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One tourist's photograph, among the countless snapped every day in the Big Apple, has gone viral. The moment captured is one of generosity, and since it was posted on Tuesday, it has circled the globe and brought a lot of attention to one young New York City cop. Had it not been for a tourist from Arizona who snapped the photo with her cell phone, Officer Lawrence DePrimo's act of kindness, giving boots to a homeless man, may have gone unnoticed. Tourist Jennifer Foster emailed the photo to the NYPD and they posted it to their Facebook page. Tens of...

[Households that earn at most $13,000 a year spend 9 percent of their money on lottery tickets. ] With the Powerball lottery jackpot reaching a record $500 million, people from around the country are flocking to local convenience stores to try their luck. The majority of those standing in line for tickets and joining office pools are likely not habitual lottery devotees, but rather casual players who decided to get in on the fun once the media reported the unprecedented size of the pot. However, the everyday lottery business is a much grimmer affair, relying overwhelmingly on "poverty, habit, and...

Consider this headline from a Reuters article in The Huffington Post: "Raising Taxes on Rich Won't Hurt Economic Growth, CBO Says." But the first paragraph refutes the headline: "Allowing income tax rates to rise for wealthy Americans would not hurt U.S. economic growth much (emphasis added) in 2013 ..." The CBO did not say, as the headline suggests, that raising taxes on the rich has no negative economic effect. In fact, the CBO actually said that extending the Bush-era rates for all would increase economic growth by 1.5 percent. If, however, the Bush era rates expired for the rich --...

Government programs designed to help the poor have destroyed generations of American families, schools, and culture. One would think that repeated bad economic news and the downgrading of families that inhibit job growth would lead people to find a better solution to help them out of their impoverished condition. Instead, they vote for the same type of politician who blames the wealthy, calls for tax increases, and wonders why poverty goes up, businesses move out, and crime and illegitimacy soar. The following ten cities have a great deal in common. The first thing is their poverty level. The second is...

CINCINNATI - There's an odd imbalance that few have noticed in this presidential campaign. In the midst of a continuing economic downturn, one candidate talks regularly about poverty, and the other doesn't. The one who does is the Republican, Mitt Romney. He's done it for a long time. Go back to Romney's March 30 speech in Appleton, Wis., in which he introduced the charge that President Obama is creating a "government-centered society." "Over 46 million Americans are now living in poverty, more than ever before in our nation's history," Romney said. "In households with single moms, over 39 percent are...

If we don't love the poor and do all we can to improve their lot, we're going to go to hell, the Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, recently said. It's not pretty, but it is real. And not just if you believe in hell, but if you care about the future of the country, of civilization. We actually are a people of compassion, and we happen to believe that people who want to serve their neighbors out of love of God and humanity are a necessary thing for our neighborhoods, for civil society, for the life of our...

Here's a recent statement frequently suggested by leftist academics, think tank researchers and policymakers: "People were not just struggling because of their personal deficiencies. There were structural factors at play. People weren't poor because they made bad decisions. They were poor because our society creates poverty." Who made that statement and where it was made is not important at all, but its corrosive effects on the minds of black people, particularly black youths, are devastating. There's nothing intellectually challenging or unusual about poverty. For most of mankind's existence, his most optimistic scenario was to be able to eke out enough...

As in so much else, Progressives hold an outdated conception of the debate over entitlements. They conceive it as the Left supporting generous entitlements for seniors and the poor with no questions asked, no obligations expected, versus the right supporting no safety net at all, let private charity handle it, and if some of the poor have to starve, and some of the sick suffer or die without health care, because private charity is inadequate, so be it. But modern, free market conservatives have built on Hayek's recognition that social safety nets are not inconsistent with free markets, and just...

Despite repeated promises that he would build prosperity from the bottom up, President Obama has presided over three years of income losses for the middle class, according to the latest household income data from the Census Bureau. Since 2009, the middle 20% of American households saw their average incomes drop 4%. In 2011 alone, they fell 1.7%. The poorest 20% have fared even worse under Obama, Census data show. Their incomes have dropped more than 7% since 2009, and are now lower than they've been at any time since 1985, after adjusting for inflation.

