Surrendering the War on Poverty

Back in the day, conservatives used to ridicule us dirty fucking hippies for labeling property a crime.

What we need today is ridicule of conservatives for making poverty a crime.

Down with Tyranny:  

http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=158141728&m=158140288&t=audio

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Over the weekend I was driving to meet a friend for dinner when a report came on NPR about America's poverty-stricken-- something like 100 million of us-- a group that is basically ignored by politicians. You can listen to the whole eleven-and-a-half minute report above. Poverty in America used to be about white people and the elderly. There was more political will to solve it. Now that the face of poverty is less white and more about children and single mothers, hearts have hardened and politicians don't want to see it.

This is an awkward thing to talk about, but at one point I started a small company of my own, worked hard, got lucky, climbed the ladder and retired a wealthy man. Far wealthier than my parents had ever been. In fact, financially-speaking, there was nothing my parents could do to help me once I graduated from high school and took out loans to go to college. From that time on, it was Uncle Sam who helped me-- first with the loans, later with the food stamps. I don't think I would have ever succeeded without a helping hand from government. Later, there were years I paid over a million dollars in taxes. No one enjoys that. But I never, ever, ever begrudged it either. I was doing well for numerous reasons, but one was certainly the government. Not everyone saw it the same way that I did. Many rich people discount luck and discount what government does when they think about their own success. And the conservative movement certainly encourages that mindset and encourages a negative view of people living in poverty. While I was struggling to keep my own business afloat Reagan was president. In 1988, in a State of the Union address, he declared that the war on poverty had failed. How would he know? The Mob kept him going through easy times and hard times. The NPR report interviews poverty expert, Georgetown University Professor Peter Edelman to refute conservatives' claims that the War on Povery has failed.

"One reason is we're still in a recession," Edelman says. "We've had a change in our economy over the last 40 years that has produced a flood of low-wage jobs."

One half of all jobs in the U.S. today now pay less than $35,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation, that's one of the lowest rates for American workers in five decades.

There's a common perception that somebody who's poor or living below the poverty level is lazy or simply living off government handouts. Edelman says the actual average poor person is working.

"And working as hard as she or he possibly can," he says. "And particularly in the recession, not able to get work or steady work. There are certainly people who make bad choices, but the fundamental question in our economy is the number of people who are doing absolutely everything they can to support their families--and they just can't make it."

Earlier today we looked at how out of touch Romney and the GOP are with women and their lives and concerns. The 100 million poor Americans aren't all Democrats. But Romney and the Republicans have no way of relating to them whatsoever (other than in trying to disenfranchise them), at least not in economic and financial terms and the Democratic Establishment either takes them for granted or condescends to them entirely.

Wars on nouns - Poverty, Drugs, Terror - fail because they focus on the wrong target. The cause of poverty isn't poverty. The cause of poverty is lack of money by poor people. And the cause of poor people lacking money is rich people stealing it. The solution is forcing rich people to give it back.