Heartbroken: Is rural America really such a great role model for the nation?

The Economist ^ | Aug 15th 2002 | N/A

[owen_osh]

THE Financial Times is not normally given to puffing George Bush. But on Monday it splashed a picture on its front page that, from the White House's point of view, more than made up for all those sniffy editorials about the budget deficit. A rugged-looking president is dressed in jeans and a sweat-sodden T-shirt. In his gloved hands he carries branches that he has just lopped off trees. On his head, protecting him from the searing Texas sun, he wears a white cowboy hat.

Bill Clinton spent his vacations in Martha's Vineyard, sucking up the salt air and bantering with the likes of Ted Danson. Mr Bush prefers to labour on his Texas ranch, clearing brush, chopping down trees and defying the 110-degree heat. This is a man with deep roots and solid values, the White House whispers, a man who is at home in the heartland.

Mr Bush is not the first president to repair to the heartland for reinvigoration. Teddy Roosevelt liked nothing better than trekking out west, where he slipped into cowboy regalia and slaughtered wildlife. Lyndon Johnson spent his holidays on a ranch not too far (in Texas terms) from Mr Bush's place. Jimmy Carter liked to unwind on his peanut farm in Plains, Georgia (where he once did battle with a “killer rabbit”). Even Mr Clinton was once forced to leave the beach: in 1995, with an election looming, his pollster, Dick Morris, told him that people wanted to see him hiking in the country rather than frolicking with celebrities.

Why is it deemed so important to holiday in the heartland? The centre of America certainly contains many wonderful vacation spots, but Plains, Georgia, and Crawford, Texas, are not among them. The simple reason is that Americans regard the heartland as more than just a geographical expression (the country's central and rural areas). It is a moral condition: an embodiment of the authentic American tradition of self-reliance, family values and community spirit. The inhabitants of the heartland are descendants of the rugged pioneers who carved a great civilisation out of mountains and prairies. They continue to make their living by doing proper work—by wrestling with nature rather than shuffling symbols on a screen. Mr Bush is well aware of his electoral success across “real” America, while Al Gore was left with the celluloid bits. Hence the value of that gritty picture in the FT (even if it was largely seen by stockbrokers lounging around Long Island).

But is the heartland really such an embodiment of self-reliance? Sadly, its true characteristics are not vigour and independence but economic decline and government handouts. The small communities that are supposed to embody the American spirit are, in fact, haemorrhaging jobs, people and wealth.

The worst poverty in America is probably not in the inner cities but in the countryside—in places like Mississippi, Arkansas and Kentucky. Six of the country's ten poorest counties can be found in the area stretching from Texas (where Mr Bush is so hard at work) to California's central valley. Rural people make barely 70% of the salaries of their urban counterparts. One in six rural children is being raised in poverty.

Ever since the dustbowl of the 1930s, the heartland has been hopelessly dependent on government handouts. Last year the country spent $25 billion on direct subsidies to farmers, and billions more subsidising water, power and infrastructure. Twenty-five cents of every dollar in farm revenue comes from the government. Paul Krugman, an economist at Princeton, calculates that the “blue” states (ie, the phoney coastal ones that Democrats win) subsidise the red Republican states to the tune of $90 billion a year—and that was before the recent farm bill.

The secret of the heartland's success in securing such largesse is simple: political clout. Wyoming, with a population of half a million, has as many senators as California, with a population of 34m. Just 16% of the population elects half the Senate.

Yet subsidies are, at best, a mixed blessing. They are robbing the heartland of its spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship. Rural ghettos now suffer from all the dependence-induced pathologies of their urban cousins. They are also creating a sort of state-funded feudalism that is the very antithesis of the American tradition of rugged individualism. Huge quantities of government money flow to a handful of landowners, most of them in Texas and California, who preside over vast armies of ill-educated and poorly paid migrant workers.

If you want morality, go to the Hamptons

What about the heartland's much-vaunted moral qualities? Here again the image of small-town piety bears little relation to reality in rural America. The states that Mr Bush won in 2000 boast slightly higher rates for murder, illegitimacy and teenage childbirth than the supposedly degenerate states that voted for Mr Gore.

In recent years the worst increases in both crime and drug abuse have taken place in the heartland. In the past five years, bank robberies jumped by 82% in small towns, compared with 17% in America as a whole. Many rural communities are plagued by drugs, particularly amphetamines and OxyContin (an opiate pain-killer). In the 1990s the percentage of drug-related homicides tripled in rural areas but halved in big cities.

The true story of the American heartland is more complicated—and more tragic—than the one that the White House is trying to tell. The taming of the heartland is one of the great achievements of the human spirit (albeit one marred by the brutal treatment of the native population); it also includes plenty of straight-talking, upright, God-fearing folk of the sort that are rare in Malibu. But a combination of economic change and disastrous social policies is turning a rural idyll into a rural ghetto. A president who really cared about the heartland would devote a little serious thought to its problems, rather than just treat it as a backdrop for his re-election campaign.

[Brian Allen]

<< Bugger off, John Bull! >>

Again: "bugger on;" perhaps?

[MadIvan]

Shouldn't that be, "bugger on, Economist?!"

