Posted on 09/21/2010 10:59:37 AM PDT by upchuck
A plurality of Americans (43%) believe that government programs increase poverty in America. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% of the nation’s adults believe that those programs decrease poverty. Twenty-three percent (23%) say they have no impact.
There is a fundamental difference of opinion on this topic between the nation’s Political Class and Mainstream Americans. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the Political Class believe that government programs reduce poverty. But 56% of those in the Mainstream think government programs actually increase the amount of poverty in the United States.
Thirty-three percent (33%) of all voters say the government anti-poverty programs are at least somewhat effective. Sixty-two percent (62%) disagree and say they’re not effective. This includes seven percent (7%) who believe the programs are Very Effective and 21% who say they are Not At All Effective.
These results come as a new Census Bureau study estimates that 14.3% of Americans now fall below the federal poverty line. That’s the highest percentage since 1994 and the highest number of people living in poverty since the estimates first became available in 1959.
The specific methods for defining and estimating who’s living in poverty have long been a source of contention, but the reported trend is consistent with what Americans see around them. Seventy-five percent (75%) say there are more people living in poverty now compared to 10 years ago. Only eight percent (8%) think that fewer people are living in poverty.
But 55% believe that most people who live in poverty are likely to remain in poverty for the rest of their lives. Twenty-one percent (21%) disagree, and another 24% are not sure.
The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on September 17-18, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Republicans and Americans not affiliated with either of the major parties are more skeptical of government anti-poverty programs than Democrats are.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans and 69% of unaffiliateds believe government programs designed to get people out of power [sic - poverty] are not very or not at all effective. Most Democrats (56%), on the other hand, think they are effective.
Similarly, 62% of Republicans and a plurality (46%) of unaffiliated adults say current government programs increase the level of poverty in the country. Among Democrats, just 25% believe the programs increase poverty, while 39% say they decrease the level of poverty.
If 66% (2 out of 3) Americans understand that government programs increase or have no affect on poverty, we should be alright.
13% Say This Is a Good Thing.
In short, there is no frigging motivation to be otherwise when you get it on a platter.
It takes a lot of effort and determination to rise into a comparable position in the ranks of the supporting class, so why not just skate along and demand your due as po' folk?
It's time we withdrew from the War on Poverty. It's a quagmire unlike any this nation has ever been involved in.
Time was in my city of 250,000 residents we would go a whole year without a homicide. That was until they put up a Section 8 apartment complex. We had two homicides at these apartments this last year. Both drug related.
Time was when “being poor” was a screaming bitch. It was no fun and life was very miserable. Which provided lots of motivation to better oneself.
Today that’s not the case. I interview folks every week who are pretty comfortable living in poverty.
There are enough soup kitchens in town that they can get their “3 squares a day,” missing only two meals a week, breakfast on Monday and lunch on Saturday.
Their monthly SSI check (paid for by you and me) arrives just like clockwork.
There are food pantries to keep their cabinets stocked and clothing banks to keep them dressed.
There are nonprofit orgs that will happily help them pay for utilities (gas, electric, water, phone, propane, even firewood), rent, prescription drugs, eyeglasses, etc.
What’s to worry?
btt
Stay on message. Use your years studying the underlying principles of true “conservatism” as the foundation for what you say—
- that individual liberty is a gift from the Creator, not a grant from government;
- that the United States Constitution is the document by which “We, the People” limit the power which we grant to our elected representatives;
- that you stand for limited government and individual liberty; and,
- that America’s founding principles made the country a place of opportunity for the oppressed, prosperous, a beacon for liberty in the world.
If you stick to principles, and don’t allow your enemies (opponents) to define the campaign as one on “issues,” you will win. The opposition, both Dems and RINO’s don’t understand and can’t begin to compete with those principles.
During the Democrats’ push for the tyrannical power move which they labeled “health care reform,” Sen. Baucus said proudly: “It is a shift, a leveling . . . .”
America’s liberty and prosperity for over 200 years was based on another idea. They protected the earnings of hardworking citizens from the coercive hand of government by a written Constitution which did not allow the Baucuses, Obamas, and Reids of the world such “taking” power. Hear Samuel Adams:
“Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams
And:
“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.”,/i> - Samuel Adams
Americans finally are seeing that progressive policies are ruining the American dream, and they will respond to positive statements of fundamental principles, because, as in 1776 and 1787, those principles are “self-evident.”
I would have to agree with that statement. All too many People just don’t seem to care if it’s someone else’s money they’re throwing around!
57% are complete morons.
Weird that this 43 percent is close to Obama’s numbers...
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