Poverty to Prosperity......

[HM2VikingRN]

Thirty-seven million Americans live below the official poverty line. Millions more struggle each month to pay for basic necessities, or run out of savings when they lose their jobs or face health emergencies. Poverty imposes enormous costs on society. The lost potential of children raised in poor households, the lower productivity and earnings of poor adults, the poor health, increased crime, and broken neighborhoods all hurt our nation. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to cost our nation $500 billion each year, or about four percent of the nation's gross domestic product. In a world of increasing global competition, we cannot afford to squander these human resources.

...

1. Raise and index the minimum wage to half the average hourly wage. At $5.15, the federal minimum wage is at its lowest level in real terms since 1956. The federal minimum wage was once 50 percent of the average wage but is now 30 percent of that wage. Congress should restore the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average wage, about $8.40 an hour in 2006. Doing so would help nearly 5 million poor workers and nearly 10 million other low-income workers.

2. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. As an earnings supplement for low-income working families, the EITC raises incomes and helps families build assets. The Child Tax Credit provides a tax credit of up to $1,000 per child, but provides no help to the poorest families. We recommend tripling the EITC for childless workers and expanding help to larger working families. We recommend making the Child Tax Credit available to all low- and moderate-income families. Doing so would move as many as 5 million people out of poverty.

3. Promote unionization by enacting the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act would require employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation and establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights. The increased union representation made possible by the Act would lead to better jobs and less poverty for American workers.

4. Guarantee child care assistance to low-income families and promote early education for all. We propose that the federal and state governments guarantee child care help to families with incomes below about $40,000 a year, with expanded tax help to higher-earning families. At the same time, states should be encouraged to improve the quality of early education and broaden access for all children. Our child care expansion would raise employment among low-income parents and help nearly 3 million parents and children escape poverty.

5. Create 2 million new "opportunity" housing vouchers, and promote equitable development in and around central cities.

6. Connect disadvantaged and disconnected youth with school and work.

7. Simplify and expand Pell Grants and make higher education accessible to residents of each state.

8. Help former prisoners find stable employment and reintegrate into their communities.

9. Ensure equity for low-wage workers in the Unemployment Insurance system.

10. Modernize means-tested benefits programs to develop a coordinated system that helps workers and families. A well-functioning safety net should help people get into or return to work and ensure a decent level of living for those who cannot work or are temporarily between jobs. Our current system fails to do so. We recommend that governments at all levels simplify and improve benefits access for working families and improve services to individuals with disabilities. The Food Stamp Program should be strengthened to improve benefits, eligibility, and access. And the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program should be reformed to shift its focus from cutting caseloads to helping needy families find sustainable employment.

11. Reduce the high costs of being poor and increase access to financial services.

12. Expand and simplify the Saver's Credit to encourage saving for education, homeownership, and retirement.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_report.html

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Tim - you keep adding those great quotes! I can't keep up . . .

steph

[pickledpepperRN]

How about we hire people to repair the steam vents, bridges, levees, roads, and such?

Maybe hire people to improve our own communities and nearby areas instead of building bridges to nowhere?

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

How about we hire people to repair the steam vents, bridges, levees, roads, and such?

Maybe hire people to improve our own communities and nearby areas instead of building bridges to nowhere?

Even better idea: how about we take the Federal gov't out of the equation and let the States actually have some room to collect taxes for these purposes. As it is now, the all consuming Federal monster crowds out most other gov't spending.

In THAT way, the States can direct the money to where THEY know it is needed most without the strings that come from the Federal gov't.

The Federal gov't is a monster, and a tyrant. It is a tyrant to individual Americans, and it is a tyrant to the States. THAT is why bridges are built to nowhere.

The more power we take out of Washington and place more local, the better off we all will be.

~faith,

Timothy.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Even better idea: how about we take the Federal gov't out of the equation and let the States actually have some room to collect taxes for these purposes. As it is now, the all consuming Federal monster crowds out most other gov't spending.

In THAT way, the States can direct the money to where THEY know it is needed most without the strings that come from the Federal gov't.

The Federal gov't is a monster, and a tyrant. It is a tyrant to individual Americans, and it is a tyrant to the States. THAT is why bridges are built to nowhere.

The more power we take out of Washington and place more local, the better off we all will be.

~faith,

Timothy.

:up::yeahthat:

[Miss Chybil RN, BSN, RN]

"Those are the talking points, but I have to disagree..."

Of course they aren't talking points. They are inconvenient facts. MW creates inflation and decreases the number of MW jobs. Or, do you really believe that evil businesses are just going to eat the cost instead of passing it along. Hint: passing along the costs of taxations (and gov't mandate is taxation) creates inflation.

