MSW: Honest talk of social programs' mixed history will boost new proposals' chances

MSW: Honest talk of social programs' mixed history will boost new proposals' chances
Affirmative action is nothing new. It's purpose is correction. The Irish and the Italians got defacto affirmative action from the old political machines after Irish Need Not Apply and With Out Papers. Vets still do get special treatment for funding and Federal jobs. Union jobs go to union members. Legacies get preference. This is simply affirmative action for white people. So is having money. Look at the recent scandal about bribing admissions officers.

Catholic colleges practice selective recruiting and then wash out low performers after a year. So do other constituent groups. When quotas happened or happen, Jews and Asians worried about quotas or still do.

A better way is to early admit all over qualified applicants regardless if affiliation or affluence, steer the under qualified to remedial programs or community college and select the rest randomly so that no one can claim either advantage or disadvantage.

The Church should go all in with the ESL, remedial and vocational markets. To not do so is elitist. HBC schools should operate similar community programs and both should take all comers.

Every worker and adult student (in the academic year after they turn 16) should get $15 an hour and each of their children $1000 a month refundable tax credit with pay. The proposal is called a negative income tax, but there should be no phase out.

Students would get the same coverage as the provider employees. Then we can nix categorical and block granted programs. The answer to poverty is to give people real money, not a restrictive allowance. The problem with such programs is underfunding, which has its roots in racism, particularly against Black men.

The movement of communities is a sign of affluence. Great Neck of Fitzgerald's era was Irish, probably with WASPs. My godmother is from there and I have been to Mass where they were married. Mass is usually empty because the Jews moved in and the Irish moved down the LIRR to Port Washington. Stacey is from there and when we were there in in August it was hard to miss the Asian invasion as people move out from Queens.

In DC, white hipsters are certifying neighborhoods as urban renewal occurs and Black families move to PG County. They had lived in Georgetown before the Kennedys and their class. The White elite in Ward 8 had moved to Potomac and Great Falls, and so it goes.

Racism and sexism still exist in both housing and employment. Violations are enforced civilly rather then criminally (again, half measures).

Gays often get the worst of it from some employers and landlords. Ask any gay Church employee who gets married or ordination if out and proud.  Soon sexuality will be added by the Federal Courts to Sex in the Civil Rights Act. Count on the Church to beg for a religious exemption. It should not be granted.

Private to MSW: People who live in a bouncy castle should not throw lawn darts.