Free Republic

Top officials with 14 anti-poverty nonprofits were paid as much as $869,900 as their organizations were enriched with $900 million of taxpayer money, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group has found. The activist groups received as much as 85 percent of their revenue from federal, state and local governments and collectively spent millions on lobbying, TheDCNF’s analysis found. Also, half of the charities’ CEOs made political contributions – nearly all of which was to Democratic candidates.

Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, is releasing a major document this morning laying out a conservative approach to reforming federal anti-poverty programs (he’s speaking on it this morning at the American Enterprise Institute). Not all of his proposals are specific legislation and some endorse existing legislation. Roughly speaking, here’s what in it: Offer states the option of a big block grant to replace existing federal welfare programs Ryan proposes a pilot program called the “Opportunity Grant,” which offers states the ability to use the funds they currently get for a range of programs to run individually...

Why Ruin the World's Best Anti-Poverty Program? By Alexander Tabarrok 25 May 2006 Winston Churchill famously said "If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions -- unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three." Churchill, however, was wrong. Brad DeLong worked for the Clinton Administration and regularly calls for the impeachment of President Bush. In contrast, Greg Mankiw speaks warmly of President Bush and headed his Council of Economic Advisors. Readers of their respective blogs (DeLong, Mankiw) will know that no love is lost between these two. Yet, both these economists...

Anti-Poverty campaigner Bob Geldof is the surprise new entry into The Sunday Times list of Ireland's Richest Entertainers, new figures showed today. The former lead singer of the 1970s band The Boomtown Rats takes fifth place in the table, sitting on top of a fortune worth €51m. According to compilers of The Sunday Times Rich List 2006, his shares in his television production company Ten Alps have soared and he also has a €29m stake in reality TV production firm Castaway Productions. U2 scooped first place in the list and are now worth an enviable €690m. Digital and album sales...

This past weekend the Millions More Movement march took place. Well, was anyone there calling for an end to subsistence-welfare? This has done more damage to black families than any sinister plot that some evil racists might have come up with. In the black inner cities of America’s big cities, over 85% of children are born out-of-wedlock. Why? The best evidence points to the anti-poverty welfare state enabling women to support children without husbands, and this welfare state makes it easy for men to shirk their responsibilities. These perverse incentives have resulted in a cultural breakdown in poor black communities...

"What the American people have seen in this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out, and those people who were impoverished died." The above comment about Hurricane Katrina comes to us from Ted Kennedy, who went on to say that the question for Chief Justice-designate John Roberts is whether he stands for "a fairer, more just nation" or will use "narrow, stingy interpretations of the law to frustrate progress." But why stop there? Sen. Kennedy is onto something and, indeed, the question isn't only for Judge Roberts.... That debate has so far largely focused...

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) - Momentum was building behind an anti-poverty drive, as Germany's leader threw his weight behind proposals for more aid for the developing world and Britain's finance minister said public pressure for action could not be be ignored. "I now sense in 2005 that hundreds, then thousands, then millions in every continent are coming together with such a set of insistent demands, that no government, no politician, no world leader can afford to ignore them," Britain's finance minister Gordon Brown said at the World Economic Forum (news - web sites). Brown's intervention came a day after about 1,000...

WATCH YOUR POCKETBOOKS! BONO WANTS TO PLAY ROBIN HOOD!!Rock star Bono made a grab for America's purse strings as a four-nation aid and debt factfinding tour with US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reached South Africa. "He is the man in charge of America's wallet," Bono said of Mr O'Neill. "And it's true, I want to open that wallet." The comment came as the dynamic do-good duo arrived in Pretoria for talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki. "All three of us have a passion for seeing the world's living standard increase quickly for people who have been poor too long,"...