Poor people for Heck

[Westside Steve]

Since you asked, Heck,here are some quick thoughts.

I got no solutions though you did aske for them. "Do the right thing" is glib and not a realistic answer but....

 

First off, to head off one rebuttal, I don’t think poverty is a big problem.

It really isn’t that big a chunk of the GDP and even wasteful or ineffective spending winds up on somebody’s dinner table, usually government workers.

(no secret more of the welfare dollar goes to administrate it than gets to the poor.)

Fair enough, they gotta eat too.

 

Every big society has a percentage on the bottom rung and we’ve yet to see a solution.

 

One thing that contributes highly is the exploding rate of unwed teen mothers.

Multiple kids with no father figure and a mother with low education or maturity isn’t much of a role model.

 

Another is some kind of attitude that makes kids spurn a free education.

The worst public school graduates a percentage of college bound students.

No reason at all to not have a diploma and the ability to speak read write and count.

 

Adherence to anti social stereotypes doesn’t help either.

Black or White you have to choose to speak and look like a hoodrat and pretty much guarantee to offend any potential employer. We all know “poor” people who behave like human beings.

 

And lets be honest, we love to exaggerate every “crisis” there is.

To me, poverty is the bloated stick armed fly covered walking corpses we see in Christian Aid commercials.

Color TV, cable, cell phone, Medicaid and ADC would be benefits of a warlord in the third world.

 

But what bothers me is the idea that it’s always somebody else’s fault and politicians use the poor as pawns every election. And cynically it’s not even their votes they want.

One side gets the liberal guilt flowing over how the mean corporations and fat cats are keeping these poor people down.

The other side scares them by making them think they’d make X more bucks a week but for the huge welfare budget.

 

All bullshit.

 

But in the end, Heck, I can’t think of any program that hasn’t been done before that will have a major impact on the problem.

 

But we can raise or lower the poverty line to make it look different….

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Yeah, can't say I agree with much of that. I don't think it'd hold up to much criticism. But I appreciate you writing back.