One of his Two Americas is Fantasyland.
To win elections, Democrats have to invent poverty.
That's why they make no serious proposals to solve the problem.
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Posted on 08/30/2007 5:52:20 AM PDT by OESY
The Census Bureau announced Tuesday that 36.5 million Americans are "poor." Presidential candidate John Edwards claims these 36.5 million Americans "do not have enough money for the food, shelter and clothing they need." According to Edwards, poverty is an appalling national "plague" forcing "one in eight of us" to live in "terrible" circumstances.
But, if poverty means (as Edwards claims) a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing and clothing, then very few of the 36.5 million people identified as "poor" by Census are, in fact, poor....
According to the government's own data, the typical person defined as "poor" by the Census has cable or satellite TV, air conditioning, a microwave, a DVD player or VCR, and two color TVs. Three quarters of these "poor" own a car and nearly a third have two or more cars.
By his own testimony, the typical "poor" person consistently has enough food to feed his family and enough money to meet all essential expenses such as mortgage, rent, utilities and important medical care. When asked, he reports that his family was able to obtain medical care whenever needed during the past year....
Father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes. Another 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock each year. If poor single mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty.
While work and marriage are reliable ladders out of poverty, the welfare system remains perversely hostile to both. Despite welfare reform, major programs such as food stamps, public housing and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage....
Immigration also plays a major role in U.S. poverty. Each year, our nation imports hundreds of thousands of new poor persons....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Work and marriage do the most to eliminate poverty.
Government programs and illegal immigration increase poverty.
The GOP needs to shout it from the rooftop.
As someone who grew up in rural South Carolina in the 60’s, all I can say is “What poverty?”.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon every democratic politician to exaggerate or even invent issues and propagandize the tragedy of this American condition of misery, so as to feed a media bent on liberal ideology and leadership for socio-political agendas.
Mr. Edwards would like all of us to be poor. That way, the poor disappear.
Great idea, huh?
Perhaps he intends to weld thousands of SUVs together to provide low income housing for “the poor”?
I have been driving by a large low income housing project in Boston for years. Just last week for some reason I started to notice the types of vehicles parked on the street next to the project. About 75% of the vehicles were newer than the 2000 F150 I drive and will have to drive for a few more years.
“Terrible conditions” defined as what? Mud huts? No clean water? Get real.
Whenever I see something like this I am reminded of this line from A Patriot's History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen.
"Advances were so rapid that after a visit to the South in 1958, North Vietnamese commisar Le Doan returned with alarming news that conditions in the South were improving at such a pace that in the near future insufficient sentiment for a communist revolution would exist.
Here was the communist bottom line: their cause was only advanced out of misery, and when average people improved their lot, communism came out a loser."
Well here we are back to that old tired democrat theme of poverty.Last election it was no stem cell research by the mean Republicans and before that it was ‘three out of four people were homeless’, then everyhing was for the ‘children’ and old people were eating dog food, round and round, democrats are like a dog foolishly chasing its tail.
One thing Democrats never promote is marriage. The base of Feminists and gay-lesbians won't let them--not to mention the rest of the party faithful, gullible, pathetic and apathetic. Paraphrasing Ann Coulter, keeping your legs together before marriage might the single most important thing to do to avoid poverty. It's easy to see the conflict with the liberal message. Beyond that, in a sense, marriage acts like economic household insurance so that if one is laid off, the couple does not lose their entire source of income.
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Her full quote: “I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”
So women should all break out their kneepads. Sorry Nina, I think we’ll pass on your “blow the President” suggestion. Not all American women live by your standards - or lack thereof....”
— Carolyn Gargaro & Stephanie Herman - Rightgrrl Founders, July 10, 1998, http://www.rightgrrl.com/sexforacause.html
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bfl
I once lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the state of Oregon, at the base of the 12th Street hill in southeast Salem. My apartment complex on Peace Street (*irony alert*) was filled with actual gang members, Section 8 moms, and alcholics. They were fat and had enough money for really good dope, and, yes, they had cars, TVs. VCRs, stereos, good furniture, nice clothes, etc., etc. They also bitched and complained about the rich.
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