Letter to the editor: Focus on facts, not vitriol

Posted 5/25/23

To the editor ,

First, a note of thanks for the fine explanation regarding rising sea levels as it relates to current climate trends provided by Dr. Cordua in the May 17, 2023 Journal letters. …

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Letter to the editor: Focus on facts, not vitriol

Posted

To the editor,

First, a note of thanks for the fine explanation regarding rising sea levels as it relates to current climate trends provided by Dr. Cordua in the May 17, 2023 Journal letters. It erases some of the nuanced doubt about climate realities that the denier crowd often attempts to use to mislead the public. The contribution that Dr. Cordua responded to, however, was a potpourri of misleading and unsubstantiated claims rooted in political bias that needs more discussion.

For instance, the writer, Ken Pazdernick, insinuated there were Democratic party shenanigans regarding the 2016 and 2020 Wisconsin presidential elections because Wisconsin's population only increased by 120k, from 2016 to 2020, the number of votes cast rose by 500K. Well, not quite. According to Ballotpedia, the voter increase was 321k. That could still be considered suspicious until one factors in voter turnout. In 2016, turnout was 68.3% and in 2020, it was 75.8%. That 7.5% difference and the increased population accounts for the increase in votes.

The same letter made the claim that Democrats spent $30T to "solve poverty" the last several decades. The $30T is an extrapolation that covers such a diverse number of programs from Medicare to farm subsidies that it is difficult to pin down its accuracy. However, the supposition "...that there are about as many people below the poverty level now than when the program started" is easier to verify. In raw numbers the statement may be close to correct, but the population has grown, so what matters is poverty rates not raw numbers. The progressive attempt to use the government to reduce poverty actually began with the New Deal in the 1930s when the national poverty rate was 25%, but for purposes here the Democratic Party's so called "War on Poverty" began in the 1960s.

The US Census Bureau indicates that in 1960, the national poverty rate was 22.1%, by 1978 it was 12%, program cuts in the 1980s, and the 2007-09 GOP recession resulted in an uptick to 14,5% by 2010, poverty rates (assisted by ACA benefits) declined to 12.7% by 2016, and 11.8% by 2018, and despite the pandemic, bipartisan and some purely Democratic sponsored initiatives from 2018 to 2022 have helped reduce it to 11.6% currently. Of course this has had a major impact on national debt, but the issue in contention here is the claim that it did not reduce poverty. The 10.5% reduction in the poverty rate means that currently there are 34.5 million less people in poverty then there would be at the 1960 rate. Whether that is good or bad for the country is a matter of opinion, but the anti-poverty programs did reduce poverty.

According to the Pew Research Center data, the areas of the country most consistently voting Republican, the South, arid West and rural Midwest had the highest poverty rates and greatest reductions of poverty during that time period. Ironically, few of the programs that benefited these populations had federal Republican legislative support, furthermore the so called "MAGA red states" are more likely to be collector than contributor states. 

As for other declarative suppositions made in the letter in question that were aimed at demeaning the Democratic party, a check of the Democratic party's 2020 platform did not find that the party supports any reference to "transitional males in women's bathrooms/locker rooms," that the party demands abortion should be legal "...up to nine months and beyond." (beyond?), any reference to a "clump of cells," or any support of "defund the police," as the writer claimed. An attempt to examine the 2020 Republican platform on these issues was not possible as there was no official platform. 

Hopefully, future letter submissions regarding party politics and positions will focus more on facts and sources and less on the far-right echo chamber of vitriol and rhetoric. 

Ron Ginsbach

Elmwood

climate change, ice caps melting, environment, politics, letters, opinion