Poverty

Poverty

© 2014 Rick Adamson

By Rick Adamson 10.20.14

Updated 9.14.18

Paul Ryan, House of Representatives, Republican from Wisconsin, with the help of Bob Woodson (an African-American community development leader and founder and president of the Woodson Center) has been studying the poverty problem for some time and for more than a year they have been conducting field studies in order to better understand the issues and try to come up with solutions.

Woodson has been helping underserved communities since 1977, or before, and  in 1981 he founded the Woodson Center in order to continue that work.

Ryan recently presented a plan in a new report entitled Expanding Opportunity in America. The plan has been criticized by some on the left. After all, Mr. Ryan is a conservative and they think he must be trying to hurt the poor.

Here is a link on such article from The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/the-outdated-assumption-behind-paul-ryans-poverty-plan/375249/ .

You will note that they (the many articles written about Ryan’s proposals) all contain criticisms of various aspects of the plan but never offer alternative solutions. Rather, they imply that the status quo is better. Any thinking person knows that the status quo has not worked and that it is easy to offer criticism but it is hard to offer alternatives.

Here is a link to a positive review of the plan: 
         
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/08/13/jay-ambrose-gop-war-poverty/14023441/ and another:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865607909/Paul-Ryans-promising-anti-poverty-plan-should-be-welcomed-to-world-stage.html?pg=all and an updated one:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/politico50/2014/bob-woodson-22.html#.W5wlvdQrI5s

So we have a plan being offered by a thoughtful family man who sleeps on the couch in his office and showers in the gym at the Capitol. He is not a wealthy man and does not want to spend money on a fancy place in Washington, D.C. He does not party and raise hell all the time like many of the other members of Congress. I think he actually cares about people.

Ryan claims that the 50 year old war on poverty has been lost. Probably due to inefficiency, duplication and complication that FedGov brings to every problem it encounters. The poverty rate remains about the same even though spending has increased from $0 in 1964 to approximately $1Trillion today. Just take a look at this chart:

It is not that we shouldn't have welfare programs, it is that we should not be wasteful and that we make sure they are targeted and effective. Just last year (2013), Washington spent roughly $668.2 billion on 126 poverty-fighting programs, "an increase of more than $193 billion since Barack Obama became president," Tanner writes, a sum that "is roughly two and a half times greater than any increase over a similar time frame in U.S. history.

Ryan wants to have FedGov oversee the programs but to have the States run the day to day operations in exchange for block grants. He thinks this gets the government closer to the people and he also advocates assigning advisers (recipient advocates) to each person receiving public assistance so as to assist the recipient to move from where they are to where they want to be. The advocate would assist the recipient in documenting the recipient's goals, (i.e., GED, drug counseling, technical or vocational training, etc.) along with a reasonable timetable and would help secure the necessary public assistance required by the recipient to achieve their goals.

The so called "case management" approach taken by Ryan has gotten a lot of criticism. Some say it is an intrusion into a person's life, others say it is too expensive. Well let me just say to all of you who have jobs. YOU are involved in case management in terms of performance reviews, reviews for pay increases, peer reviews, etc. If it is good enough for working people it is good enough for poor folks trying to get off the dole. Further, nothing can be more expensive than retaining the status quo!

Here is another link that is critical of the proposals:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/24/paul-ryan-poverty_n_5616609.html

If not this plan then what are we to do about poverty?  What is President Obama’s plan? What about Rev. Sharpton’s or Jesse Jackson’s? You see, they do not have any plans. It is just more of the same.  Hand outs and enslavement. Well, we cannot afford the failing status quo.

Any new approach will have to address the cultural problems we have. It needs to be acknowledged that our Constitution guarantees certain rights. However, it does not guarantee that our feelings will never be hurt.  It does not guarantee us an income, 3 squares a day or clothes for our backs, a car or a TV. These things require effort.  

It is my hope that we can reform the system so that opportunity for advancement can be provided to everyone who puts forth that effort.

We must get past the persecution mentality that exists in some communities. Tremendous progress has been made to provide equal protection to all in the USA. Yet we still have poor folks whose lot has not improved over the past 50 years or so.

Why is that? Is it because our society is a white entitled society? What about the poor white folks?  Further, if that is so, how does one explain the success of Asians in the USA? It's cultural!

As Martin Luther King once said “We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world, too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves."

"I know black contractors who have gone out of business because their black workers were not prompt or had negative attitudes. I know black workers who take pride about going to work any hour they feel like it, taking the day off when they feel like it. . . . Many leaders who are black and many white liberals will object to my discussing these things in public. But the decadence in the black community . . . is already in the headlines; the only question is what we should do about it." Jesse Jackson in 1976.

I hope it is not the case but there may not be a solution. Obama, Sharpton and Jackson offer no solutions. They just complain, whine and continue to promote victimization. We are to the point now where most politicians may have given up on solving the problem and just provide more and more free stuff in order to assure votes and enslave the people.

Therefore, I propose that we jump on Ryan's ideas and give them a try. In addition, we should establish a National goal of having a job for every able bodied legal resident. Our goal should be to eliminate poverty for all who want to participate by providing job training/education and incentives so that everyone who wants a job can have one.

If we could become satisfied that we have accomplished this goal we could then feel less sorry for those who fail to put forth any effort and elect to remain poor and without work.

I would be very happy if no one in the U.S.A. ever had to suffer through being poor.

Let’s give it a shot. Thank you, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Woodson.

And That's that!