Posted on 06/14/2007 2:31:18 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Democrats are trying to make poverty a central theme of the 2008 presidential campaign. John Edwards is calling poverty "the greatest moral issue of our time." He, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and all the rest are advocating policies that ultimately rely on enormous new government outlays that ostensibly would eradicate poverty once and for all.
Such socialism is recklessness cubed. For the vast majority of Americans, poverty isn't permanent. U.S. Census Bureau data shows 7 in 8 Americans who become poor lift themselves out of poverty within two years because poverty inspires them to improve their lot. It explains, as economist Thomas Sowell frequently notes, why 75 percent of Americans labeled as poor work their way up to rich within 20 years.
Poverty ain't what it used to be because it has evolved through the politics of envy from a condition of absolute deprivation to one of comparatively fewer creature comforts. Nearly half of poor Americans own homes; 76 percent have air conditioners; more than half own at least two color TVs and nearly two thirds have cable or satellite TV service. Their most common hardships are late rent and utility payments and obesity. Poverty pimps can deny it all they want, but the reignition of dynamic U.S. capitalism during the Reagan years lifted all boats.
Perversely, government giveaways only make poverty worse. A study of Census data by the Rio Grande Foundation found states that tax the least and spend the least on anti-poverty programs have seen poverty decline in recent years by as much as 9 percent. Conversely, states that tax and spend the most, Connecticut among them, have seen poverty rates jump by as much as 7.5 percent, in part because their faux generosity has made them magnets for people seeking to live off the government.
Longing for a return to the days of LBJ, Democrats want to throw more money at poverty through new and bigger entitlements. They forget America has spent more than $9 trillion on the War on Poverty since 1965 and spends a half-trillion a year on anti-poverty programs. But the money only has bought the culture of dependence, and dysfunctional state and national bureaucracies brimming with overcompensated public employees.
In reality, the number of Americans who go without food, clothing and shelter for extended periods is several magnitudes below small. Society has an obligation to help the certifiably impoverished, not by cleaving to failed socialist polices, but by discouraging behaviors that put people at greater risk of poverty and by creating more economic opportunities for all Americans.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
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I need to print this out and post this at my office (an employment agency). It’s hard to get jobs filled when people get government money to stay home!
And Rudy's going to keep track of every non-citizen in the U.S.
Can we somehow harness the energy from all this hot air?
I fail to understand why this is a good political strategy for the dems, not that I want them to have a good strategy, if many people in this country are actually faux poor and the majority are having to support them, I don't see many people getting all worked up over this, even normal dems.
Of course the hard left moonbats will think it's a great idea, but they are about 10 % of the country
To forever champion the plight of poor people, one has to make sure they never run out them.
I thought GW was the greatest moral issue...
“run out of them”
I'd like to know a source for evidence of those assertions.
University of Michigan study done between the 70’s and 90’s. Can’t remember the exact years.
bookmark
The U.S. Census Bureau and Thomas Sowell. I don't know where Solwell got his info but I don't believe he's in the habit of making things up.
My wife works for the school district at a school in a pretty rough area, where daily she see “poor” people dropping their kids off for government sponsored meals. Dropping them off from their SUV’s while chatting on cell phones.
“But the money only has bought the culture of dependence, and dysfunctional state and national bureaucracies brimming with overcompensated public employees.”
It’s clear, m’Dear, that THIS was the end goal all along. The ‘Rats have done one heckuvajob hiding their true agenda behind useless social programs and expansion of government.
“run out of them”
How ‘bout we just run every ‘Rat politician out of town on a rail? ;)
Everything said in this article is true, but it’s a waste of print trying to convince many Americans who believe that they’re deprived because someone else has a dollar more than they do. I’m not just talking about people in the very low income classes. I’m talking about friends and co-workers of mine who gripe and moan about rich people having “too much”. Naturally they all vote for Dems. And they all have more money than me. Of course if the whiners had that much money, it wouldn’t be too much. Then they’d deserve every penny. To be a Dem nowadays is to feel that life isn’t fair even when life is very good. As it is for most Americans.
Edwards is a spoiled punk!
I have a brother who is quite well off but is so tight he squeaks. I'm fond of telling him, good naturedly of course, that I have more money than he does. It must be true because I have all I need and he will never have enough.
The same could be true of your co-workers and you.
However, it looks like a lot of the statistics has been rather misinterpreted - which is not surprising. A HUGE amount of statistical studies are. I would even say "MOST" statistical studies are probably partly or grossly misinterpreted, in one direction or another.
As the famous old saying goes, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
It looks like the study has meaningful information, but only if you understand what it's really saying. The devil is in the details.
Though it comes from a source that self-labels itself "progressive," the following actually makes sense:
(Source: http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/econandwelfare/sowellsfallacies.html)
One way of reframing the Cox-Alm study is to estimate where the individuals whose 1975 family incomes placed them in the bottom 20% of the family-income distribution ended up after 16 years. The answer is a half-full/half-empty one, common in mobility research: nearly half (47%) of the poor were still at the bottom in 1991, but 6% did make it into the top quintile and one in five made it into the top half of the income distribution.
Cox and Alm's paper was highly misleading because of they way they selected their baseline income.
So it looks like to me that in 15 years, around half of poor families - "poor" meaning lowest quintile of income - are still poor (not far from what I would expect), and around 6% have moved into the top 20% of income (again not far from what I would expect).
Now we can talk about why those half or so of poor families stay poor. And I would say it's a fair observation that there are many things that most of those could do that would change their situation that they don't do. Like stop using the credit cards and payday loans, for one. Stop wasting money on car payments, for another. Save and invest money, for another. Learn new skills, earn instead of watching 30 hours of TV, get better jobs, and so forth. There are pathways to improved wealth that many people simply don't take.
But it doesn't appear to me from the info at hand that "most of the 'poor' become 'rich' within 20 years," nor does that jive with my intuitive, experience-based observation.
Anyway, thanks for the info - it's informative!
Perversely, government giveaways only make poverty worse. A study of Census data by the Rio Grande Foundation found states that tax the least and spend the least on anti-poverty programs have seen poverty decline in recent years by as much as 9 percent. Conversely, states that tax and spend the most, Connecticut among them, have seen poverty rates jump by as much as 7.5 percent, in part because their faux generosity has made them magnets for people seeking to live off the government.
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