The ‘War on Poverty’ will only be lost only if we surrender the fight
By Cliff Montgomery – Oct. 31st, 2012
Ronald Reagan often has been quoted as saying, “We fought a war on poverty and poverty won.”
Which at first glance seems fair enough. But Mr. Reagan clearly forgot that an enemy only wins after you surrender the fight.
Regardless of what Mr. Reagan’s worshipful minions like to tell themselves, our democracy’s war on poverty has scored a number of obvious achievements.
“From Social Security to food stamps to the earned-income tax credit and on and on, we have enacted programs that now keep 40 million people out of poverty,” pointed out Georgetown University Law Professor Peter Edelman in a July opinion piece for The New York Times.
“Poverty would be nearly double what it is now without these measures,” said Professor Edelman.
“To say that ‘poverty won’ is like saying the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts failed because there is still pollution,” continued Edelman.
In his opinion piece, the professor referred to a study released in November 2011 by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) as a basis for his own findings.
That makes sense. The Center is one of the better-known think tanks in the D.C. area. Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein declared CBPP to be 2011’s “Think Tank of the Year,” and added that the Center is the “fastest, fairest, and smartest policy think tank in Washington.”
Here are just two revealing points from the 2011 CBPP study:
[S]ix recession-fighting initiatives enacted in 2009 and 2010 kept nearly 7 million people out of poverty in 2010 — under an alternative measure of poverty that takes into account the impact of government benefit programs and taxes. . .
[I]f the government safety net as a whole — these temporary initiatives (all were featured in the 2009 Recovery Act) plus safety-net policies already in place when the recession hit — hadn’t existed in 2010, the poverty rate would have been 28.6 percent, nearly twice the actual 15.5 percent [Emphasis added].
Of course, there still is one giant problem. Professor Edelman asked it outright: “With all of that, why have we not achieved more?”
“Four reasons: [First,] an astonishing number of people work at low-wage jobs,” Edelman stated in his New York Times piece.
“Plus, many more households are headed now by a single parent,” stated the professor, which makes it “difficult for them to earn a living income from the jobs that are typically available.”
Also, “[t]he near disappearance of cash assistance for low-income mothers and children — i.e., welfare — in much of the country plays a contributing role, too.”
“And persistent issues of race and gender mean higher poverty among minorities and families headed by single mothers,” wrote Edelman.
Keep in mind, the 2009 Recovery Act – which the CBPP found has been essential for keeping numerous Americans out of poverty during the Great Recession – is what Republicans call ‘Obama’s failed stimulus plan’. And the sum total of America’s safety-net policies? That’s what they call ‘useless spending’.
We’ll let readers decide on the truth of those statements.
