CONNECT
Campaign For America’s Future / Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 28 August 2012
How about telling the poor you will make sure our government stands between them and the cliff?
Invisible Americans Get the Silent Treatment
It’s just astonishing to us how long this campaign has gone on with no discussion of what’s happening to poor people. Official Washington continues to see poverty with tunnel vision – “out of sight, out of mind.”
And we’re not speaking just of Paul Ryan and his Draconian budget plan or Mitt Romney and their fellow Republicans. Tipping their hats to America’s impoverished while themselves seeking handouts from billionaires and corporations is a bad habit that includes President Obama, who of all people should know better.
Remember: for three years in the 1980’s he was a community organizer in Roseland, one of the worst, most poverty-stricken and despair-driven neighborhoods in Chicago. He called it “the best education I ever had.” And when Obama left to go to Harvard Law School, author Paul Tough writes in The New York Times, he did so, “to gain the knowledge and resources that would allow him to eventually return and tackle the neighborhood’s problems anew.” There’s a moving line in Dreams from My Father where Obama writes: “I would learn power’s currency in all its intricacy and detail” and “bring it back like Promethean fire.”
Oddly, though, for all his rhetorical skills, Obama hasn’t made a single speech devoted to poverty since he moved into the White House.
Five years ago, he was one of the few politicians who would talk about it. Here he is in July 2007, speaking in Anacostia, one of the poorest parts of Washington, D.C.:
“The moral question about poverty in America — How can a country like this allow it? — has an easy answer: we can’t. The political question that follows — What do we do about it? – has always been more difficult. But now that we’re finally seeing the beginnings of an answer, this country has an obligation to keep trying.”
Barack Obama the candidate said he wanted to spend billions on a nationwide program similar to Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children Zone in New York City, widely praised for its focus on comprehensive child development. In the last three years, only $40 million have been spent with another $60 million scheduled for local community grants.
Obama’s White House team insisted their intentions were good, but the depth of the economic meltdown passed along by their predecessors has kept them from doing more. And yes, billions have been spent on direct aid to families in the form of welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers and other payments. What’s needed, as Paul Tough at the Times and others say, is a less scattershot, more comprehensive program that gets to the root of the problem, focusing on education and mentoring. Not easy to do when a disaffected middle class that votes says hey, what about us? — and the wealthy one percent who lay out the fat campaign contributions simply say, so what?
Just a few days ago, The Chronicle of Philanthropy issued a report on charitable giving. Among its findings: “Rich people who live in neighborhoods with many other wealthy people give a smaller share of their incomes to charity than rich people who live in more economically diverse communities.” Responding to that study, social psychologist Paul Piff told National Public Radio, “The more wealth you have, the more focused on your own self and your own needs you become, and the less attuned to the needs of other people you also become.”
Those few who dedicate themselves to keeping the poor ever in sight realize how grave the situation really is. The Associated Press reports that, “The number of Americans with incomes at or below 125 percent of the poverty level is expected to reach an all-time high of 66 million this year.” A family of four earning 125 percent of the federal poverty level makes about $28,800 a year, according to government figures.
That number’s important because 125 percent is the income limit to qualify for legal aid, but although that family may qualify for help, budgets for legal services have been slashed, too, and pro bono work at the big law firms has fallen victim to downsizing. So it’s not surprising, the AP goes on to say, that there’s a crisis in America’s civil courts because people slammed by the financial meltdown — overwhelmed by foreclosure, debt collection and bankruptcy cases – can’t afford legal representation and have to represent themselves, creating gridlock in our justice system — and one more hammer blow for the poor.
We know, we know: It is written that, “The poor will always be with us.” But when it comes to our “out of sight, out of mind” population of the poor, you have to think we can help reduce their number, ease the suffering, and speak out, with whatever means at hand, on their behalf and against those who would prefer they remain invisible. Speak out: that means you and me, and yes, Mr. President, you, too. You once told the big bankers on Wall Street that you were all that stood between them and the pitchforks of an angry public. How about telling the poor you will make sure our government stands between them and the cliff?
16 comments on "Invisible Americans Get the Silent Treatment"
September 03, 2012 10:07pm
In Canada,a country that is said(by it's government)to have dodged the recession bullet.Legal aid is available only to persons who are facing the possibility of jail time.I had to have the prosecution attest to legal aid that they would be seeking jail time for a probation violation once in order to be represented by a lawyer.In the Province where I live,child poverty has been #1 in the country for at least a decade.As a person with a disability I am among the only people in the Province to have had no increase in my income for the last seven years.This while persons single and of employable age have had their pittance increased by $150.As a poor person on disability I know I am lucky to be living in this country,in spite of the hardships.That doesn't make being poor any easier or less defeating to the soul.
