Why Democrats should just treat the middle class like the extremely poor

It's not just the very poorest people who should get easy, cheap benefits

A homeless man finds cover in Washington, D.C.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Elite Democrats are basically fine with cosmopolitan finance capitalism. During the Obama presidency, mega-corporations have continued to dominate the economy, and Wall Street has maintained its outsize share of GDP and corporate profits. However, the inequality and poverty thereby produced nags at the Democratic conscience. Something should be done about the people left at the absolute bottom of the social ladder, they think.

One telling development during the 2016 election that demonstrated this Democratic character trait was Hillary Clinton's proposal to make the Child Tax Credit partially more refundable. It came late in the campaign, and it was pretty weak tea, being highly complicated and narrowly targeted, but it was still probably the best idea the Clinton policy shop came up with. It would have made only a minor dent in poverty, but it does demonstrate that the party is Doing Something about it.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.