You cannot answer this, so you will ignore it: if 2 dollars more an hour is beneficial, then why not 200/hr more? You can't answer it because you can readily understand what making the MW 200/hr would do to inflation and the economy. How can you NOT understand what 2 dollars will do? It will create inflation that will eat away any gains at the lowest level.

Those above the lowest levels will make more gains, as a percentage of their incomes, with MW rescaling. So, they make out modestly better. They do so, however, off the backs of the poor.

MW is an anti-poor reform. It's a feel good philosophy that hurts precisely the population it purports to aid. It's uncompassionate.

It's the job of the gov't to provide a level playing field for opportunity. Gov't can largely accomplish this by getting out of the way. The safety net you refer to was considered by our founders to be theft. THAT is why they told the gov't no:

"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money. . . We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity." - Congressman Davy Crockett, 1830

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison criticizing an attempt to grant public monies for charitable means, 1794

"[i must question] the constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those … who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." - President Franklin Pierce, 1854

OK, maybe THIS guy was a tad hypocritical to this statement, later on: "As a matter of fact and law, the governing rights of the States are all of those which have not been surrendered to the National Government by the Constitution or its amendments. Wisely or unwisely, people know that under the Eighteenth Amendment Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare and of a dozen other portant features. In these, Washington must not be encouraged to interfere." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1930

~faith,

Timothy.

Yes. Talking points. You start to notice them when they're "repeated over and over in order to propel the propaganda."

I noticed your "if $2 an hour is good, why not $200 an hour?" assertion in another post in this thread. I won't ignore it. It is a ridiculous and unrealistic argument and has nothing to do with ensuring the people who work hard for their money earn a living wage. The growing gap between the income of the most wealthy persons in our nation and the lowest earners is proof the CEOs are taking a slice right off the top of their employees wages. (It's certainly not the lowest wage earners making money off the backs of each other. That makes absolutely no sense.) There is no savings here to be passed on to the consumer by keeping the low wages low. The only benefit is to the CEOs who are raking in record salaries, floating around on golden parachutes and in some cases their stock holders might even be making a buck, or two. Nothing wrong with that. I'd argue even the stock holders could make a lot more money, if these robber barons weren't sucking up so much profit for their own selfish, self-centered gains. Costco is a great example of a company that makes money AND pays its employees very well. What a concept. On the other end of the spectrum, I asked a friend I know who runs a construction company how much the price of a home would go up, if he didn't have illegal labor to build the house. He said, "Ha! We charge the same amount for the house no matter what. If I can get cheaper labor, I just get to pocket more profit."

You keep talking about MW being anti-poor, but I and HM2Viking have both posted links to information leading to a different conclusion. What exactly do you have against the poor having a better chance at becoming less poor? Do you feel they will take all the money from the rich? Surely you are not so wealthy yourself as to be comfortably above the dangers of the social Darwinism you so steadfastly promote.

Not all people who work minimum wage are teenagers, or lazy. In many towns around this country, the only jobs available are minimum wage jobs. I could give you a million examples of not lazy people who are stuck in minimum wage, but I will narrow it down to one.

Suzy married her high school sweetheart. She and her husband had three children. Her husband worked at the mine and she worked in the bowling alley to help make ends meet and to help save money for their kids' school clothes, maybe even a little for college. Suzy was a good mom, but she never really did well in school - not for lack of trying - she just had a hard time learning for some reason. Things were going fairly well for this family when Suzy's husband was hit by an uninsured driver on the way home from work. We could say he died and life was hard for Suzy, but let's make it harder. Suzy's husband lived. He's a parapalegic. He gets a small portion of his previous salary for disabiltiy, but it's barely enough to cover rent. Suzy took on extra hours at the bowling alley to get the money they need to cover their other living expenses, but if she makes too much, her husband will lose his Medicaid. She applied for a job at the mine herself - thinking should could get insurance there and a decent salary - but she couldn't pass the test. In a few years, their oldest son will be able to get a job at McDonald's to help out. He was planning on going to college, but now he must stay home and help mom out with dad's care. If they can just make it until then, everything will be alright.

These are some of the people living on minimum wage. I don't get why you don't want them to get any help from the government, (who is us, by the way) for their healthcare, the education of their children, for his disability AND you don't want her to be able to make a couple bucks more an hour at the only job she is qualified to get where she and her family live, because you might have to pay a few cents more for your bowling game?

In your world, I'm sure they deserve everything they've gotten and should, perhaps, dry up and blow away.

Everybody has different values, I guess. And, just why, in your opinion, can the Congress take our money and use it to blow up people in foreign lands, build them schools, office buildings and hospitals (mostly inoperable) and they supposedly can't help out a hungry man here at home? I don't get it, at all.