August 28, 2012 7:02pm
The poor are superfluous. They are marginal consumers and other than their use as asset generators for mortgage backed securities in the housing bubble, houses from which they've been expelled, they have no value as debtors. As labour is in surplus and there will be more and more of them this poses the possibility of still being able to push back and lower the costs of labour. Even perhaps to the point of work for food and housing on site. Conjugal housing will have to be part of this operation to replenish the work force if it can not be induced in any fashion to serve or be found elsewhere. Of course for all this to happen all social benefits for the working classes and poor must be terminated to produce the desired effect of having them need to work or face starvation, rather than the current situation where they do not work and live at subsistence.
Subsistence living being provided by government must come to an end. Why just think of the increased profits and power. Perhaps they will try to vote us out but we have the electoral college and the courts. It will come as quite a shock to them that their democracy is really at an end and we may have to put down any inkling of protest by whatever means and create the opinion that this is merely a temporary situation because of fill in the blank, threat of war,economic ruin, threat of insurrection. For those that oppose they can be easily disappeared as we've done elsewhere....
August 28, 2012 5:43pm
Teach a person to fish..........But what's more important here is making sure there's enough fish in the pond for everybody! If a few get to catch all the fish for themselves, then what's the point of teaching anybody else to fish when there are none to catch.
August 28, 2012 5:57pm
Well said.
August 28, 2012 5:47pm
Arminius -- I hope you're not as jaded and self-righteous as your words suggest. I am the granddaughter of immigrants and my parents never got more than a high school education. We made do. I now have a Master's degree and make six figures and could lambast the poor for "not trying harder." But I know better.
The welfare system, as convoluted and abused as it may be, still serves *the* most invisible people in the US -- children living in poverty. That has always been and remains at the heart of entitlement programs in the US. The fact that their parents may or may not be employed, are or are not ethical or even healthy does not diminish the horror that these innocents live every day. They *will* learn the game unless someone teaches them otherwise. What are YOU doing to effect that change in our country's youth?
August 28, 2012 1:06pm
Back in the late 1920's and 1930's most people were self sufficient . During the depression , MANY people were impoverished. There was no welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc. , etc. At best there were soup kitchens . Friends and families moved in together and shared . My father;s work hours were cutdown from 40 hours a week to 20 hours . He did not sit back on his butt and whine but went from door to door in more affluent neighborhoods and found odds and ends of work . My parents only had 1 child , myself since that was all they felt they could afford. And yet thru THRIFT and hard work , they eventually succeeded , bought a 2 family house in the late 1930's and by 1945 also was able to buy a summer cottage in the Catskills.
We now hear endless babble about the " underprivileged, " the so called " poor "
Starting back in the mid 1960's with Lyndon Johnsons " Great Society " , the poor have received endless benefits . Welfare , food stamps , housing subsidies , help with utilities , cell phones ,free school breakfast and lunches, ad nauseum . The majority have televisions , radios , refrigerators, washing machines , cell phones , many have computers , automobiles , air conditioning , central heating ; many play the lottery hoping to get rich quick [ with my tax money ] , they actually are RICH compared to the average working man back in the 1930's . They even live better lives than royalty 250 - 300 years ago . Billions of tax dollars have been poured into a bottomless pit since Johnsons Great Society experiment all to no avail. In a high percentage of cases poverty is self induced thru drugs , alcohol , no work ethic , lack of education , out and out LAZY , why work when you can live off the fat of the land . After owning restaurants for 34 years , I found that a fairly high percentage of employees put in minimal effort.
There are some who breed numerous children which they really cannot afford but why be concerned when the state will increase your allotment for each and every child. In the end you receive more benefits from the state than if you would work 40 hours a week at $ 10.00 an hour . Why work when the suckers [ taxpayers ] will foot the bill so that I can stay home , watch televison and drink beer. Life is good . ........Their children will also learn to play the game .
P.S. As a busines man [ who started out with little money ] , I worked 12 hours a day , 6 days a week for 34 years.
August 28, 2012 3:05pm
I admit I am not up to date on present welfare conditions, but it seems to me that you are talking about welfare as it existed in the 1960s, not 2012. I think Clinton ended "welfare as we knew it" during his administration, and welfare now has far more stringent conditions and requirements these days. I know I have read that thousands were moved off welfare to gainful employment, and most were quite happy about it.
