YOU MAY NOT KNOW IT BUT I'VE BEEN ON WELFARE FOR DECADES

Most who know me know that, amongst other things, I’m an economist, ordained clergy in the United Methodist Church, married father of two kids, an avid reader, a Fantasia/Jasmine Sullivan/ Chrisette Michelle fanatic, a beer connoisseur, and a very serious jazz head.

But there’s something else about me that you may not know: I’m a long-time recipient of “government assistance.” In fact, ever since I graduated from high school, I’ve depended upon Uncle Sam to help me get ahead in life and, make no mistake about it, I’ve benefitted—immensely— from government largesse.

To put it another way: I am a “welfare recipient.” I’ve been off, but mostly on, the government dole for much of my adult life. In fact, I’ve been on the rolls of one program for almost two decades. Twenty years straight, no breaks. And it’s not the first time that I’ve benefitted from this particular program.

And you know what?

I manage to get this assistance without having to worry about being outed and subjected to public scrutiny.

I don’t have to worry about anyone suggesting that my receipt of government assistance is prima facie evidence of my lack of personal responsibility.

I don’t have to deal with a discourse that paints people like me at risk of becoming “dependent” and possibly transmitting that “dependency” to kith and kin.

I don’t have to read various forms of media singling me out as pimping the public purse.

I don’t have to run the risk of a high profile and powerful figure calling me out as “taker” rather than a giver.

How does all of this work? How is possible that people like me can get away opening our fists to accept government aid while, say, the single mom on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, formerly known as AFDC or, more simply, “welfare”), is constantly getting scorched and portrayed as parasitic on the body politic? What, in short, makes me different and less controversial than the person we typically imagine as a “welfare recipient?”

It works this way because, unlike TANF participants, my receipt of assistance flies under the radar screen and, generally speaking, is not seen as being analogous to what’s typically portrayed as “welfare”— that is, direct government assistance to needy families.

The government assistance that I receieve takes place in what scholars have variously referred to as the “hidden” or “submerged” welfare state.

UNCLE SAM SUBSIDIZES MY CRIB

I actually live in publicly subsidized housing—and have been doing so, off and on, for most of my adult life.

As April 15th approaches every year, I scoop up all the relevant documents that my certified public accountant (CPA) needs to properly file my and my spouse’s joint tax return. One of the documents that I send to the CPA comes from the bank—our mortgage lender— and goes by the rather boring name, “Form 1098.”

That form—1098— contains the amount of interest that we paid on our mortgage. And a substantial portion of that interest can be written off against our federal tax liability. That home mortgage interest deduction (HMID) knocks down the amount of money that I have to cough up to the FEDs. In fact, there have been some instances where, after taking into account my HMID, I actually paid more than what was due in taxes. When that happens, Uncle Sam electronically drops the overpaid portion into our bank account and, in the process, fattens our household’s collective purse.

Any way you slice it, the HMID is a housing subsidy. Granted, it’s a subsidy that benefits the well off more than lower and moderate income households. But even though the benefits are primarily captured by those who, like me, are relatively economically secure, it’s a paradigmatic example of how “tax expenditures” are often and primarily welfare for the well-off.

In other words, there’s no difference between Uncle Sam cutting a check to cover Section 8 housing, food stamps (SNAP), or TANF, on the one hand, and providing folk like me the opportunity to write off my home mortgage interest rate deduction. It’s just that one is visible and direct (e.g., TANF payments), while the other (e.g., mortgage interest rate deduction) works through “tax expenditures” and, as a result, is “hidden” and indirect.

And make no mistake about it, the decision to allow me a dollar in tax deductions is “conceptually equivalent” to spending a buck on, say, TANF.

Political scientist Christopher Howard drove this point home more than two decades ago when he wrote:

Intuitively it may seem strange to equate the failure to collect taxes with government spending, yet most public finance experts consider tax expenditures to be “conceptually equivalent” to direct spending. They portray tax expenditures as a simultaneous exchange of cash: tax payers write a check to the government for their full tax liability, and the government issues them a check to cover those activities exempted from taxation.

Howard is articulating the precise understanding of “tax expenditures” that is held by the U.S Department of The Treasury:

Tax expenditures describe revenue losses attributable to provisions of Federal tax laws which allow a special exclusion, exemption, or deduction from gross income or which provide a special credit, a preferential rate of tax, or a deferral of tax liability. These exceptions are often viewed as alternatives to other policy instruments, such as spending or regulatory programs.

According to one study, people like me— again, relatively well-off and economically secure—benefited from the deduction of home mortgage interest to the tune of $30 billion per year. That figure—$30 billion— is just about the same amount of money that the Federal government spends on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

Long story, short: First, I reside in publicly subsidized housing. Uncle Sam subsidizes my crib. Second, before you ever fix your face to launch into some sort of tirade about how poor people done got themselves addicted to government assistance, take a minute and make sure you ain’t the pot calling the kettle black.