[Miss Chybil RN, BSN, RN]

Even better idea: how about we take the Federal gov't out of the equation and let the States actually have some room to collect taxes for these purposes. As it is now, the all consuming Federal monster crowds out most other gov't spending.

In THAT way, the States can direct the money to where THEY know it is needed most without the strings that come from the Federal gov't.

The Federal gov't is a monster, and a tyrant. It is a tyrant to individual Americans, and it is a tyrant to the States. THAT is why bridges are built to nowhere.

The more power we take out of Washington and place more local, the better off we all will be.

~faith,

Timothy.

Now, this I can agree with. Does that mean we don't have to pay for wars we don't want, or give welfare to countries who don't need it, and we can keep our National Guard to guard our own nation and if we decide to tax ourselves to cover things such as healthcare we can do that? Oh, but what about states that don't have any money? Do they just dry up and blow away? Maybe, we could sign them over to Mexico?

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Now, this I can agree with. Does that mean we don't have to pay for wars we don't want, or give welfare to countries who don't need it, and we can keep our National Guard to guard our own nation and if we decide to tax ourselves to cover things such as healthcare we can do that? Oh, but what about states that don't have any money? Do they just dry up and blow away? Maybe, we could sign them over to Mexico?

Wait a sec: you object to providing taxation for wars you don't want, but I must pay taxes for charity I don't want?

Hmmmmmm...

It seems like, instead of using the gov't to protect citizens from the abuses of gov't, this is an idea of an interventionist gov't, but only interventionist in ways WE want. So, it becomes important to only have people LIKE US in office.

Of course, that can't lead to anything like a polarized national debate. Or, could it?

Less gov't is best.

~faith,

Timothy.

[Miss Chybil RN, BSN, RN]

Wait a sec: you object to providing taxation for wars you don't want, but I must pay taxes for charity I don't want?

Hmmmmmm...

Like I said earlier, people have different values.

[LydiaNN]

It is the very fact that society does take care of what parents can't or won't that encourages parents to not limit the number of children they have. Why should they,

they can breed like crazy and the taxpayers will take care of things for them. There MUST be an incentive created for people to not reproduce.

And what do you suggest we do with these children in the meantime? Let them die of malnutrition? Condemn them to living in cardboard shacks (and then, of course, refusing medical care when they inevitably contract asthma or TB?) There are always going to be people who milk the system, whether it is having another baby so they get a bigger assistance check or gauging gasoline prices to pad their bank account (not talking about anyone in particular, Mr. Vice President Sir).

[pickledpepperRN]

Less gov't is best.

~faith,

Timothy.

Could you explain what YOU think the role of the government should be?

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

. The lost potential of children raised in poor households, the lower productivity and earnings of poor adults, the poor health, increased crime, and broken neighborhoods all hurt our nation. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to cost our nation $500 billion each year, or about four percent of the nation's gross domestic product. In a world of increasing global competition, we cannot afford to squander these human resources.

Addressing persistent childhood poverty is not charity. From an economic analysis alone it makes sense to intervene and help these children and their families develop the skills that they need to achieve and succeed in our society. But from a values standpoint it is more important to do this because it is the right thing to do. Which future has the greatest benefit to society?

Option A

A parent who takes a job punching a register at a store because any job is better than no job (who qulaifies for EITC, food stamps, section 8 reduced school lunches, child care assistance)

Option B

A parent who has real job skills that allows her to work at a job that earns a real living wage and doesn't need or any of these programs?

Children who grow up in option B are much less likely to become parents who use option A. We have to think beyond our own parochial narrow interests and think about what kind of future we are building.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Could you explain what YOU think the role of the government should be?

Easy.

The Constitution limits the Federal gov't to a few enumerated powers. I would limit the role of the Federal gov't to those powers, AND ONLY THOSE POWERS:

Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, orificenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

That's it.

Hint: charity and gov't restricted healthcare do not appear on this list.

If you read the Federalist papers and contemporaneous quotes, the framers intended for this list to be interpreted very narrowly. It was intended to box up the powers of gov't. Indeed, in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton argued AGAINST a bill of rights because it was unnecessary as the gov't had no power to do any of the things prevented by the bill of rights, in any case. Indeed, Hamilton feared that a bill of rights would give the gov't the crazy thought that it actually had the powers not specifically limited within that bill of rights. Perish the thought!

Our Constitution and Declaration of Independence declare to the heavens that our rights belong to individual citizens, and not the gov't. Indeed, more than that, those documents affirm that they are rights granted to the individual, not from gov't, but by Heaven itself! The bill of rights is just a start of the limitations placed upon gov't. They are limited to only operate narrowly within the confines of the above enumerated powers. Why? To preserve your rights.

Read Federalist 84 as a civics lesson today. It speaks wonders to the issues before us today:

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_84.html

"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights."

~faith,

Timothy.