Posted on 09/17/2007 3:32:51 PM PDT by Libloather
Conservative Activist Blames Poverty on Liberalism
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 17, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - Blaming poverty on liberalism and the federal government, a conservative activist on Friday said: "It is very sad what the liberals have done with their war on the poor in this country."
"After 40 years of failure, they still insist that they want to expand this war, that they think they should pour more money into this war," said Star Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. "Already, over $3 trillion has been spent on the war on poverty, and so far, we've not seen results."
Parker said the war on poverty has really been a war waged by liberals on four fronts -- "war on the family, the war on thought, the war on tradition and a war on religion."
"The poverty that we see today is directly related to people having children outside of marriage and then not working to support those children," she said.
"They started with the war on the Black family, and they totally destroyed this family," said Parker at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on Friday. "They spread this message of moral relativism and welfare dependency.
"Lots of liberals got hold of the Black community and started convincing them that there is nothing wrong with dependence on government -- we started seeing the Black family destroyed," Parker said. "We saw welfare policy enter in with rules that say don't work, don't save, don't get married, and we'll fix all of your life problems for you."
She added that the result of the war on poverty for the Black community has been that two out of three pregnancies are ended through abortion, and seven in 10 children are born outside of marriage.
"What are the implications on society?" she asked. "Seventy percent of our incarcerated are coming from these broken homes. Family breakdown leads to government dependency.
"The message of rights and entitlements equals control for liberals," said Parker. "The best thing we can do is to gradually start dismantling these massive entitlement programs of the 20th century."
But Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, told Cybercast News Service: "These statements are not consistent with 30 years of research."
"Poverty remains high, not because of a shortage of effective anti-poverty policy options, but because the public and policymakers have not made reducing poverty a high priority," he said.
"The primary reason that poverty persists is not because the research of the war on poverty planners was flawed, but because the economy failed to deliver the benefits of prosperity widely," Danziger added.
"For the past three decades, economic forces have increased financial hardships for many workers and prevented existing anti-poverty policies from further reducing poverty," he noted.
"The evidence on the changing relationship between economic growth and poverty, particularly the stagnation of male earnings, refutes the view that poverty remains high because the government provided too much aid for the poor and thus encouraged dysfunctional behaviors," Danziger said.
Danziger said income inequality has meant that economic growth has had a limited impact on poverty. "Given current economic conditions, income poverty will not be substantially reduced unless government does more to help low-income workers and those who are willing to work but cannot find jobs," he said.
Danziger added that government intervention, through Social Security and Medicare, has proved to be effective in reducing poverty among the elderly, which is at an all-time low.
I've heard that it's 6 trillion but what's 3 trillion amongst friends?
This is the problem: Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan.
Without the phoney war on poverty this Profiteer would be out of a job. Unemployment rate @4-5% with 20 million illegals working and he says the poor cannot find a job...even with the $3-6 trillion spent on getting their votes!
Go Star, go!
Don’t forget the war on rural America by regulating away rural Natural Resource jobs. We have tremendous poverty in rural areas such as my N. CA county (27% of children below the poverty line) becaiuse of the loss of timber farming, ranching and now mining jobs.
“Conservative Activist Blames Poverty on Liberalism”
Aw come on guys, you know perfectly well that a conservative is a CRUSADER, not an activist!
Git with the program!
On Cavuto tonight an activist all upset about 100 illegals leaving AZ a day. If that frees up lawn mowing opportunities for teens and ambitous people can get a second job to get ahead, that sounds good to me. <aybe the poor can up their output over 16 hours a week.
Star Parker has it right. Danzinger wants to lash a few more dead horses onto the original dead team for more speed.
Star Parker ‘08!
Pray for W and Our Troops
She’s right but I hate to say her message isn’t getting to the ones that need to hear it. Instead of having Star Jones on the cover of Ebony they should have Star Parker. My family has been getting Ebony and I always read Jet when I’m getting my hair done and I had never heard of Star Parker until I heard her on Sean Hannity a few years ago.
Read her book. She is an amazing woman with a moving personal history.
Thanks for that link!!
Yeah, and note that despite Star Jones’ name in the title, her argument is given short shrift... more than half the article is Danziger’s quotes. Which of course amount to, “Three Trillion is NOT enough! You cheapskates!”
How much are we supposed to pay people to be poor? The more we pay... duh, the more ‘poor’ we get! They keep redefining the demarcation line, now it’s what, $24-30K/yr? And when they figure out who is ‘poor’ they don’t include the value of the cash and in-kind aid given by the taxpayers to these ‘poor’ folks... many of whom know a good scam when they see it. I’m sorry but only idiots believe there are ANY ‘poor’ in America in 2007.
THE POVERTY PIMPS' POEM by Thomas Sowell
Let us celebrate the poor,
Let us hawk them door to door.
There's a market for their pain,
Votes and glory and money to gain.
Let us celebrate the poor.
Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction
Flavor our songs and spice our fiction.
Their hopes and struggles and agonies
Get us grants and consulting fees.
Celebrate thugs and clowns,
Give their ignorance all renown.
Celebrate what holds them down,
In our academic gowns.
Let us celebrate the poor.
some charts and graphs on welfare reform:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/summary.htm
I prefer to think of it as extortion (i.e. "pay us and we won't riot in the streets like the Palestenians".)
Thomas Sowell tells it much better in THE POVERTY PIMPS’ POEM. Thanks for sharing, I missed this gem from TS!
Black conservatives are some of the most HEROIC people in the country.....their own people DESPISE them for it.
Star should team up with Bill Cosby and go on tour. They’d make a HECK of a speaking team!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.