President Biden and Cause & Effect

I watched President Biden's speech and I came away thinking about cause and effect. Before I get more into that idea, let me say that he really knows how to deliver a speech. I have heard of bully pulpits before, but he really mastered the art. He was incredibly strong and persuasive. 

Having said that, I want to make a distinction between cause and effect. When your big toe hurts, you do not bring in your nearest evangelist and have him or her give your toe a talking to. You don't hire the Dallas cheerleaders to cheer on your big toe.  Most of us go to a doctor who knows something about toes. He or she uses her training and experience to decide what can be done to fix your toe. When she tells you to apply a remedy, you might be persuaded and you are on to feeling better. While it might be nicer and more fun to have the Dallas Cheerleaders cheer on your toe -- you'd rather deal with a doctor.

This point can be exaggerated. Sometimes the problem is really emotionally based and a good cheering on can be the remedy. And sometimes a doctor might get it all wrong. So let's be clear -- cause and effect allows for both science and emotion. 

But more frequently, we stick to cause and effect in the sense of science.  If we want a rocket to head toward the moon, we might pray for a safe journey but before that we need to build a good rocket using science. If we want our lawn to look nicer we don't cheer on the grass, we put gas in our mower. 

I know I am aggravating some of you.

But to me this is all relevant when I think about Joe Biden's speech the other night. While he is an expert at enumerating and describing many of our modern ills, and while he is passionate and persuasive about us wanting and needing solutions -- I never heard him say a peep about what causes these things. Apparently what causes all our ills is that the government is too small and rich people get to have all the fun. 

Take poverty or inequality of income as an example. Why are people poor? Why are incomes unequal? Did he ever say why? He ranted about rich people. But are you sure that rich people exist to make other people poor? Is there no other explanation for why people are poor? Do those other reasons not deserve a minute or two in his speech? 

And he is so sure that if the government spends more money, then poverty will be greatly improved? Trust in the government. But really? How long have we had poverty programs? If they are so good, then why do we continue to have poverty? Because Trump put in a reduction in tax rates? Do you really believe that's the beginning and the end of the story?

Is poverty really so simple that we can wave a magic wand and it will disappear? Is the government so powerful and smart that it will use all that money they get from the rich to make large and lasting reductions in poverty? Do we have sophisticated models of the causes of poverty and do the programs being put forward really have substantial and durable effects?

I think all these questions can be answered. But Joe Biden is more interested in whipping up emotion than in being serious about how we solve our nation's problems. He has been in government a long time and yet he points the finger of blame at the other party. Maybe he and his advisors should spend less time whipping up emotions and more time in the library figuring out what is really wrong and what can usefully be done about it.