Posted on 08/28/2003 9:31:36 AM PDT by TastyManatees
Gauthier: The poverty Bush can't grasp
By Deborah E. Gauthier
Thursday, August 28, 2003
President George W. Bush supposedly said, at one point in his campaign three years ago, that he "didn't understand how poor people think."
So according to the New York Times, he asked for the help of the Rev. Jim Wallis, who was director of Call to Renewal, a group of churches that fight poverty. At the time, Bush described himself as a "white Republican guy who doesn't get it." And he wanted to "get it."
Wallis was initially taken with Bush's "compassionate conservative" views, particularly the proposal to provide federal funding for faith-based programs. Wallis now labels Bush a failure.
What did he expect? Did he think that Bush, after serving up a few bowls of soup at a homeless shelter, would immediately understand the utter hopelessness that comes with being what my mother described as dirt poor? Bush will NEVER understand what it means to be poor.
He may have had to struggle for passing grades in school. He may have had to struggle with alcohol addiction. He may have had to struggle as a parent, as a husband, as a business owner.
But he's never had to struggle with poverty -- the kind that drives the most hopeful and ambitious of people into a deep hole of depression from which there seems no escape.
His grocery store has never been a food pantry. He's never gone a night without electricity because he couldn't pay the bill, or watched his children shiver in the cold because the oilman wouldn't make a delivery until an overdue balance was paid.
He's never had to cross his fingers and hope his rotting car passes inspection. His daughters, unless they're into vintage, have never shopped for clothes at the Salvation Army. He's never had to worry that there'd be nothing under the Christmas tree for his kids. And it's highly unlikely that Jenna and young Barbara Bush applied for federal loans to pay for their college education.
Bush has never had to live a day without hope.
The financial report Bush filed shortly before his election indicates he has three checking accounts. At the time, the one with BankOne had a balance of between $1,000 and $15,000. The other two, with Wells Fargo, had balances of between $15,000 and $50,000 and $50,000 and $100,000.
He's also got an impressive number of Treasury Bills, some of them valued at up to $1 million. And he has many, many stocks and bonds.
He listed as a gift from a friend a $300 briefcase. It must have been a very good friend.
The signature legislation proposed by President Bush when he was first elected is one that promises that every child in the United States will receive an adequate education. The rallying cry is "No child will be left behind." It's an admirable proposal, if it were possible.
Unfortunately, it doesn't go to the root of the problem, and that problem is poverty.
Of course, children must be educated. But first they must be fed. They must have health care. They must have dental care. They must have sensibly-priced day care and pre-school programs so their parent(s) can provide the things that make up a hopeful household.
But hundreds of thousands of children in the United States have none of those things. To Bush they are statistics. Doesn't he know that a child who is hungry, a child with a toothache, or a child who is sick, can't learn? Doesn't he know that the $400 check he sent parents for each of their children this summer doesn't even touch the surface of the problem?
I watched a movie a few weeks ago. It was an old, black-and-white flick about a rich man who wanted to understand the life of a hobo during the Great Depression. So he dressed himself in dirty, old clothes, hopped a train, and lived on the other side of the tracks for a while.
At the end of the journey he had a pretty good understanding of what it meant to be homeless, unemployed, and forced to beg for a slice of bread.
Maybe that's the answer. Each of the forward-thinking men today who believe they are qualified to lead this country should first spend a year living in a run-down, overpriced apartment, working in a low-paying job, and struggling to make ends meet.
They would soon know what poor people think: That the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, another one of my mother's often-used phrases, and that life for the poor and middle-class is a never-ending struggle that gets a little harder every day.
President Bush wants to understand how poor people think, but he never will because he's never walked in their shoes. And the same can be said for most of our high-profile politicians.
And that's a shame because in the knowing would come understanding, and in the understanding would come sensible, logical, common sense programs that would truly ensure that no child is left behind.
Deb Gauthier can be reached by e-mail at dgauthie@cnc.com.
So much for ethical reporting. (An oxymoron?)
But if they have a sense of justice, they will govern justly.
Ted Kennedy has no sense of justice. This is why he can make himself deaf and blind to the slaughter of babies. The same goes for Arnold.
And the "pro-life" politicians--if they were not all frauds, they would long ago have removed abortion from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The fact that they don't even talk about the REAL remedies for the Court's abuses, and instead talk only about amendments that haven't a prayer, and "changing the Court" through the glacial process of new appointments, shows that they are totally unserious.
As for poverty: Only when ALL children are free from the socialist, atheist, tax-supported (i.e., theft-supported), government schools, will the worst poverty be alleviated.
I watched a movie a few weeks ago. It was an old, black-and-white flick about a rich man who wanted to understand the life of a hobo during the Great Depression. So he dressed himself in dirty, old clothes, hopped a train, and lived on the other side of the tracks for a while.
Good movie, if she's referring to Sullivan's Travels. Would it have taken too much effort for her to name it?
Even a far-left, (il)liberal idiot has a great idea every once in awhile. We'd probably never have another 'Rat President again if this were actually enacted. Bush could clearly have managed this, but can you imagine Prince Al working at minimum wage for a year, say busing tables? The waitresses would take him out back and beat him to a pulp after a few hours of incessant whining, if he weren't fired first.
I think "Deborah" is probably not a "guy," but it can be hard to tell with the lefty hand-wringers.
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