No, and the Economist is right that subsidies are bad news. Really the EU and everyone else should kill farm subsidies - most of them are going to big agribusiness who don't need it anyway.

Oh, and Sam Donaldson.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Oh by the way, this Brit has been to rural Texas and liked the people very much. While it was not a rich part of the world, certainly there is virtue in the heartland.

Regards, Ivan

[Rev. Lou Chenary]

Ever since the dustbowl of the 1930s, the heartland has been hopelessly dependent on government handouts

All the goverment handouts started in the 30s right?

According to this article things have been degenerating ever since socialism was implemented on a large scale.

So the president goes home and works on his land that's supposed to be a bad example?

Maybe he should go begging for food stamps to show the many benefits of socialism.

[Helvan]

"What about the heartland's much-vaunted moral qualities? Here again the image of small-town piety bears little relation to reality in rural America. The states that Mr Bush won in 2000 boast slightly higher rates for murder, illegitimacy and teenage childbirth than the supposedly degenerate states that voted for Mr Gore."

While technically correct this conclusion is total BS. Yes it's true the states Bush won boast slightly higher crime rates, but when you look at the 2000 election results by the individual COUNTIES the Gore counties have much higher crime and murder rates than Bush counties. A county by county analysis would have provided a much better picture of our actual rural heartland and it's "moral qualities", but this wouldn't have provided the result the author was seeking.

Here's the big sloppy state map he's using. (Notice how crime ridden South Florida and South Texas get counted as "rural heartland"...)


And here's the county by county map which shows the data in much higher fidelity.

Some statistics:

-Population of counties won by Gore: 127 million Population of counties won by Bush: 143 million

-Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2 Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Bush: 2.1

The NYTimes editorial page tried to pull this scam a few months ago. This myth needs to be refuted everywhere it pops up.

Here's a good article. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/29/95942.shtml

[Brian Allen]

Hi Ives

Agree Absolutely about the Evil of "farmer" -- and/or any other form of corporate -- welfare.

But the general theme of this piece is mean-spirited, supercilious, fundamentally dishonest-EUrotrash anti-American FReedom bashing -- and lends one to the sense the Economist and its unwashed totalitarian lickspittle pen pushers may, for all the "contribution" it and he offer, go [On] root [ing] themselves.

May, that is, go on, buggering on!

Warm FReegards -- Brian
The American "farmer"
AMERICA'S NEW WELFARE RICH!

[TheWriterInTexas]

"If you want morality, go to the Hamptons."

BS. I spent the first 30 years of my life in New York, grew up on Long Island, and jaunted to and through the Hamptons for weekends. Morality? Decadence is more like it (although the shopkeepers and vineyards certainly worked hard and kept their noses clean!).

When I looked around me and realized I wanted to raise a family someday, my husband and I moved to TEXAS.

[TheWriterInTexas]

"National divorce statistics are spotty, but per capita there were 60 percent more divorces in Montana than in New Jersey."

That's because most folks in Jersey just "live together."

[M. T. Cicero II]

Proud to live in a "red" county.

[Don Joe]

Paul "Enron" Krugman and the idiot from The Economist engage in the typical liberal hobby of insulting the people who put food in their mouths.

[MadIvan]

But the general theme of this piece is mean-spirited, supercilious, fundamentally dishonest-EUrotrash anti-American FReedom bashing -- and lends one to the sense the Economist and its unwashed totalitarian lickspittle pen pushers may, for all the "contribution" it and he offer, go [On] root [ing] themselves.

I honestly don't know what's happened to the Economist. They used to be a very reliable publication and usually in favour of conservative candidates. I presume the pendulum will swing back once we have a Tory government again.

Regards, Ivan

[driftless]

I can't speak for other parts of this great country, but the upper Midwest (Wisconsin), where I reside, seems to be doing very well thank you. We constantly send out more federal tax dollars than we take in.

Of course the author of this article prefers to believe left-wing social critics who like to spread stories that rival Pravda for dis and misinformation. You can't stop someone from trying to become ignorant if their heart is set on it.

[driftless]

In the metro area of LaCrosse, Wisconsin with a population of over one hundred thousand there are about one or two murders per annum, and it's usually drug related. What a crime-ridden hellhole! (yuk,yuk)

[tm22721]

Farm subsidies are necessary to insure the lowest food prices.

BUMP

[MadIvan]

The Economist, I would suggest, has suddenly taken on a bunch of elitist snobs. The Economist already had something of a pious attitude, this has just become more pronounced in recent years.

I agree that the article is inflammatory. However we should make no mistakes - agricultural subsidies are bad news, no matter where they are. They inflate the price of food, inflate welfare costs (as food is factored into them), and cost jobs - for example, sugar being more expensive in America due to subsidies meant that the Lifesavers factory moved to that paragon of capitalism, Canada.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Farm subsidies are necessary to insure the lowest food prices.

No they are not. They are actually there to bolster food prices to increase farm incomes.

Ivan

[DBtoo]

The part about the 110 degree heat at Bush's ranch was an exageration. Texas is hot but it's not Saudi Arabia. I agree with you, the author is full of BS.