalism from itself. In the same context, we can understand the global situation and the preponderance of international relief agencies. They are part of the same system that keeps the world capitalist system intact. As a result, many of the captains of the World System, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies and the Fords etc. have set up shops as relief providers. Structural change in the world system would fix all the deprivation needs faced by humanity (at the current time) but since such structural change is distasteful to the elite, they encourage private solutions and relief agencies that might help with people’s suffering on a smaller scale but prevent upheavals that might change the structure of the system and the ideology that keeps it intact.