My point is, you don't seem to be addressing the present welfare system. Welfare was always the favorite "whipping boy" of conservatives, and I know there were abuses (and I didn't like them either!), but the money wasted on welfare for the poor was just a drop in the bucket compared to "welfare" for the rich, which includes massive subsidies, tax cuts and loopholes.
(And what about all those no-bid contracts given by Bush to his buddies, so they could waste billions of dollars allegedly rebuilding in Iraq what we spent billions destroying? Are you righteously indignant about that, too? And why are we still subsidizing the oil industry when Exxon has had record profits these past few years?)
Far more billions have been given to the rich and corporations than have ever been given to the poor, but the poor are more visible, so it's easier to arouse public ire against welfare for the poor.
I don't think all the abuses you describe actually exist anymore, and certainly not in the numbers you allege. I have never been rich, and never got anything that I didn't work for (heck, I never even drew Unemployment Comp, though Rush Limbaugh did) .
Anyway, I don't envy the poor in our society, though you describe poverty in America as some kind of easy slide into comfort and security. I think you should check your facts and not just recite old conservative mantras that may have had some validity many years ago, but seem woefully out of date today.
August 28, 2012 4:44pm
I agree that the " welfare " for the rich Hoi Poloi is obscene , but all our
" public servants " support these policies . They are obviously bought and paid for whores. As long as we are only allowed to have a choice of one party or the other , we then really have no choice. We are allowed to vote for Tweedly Dee or Tweedly Dum , two sides of the same coin . Both parties are indebted to the Fat Cats who financially support both parties and later are rewarded for their obedience . Both parties are quite happy playing musical chairs and taking turns at power . Same old , same old. The only hope for our country is for us to have a real choice of at least 3 additional political parties. All political contributions should go into a central pot and then be equally distributed to each party so that they can present their case to the voters via T.V. , radio and the printed media. Equal time must be given to all parties in debates. Otherwise all is lost . Our former Democratic country and our former capitalistic system has been infiltrated and destroyed by the Power Behind the Throne . Both Washington and Wall Street are CORRUPT.
Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania
August 28, 2012 12:27pm
"And there's a slow, slow train coming, coming 'round the bend."- Bob Dylan
August 28, 2012 11:31am
@moniqueDC - I'm afraid our meager market doesn't mean as much now that multinational corps have markets like China, etc. They don't need us as consumers as much as they once did.
August 28, 2012 12:30pm
However, even China's economy is not what it once was and Europe is also in recession. So, eventually all of these corporations are going to reap what they have sown. I stand with what Monique says... Companies can't grow without consumers OR without LABOR. With corporations led by people like the Koch brothers out there, eventually they are going to realize that they can't get blood from a stone. They also need to realize there is a symbiotic relationship between corporations and labor. Keep cutting labor or trying to find the cheapest labor and you get what you pay for eventually...
I don't know where the Republicans get this meme about lowering taxes creating jobs, that's just not reality at all. But then, we are talking about Republicans...
August 28, 2012 10:27am
Eventually the pendulum will swing back. The question is really how much suffering will the US population accept before demanding reform.... real reform. Fortunately, a consumer economy cannot operate without consumers.
August 28, 2012 10:03am
Who made these Americans invisible in the first place? Would a general dwell on the number of men he caused to die? Same for corporate CEOs, board members. They are generals of profit and could care less about the loss of anything in pursuit of that goal. Alas, death awaits them, too, at the end of their climb over the skulls of their victims. FORTUNATELY!
August 28, 2012 9:46am
The filthy rich feel morally superior (GOD wants us all to be rich. GOD rewards his loyal servants with wealth and power and punishes sinners with poverty. -- Joel Osteen's self-serving, false prophecy called "Prosperity Theology") and view the poor with contempt.
Republicans preach economic advantage for the rich and privileged and hypocritically claim to be "Christians".
Never mind the fact that Jesus preached social and economic justice for the poor and disenfranchised. (SSE New Testament, Holy Bible, Gospel according to Matthew)
August 28, 2012 9:14am
So many of us simply shrug our shoulders and stay convinced that there's nothing we can do about it except complain to each other.
August 28, 2012 9:07am
Given the way ordinary Americans are increasingly treated by government and its enforcement arms, being invisible just might be a good idea. Of course, if it means you don't get healthcare benefits, food, etc.....that's a problem.