Despite repeated promises that he would build prosperity from the bottom up, President Obama has presided over three years of income losses for the middle class, according to the latest household income data from the Census Bureau. Since 2009, the middle 20% of American households saw their average incomes drop 4%. In 2011 alone, they fell 1.7%. The poorest 20% have fared even worse under Obama, Census data show. Their incomes have dropped more than 7% since 2009, and are now lower than they’ve been at any time since 1985, after adjusting for inflation.

But a decentralized government program, moving away from Washington, D.C., follows the spirit of the old Law of Moses and the new Kingdom of God that Jesus ushered in more closely than a centralized bureaucracy does. If we insist on government bureaucracy doing our charity in our place, then at least it should be local. Yet, better than any state program, individual citizens, working together, need to step up and not wait for or depend on the government to do their charity work for them. And the poor need to work. We the people need to participate. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/the_biblical_way_to_care_for_the_poor.html#ixzz27mt4wxgo

Cutting taxes for the wealthy does not generate faster economic growth, according to a new report. But those cuts may widen the income gap between the rich and the rest, according to a new report. A study from the Congressional Research Service -- the non-partisan research office for Congress -- shows that "there is little evidence over the past 65 years that tax cuts for the highest earners are associated with savings, investment or productivity growth." In fact, the study found that higher tax rates for the wealthy are statistically associated with higher levels of growth.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet. She spoke movingly about their early years--about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was “rusted out" and found his furniture “in a dumpster,” how they both came from families that had to “scrape by.” Her fairy tale--however well-delivered--was one great, big, colorful lie.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. Mecklenburg County, the Wells Fargo Foundation and the Temple Beth El Religious School are among the contributors to a $20,000 fund to help keep low-income families from being displaced from motels by rising rates during the Democratic National Convention. The motel fund is part of a multi-tier approach homeless services agencies unveiled Monday in anticipation of as many as 100 families being displaced

You are not special… America… here is ugly truth… you are not special. You are not better than anyone else. There is nothing you can do better than anyone else. Everyone is just like you. You are not faster, smarter, prettier, or more special in the eyes man and God. But somehow you still think so. Check this video out... Depressing huh? This young ladies parents are doing her a huge disservice. By telling her that she is good at what she is doing is actually really, really bad for her. It is a false sense of hubris. I can't...

The Department of Health and Human Services last week announced it had awarded a $5.9 million grant to a University of Chicago Medical Center program tied to Michelle Obama and run by Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s closest friends. The Urban Health Initiative, which received the award, was originally based on a smaller program launched during the last decade by Michelle Obama, who was an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center before she departed to become first lady. The UHI is headed up by Obama basketball and golf buddy Whitaker, who has known the president since Obama’s...

Am I the only one who feels utter and total contempt for the so called poor? This is the most free, by far, any country in the history of the world, and yet we have these scum-sucking parasites that have not taken advantage of it, instead they cannot take care of themselves, their children, nor their elderly. When I see a poor person, I am filled with disgust. How can this individual(or group of individuals) live like this and not feel that they have the opportunity just in front of them that the rest of the world would kill for?...

Inspired from a tweet from @GreeneBri. You can see the original tweet here.

The United Nations on Thursday called for a tax on billionaires to help raise more than $400 billion a year for poor countries. An annual lump sum payment by the super-rich is one of a host of measures including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, currency exchanges or financial transactions proposed in a UN report that accuses wealthy nations of breaking promises to step up aid for the less fortunate. The annual World Economic and Social Survey says it is critical to find new ways to help the world's poor as pledged cash fails to flow. The report estimates that...

Engineering Thinking teaches us to challenge our assumptions, because if they are wrong, then our subsequent analysis and decisions will be wrong. The healthcare challenge — it is commonly assumed — is this: how can the government best ensure that the weakest members of society receive adequate health care? This is the wrong question. The reason it is wrong is that it is based on the flawed assumption that the government should be making our health care decisions. As discussed previously (see “Feedback, Prices, And Sullen Spouses“), the government is inherently inefficient, and is therefore the last organization that one...