Sunday, December 8, 2013

Helping The Poor In America

Since the New Deal and Great Society and now with all of Obama's Socialist Schemes, American taxpayers have spent trillion of dollars trying to eliminate poverty in America in the name of Social Justice.  Yet, the poverty rate today under Obama is higher than is was thirty years ago.   To be clear, poverty in America is not poverty in Africa or India.   Poverty in America often means people living in government subsidized housing, sometimes with air conditioning, receiving Welfare, Food Stamps,  free cell phones, public schooling and medical care, one way or another.  In addition, the working poor also receive the Earned Income Tax Credit.  In other words, instead of paying any federal or state income taxes, they get a tax refund.  So, as the standard of living has increased for all Americans, in the last 50 years, even though the Middle Class is worse off, life has gotten better for the poor in America. 

Even so, the notion that we have 50 million Americans getting Food Stamps and many millions on Welfare and Disability benefits and or getting the Earned Income Tax Credit, sometimes fraudulently should be unacceptable to all Americans given the money we have spent to eliminate poverty in America, such as it is.  Obviously, government programs do not work if measured by the current official poverty rate.  So why throw even more money down this rat hole. 

Conservatives in America need to offer common sense solutions to help the poor in America.   Giving a man a fish allows him to eat for a day.  Teaching a man to fish allows him to eat for a life time.  We need to start with School Vouchers for inner city kids to allow them to escape failing public schools.  We need to convert Welfare into Workfare requiring recipients to either go to a vocational school to learn a trade, or clean up their own neighborhoods in return for the tax dollars they are getting.   We need to put men in jail who continue to father illegitimate children without supporting them.   We need to require that those addicted to drugs or alcohol get clean as a condition for getting government benefits.  We need to commit more government money to grants to both faith-based and other charitable organizations to help the poor break the cycle of poverty.  Clearly, government does a lousy job helping the poor, as evidenced by the current high poverty rate.  Instead of a hand up, government provides a permanent hand me down.  Charities that intervene to break the cycle of poverty can do it better.

Most important, doing same old, same old, spending trillions more in the same ways, is pretty dumb given the results we have seen in the last 50 years.  Government has destroyed the Black family as 7 out of 10 Black babies are born out of wedlock into the Welfare system.  We have to break this cycle.  Education is the key.  As Albert Einstein said, "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.   Government Programs designed to help the poor have proven to be fiscally insane for years.   It is time for real hope and change, not more failed big government Socialist Schemes.  We need Conservative solutions that are measurable, not more emotional arguments that are a road to higher poverty.     

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