Gingrich: Poor kids don't work

CBSNews.com ^ | December 1, 2011 | staff reporter

[Daffynition]

At a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa Thursday, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said children in poor neighborhoods have "no habits of working," no one around them works and they get cash illegally.

[CowboyJay]

"If they have cable TV, they’re not poor."

I know this will be a shocker to you, but most of them don't. We're talking about people who don't have the means to relocate to another part of town, much less to another state. I doubt Newt or most on this board parroting him have ever actually set foot inside an actual housing project or a low-rent trailer park.

I know WORKING PEOPLE in this economy who don't have cable, phone, automobiles, or medical coverage. There is real poverty in this country the likes of which hasn't been seen since WWII.

But hey, Whig Newton's on a roll! Good luck selling that sorry sack to the US public next fall. I'm half-tempted to vote for him in the primaries just for the entertainment value of watching him get smacked-down in the general election.

[GeronL]

Federal Government needs to get out of the school business not create more new government programs. Government jobs programs are the last thing we need in this country.

[aruanan]

The logical place to have gone would have been to draw attention to the lack of jobs caused by Obama torpedoing the economy, the absurd lengths child welfare advocates have gone to keep kids from working, the equally absurd lengths unions have gone to promote a minimum wage in order to keep less experienced people out of the work place and, so, in their theory at least, preserve more jobs for their guys. If there are plenty of opportunities for work available, kids will learn to work. The reason there are not opportunities or fewer opportunities is almost always due to some kind of screwing with the economy by government at some level.

[aruanan]

But it isn't a black issue, blacks from Africa come here and kick butt like the Asians do my friend.

Black youth unemployment is the highest it has ever been since records have been kept. I probably know more blacks from more African countries (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, Rwanda, Congo, Ghana, Burundi, Sudan, and Uganda) than about 99% of the population and I know that opportunities for employment for black youth (whether from Africa or not) in the big cities are very few and far between, especially in certain parts of those cities.

[GeronL]

we don’t need a new federal government “jobs” program.

we need government out of the way.

[ctdonath2]

Um...that doesn’t contradict what I said.
If they have cable TV, they’re not poor.
If they don’t, then maybe they are.

If you have the means to pay rent/mortgage, you have means to move. Might not take everything with you, might sell most of what you have for the funds, might just walk out and get on a bus to someplace else.

Yes I’ve set foot inside such housing. While fixing their stuff they were breaking other stuff and asking me to fix it. Poverty, on the whole, isn’t lack of funds - it’s lack of will & morals (legislatures making functional poverty illegal doesn’t help).

I grew up without cable, with limited phone, with limited automobiles, dunno about medical coverage. We grew half our food, and were frugal about the rest. We split wood for heat. We made & mended clothing. I’m hard-pressed to see what problems they’re actually having, because I lived what they need to do and don’t consider it a problem.

See my tagline. This subject is WHY I have that tagline - a way to help.

[Daffynition]

LOL...don’t get me started on the *Ameri-corps program*. GRRRR!

[redgolum]

Unfortunately, I have seen this situation many times.

To often the parent/s will turn on the kid, because he is making them look bad. I know of a few cases were the motivated child was kicked out on the street, for fear that the mother would loose welfare.

Often though it becomes a guilt game. The son feels he has to pay for his parents habits. Not a good situation, I hope the kid is ok.

[redgolum]

Some do.

Many have their families attack them for trying. I grew up in the Midwest, and left for a job. There are no real opportunities for me at home, but my parent spent years making me feel guilty for leaving the farm (which went bankrupt).

In some places, the people bring the hellhole with them. Take a kid from the trailer park or ghetto to the suburbs, and he will be the same there as he was.

[Georgia Girl 2]

He’s not talking about govt jobs.

[Sidebar Moderator]

No spamming, please.