From the US Department of Health & Human Services:
I suspect that most US voters are concerned about poverty (don’t believe everything you are told during an election) but where they differ is on how to address the issue. The view from the left is to raise taxes on the rich in order to increase welfare benefits to the poor. The right believe the solution is to get the economy back on track. That would create more jobs and increase tax revenues — which could enable more welfare spending. It is important to avoid the trap of long-term welfare dependency, but the solution is always going to be a compromise between the two extremes.
If Republicans want to be taken seriously by Black and Hispanic voters they need to pay more than lip service to fighting poverty.
Colin
I agree the republicans need to find a way to relate to the poor, to have any chance at the white house. However you of all people know that in the US , political power is bought by the lobbyist’s and left or right makes little difference.
The issue we all agree is that we need more jobs. Some ideas I have heard are:-
1 Scrape minimum wage rates , which sounds fine unless you are someone who has to actually survive at that level.
2 Improve education levels so that the US can sell more expensive stuff to the rest of the world. Problem with that is that much of the world has the same plan.
3 Keep running war’s somewhere ,as it an historically proven way to boost your economy. Problem with this is it is expensive in terms of live’s, treasury , and global loathing.
So it is all very well saying what wont work any idiot can do that.The question is what can we do that will work and people can believe in without the spin.So here are some idea’s
1 Do an honest audit of the assets and liabilities, without all the nonsense about being the best nation in the world.
2 Stop trying to police and control the world.
3 Think as your native people did , which was to think how your action’s will affect the seventh generation.
4 Understand the US is no longer an of shoot of Europe and will never be again.
5 Start talking to people who have a different point of view and try listening when they are speaking , instead of thinking about what you are going to say next.
That will do for a start, however if the US continues down any one of the paths touted by the various political talking heads then the US empire will go the same way that all the other’s have through out history.
Best analysis and comment I have read in a very long time. Amen to you. Spot on.
what is “the view from the left”? … and what is your source for the assertion that it supports an “increase in welfare payments to the poor”? as for the Right believing there is a solution, that’s poppycock. the Right does not want a solution. they want more of the same…and more and more and more.
I am sure there are those on the right who look no further than their own self-interest — the paradox is that tackling poverty is in their self-interest — and those on the left who favor re-distribution of assets. But those are extremes and we should not attempt to tar everyone with the same brush.
poverty will grow to epidemic proportions as the population grows but the production and job base moves to the lowest cost labour countries on the earth – same applies to Australia. It is inescapable. Machines are already taking over skilled tasks in the race for ever increasing shareholder returns. A colleague who worked in a credit ratings agency with a 40 year planning horizon predicted that one day in our lifetimes, Melbourne and Sydney would be filled with inner city high rise building full of unemployed people. We are seeing it now as the future races toward us.
Hi Colin
Your balanced view is spot on in my opinion mate. Both sides need to see the other perspective. We will be a lot better off if they do. The unsuccessful American Presidential Candidate’s remarks regarding 47% of the population showed a distinct narrow mindedness in terms of what solutions he would have used if he had been successful in the popular vote. Having said that, those policies may well have been more successful in getting the US economy back on its feet than the one’s the successful candidate might apply if he can get his way, despite the social dislocation they may also have caused.
What Romney failed to grasp is that the poor don’t want a handout — they want a job. Well most of them anyway.
Your comments have no basis in fact. In my opinion, what the “left” wants is more investment
in education, infrastructure, and clean energy, in order to keep us competetive in the global
economy. Under the present economic conditions, restoring the tax rates on the wealthy to the
rates of 15 years ago seems like the most viable option. What the “right” wants, is to go back
to the Bush policies, which resulted in massive deficits, due unwillingness to raise taxes
to fund the wars.
Does the left want big government and the right want small government? Compare US government spending in 1900, around 10 percent of GDP, to the current 25 to 30 percent. France is still way ahead at 57 percent.
MASTERING THE WORLD IS NOT ACCEPTABLE BY ALL.
Neither is standing aside and watching people suffer from oppression or genocide with the excuse that we are just minding our own business. When people look the other way — either out of fear or lack of compassion — that is when civilization falls.
I think what was written in this article is too silly to be taken seriously. We have an entire generation of republicans who have never seen their leaders support or raise taxes. Is there any other country on earth that this problem? Hell, they don’t even believe in evolution or global warming.
Democrats are the only party that passes major tax increases. It did this under Clinton and will do it again under Obama. Both times the country was drowning in a sea of debt created by republicans. This is the real world that few would dare to deny.
Liberals know the numbers. Conservatives do not. It’s impossible to talk to a republican and say to him, you supported a war that cost $5000 a second, how are you going to pay for it? Instead, we have to treat him with kid gloves because he can’t handle basic facts.
Almost every liberal I know thinks (and knows) conservatives are completely and totally delusional. And when they’re not delusional, we think they act like children. Look at gun stocks after the election (both times). They shot up. These people are sick.
You seem to forget that Clinton promised to lower taxes but was forced to renege on this by Congress.
These exchanges between Democrats and Republicans remind me that we are all primates with just a thin veneer of civilization. All it takes to remove that veneer is an election. Intelligent debate and analysis is discarded in favor of the red tribe v. the blue tribe. Watch the news with the sound off and you will see what I mean.
As did Reagan and Bush Sr.