No Straw MenEnlightened discourse proscribes arguments that are weak or imaginary, like straw, set up only to be confuted summarily.

Downsizing Government: Should We Start with Poor People or Big Business?

It seems to me that if we’re to roll back Big Government, we ought to start, not by curtailing subsidies to poor people, but by curtailing subsidies to and tax breaks for Big Business. To be sure, reforming welfare in the 90s was a huge achievement, but I think that when we focus on things like welfare queens and S-CHIP, we only perpetuate the (mis)perception that the GOP is the party for rich people. By contrast, if we take on Exxon and Wal-Mart, we both find common ground with the left and work toward our own goal of downsizing government.

Addendum (4/1/2008): Here’s a more recent example, pointed up by Hillary:

“If the Fed can extend $30 billion to help Bear Stearns address [its] financial crisis, the federal government should provide at least that much emergency assistance to help families and communities address theirs.”

Addendum (7/24/2014): Two more examples, from Nick Kristof:

“Financiers are wealthy partly because they’re highly educated and hardworking—and also because they’ve successfully lobbied for the carried interest tax loophole that lets their pay be taxed at much lower rates than other people’s. Likewise, if you’re a pharmaceutical executive, one way to create profits is to generate new products. Another is to lobby Congress to bar the government’s Medicare program from bargaining for drug prices.”

Addendum (5/15/2017): In her book, Tax and Spend, the historian Molly Michelmore observes, “Most of the recipients of federal aid are not the suspect ‘welfare queens’ of the popular imagination but rather middle-class homeowners, salaried professionals and retirees.”

The author, Matthew Desmond, puts Michelmore’s point this way: “A 15-story public housing tower and a mortgaged suburban home are both government-subsidized, but only one looks (and feels) that way.”