ed or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.
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Our Congress has spent more time arguing over mines and yours and acted irresponsi
Having spent the past six months traversing the country, interviewing impoverished Americans about their lives, for an audio archive titledthevoicesofpoverty.org, I feel pretty confident in saying that poverty most certainlyisa problem, perhaps one of Americas largest problems -- certainly one of its most morally urgent. On the site, one can listen to stories such as that ofFrank Nicci, a one-time chef in central Pennsylvania who lost a leg to diabetes, lost his job, and ended up so r in debt that he cant even afford gas money to drive to see his children. One can hearAubretia Edick, a woman in her 60s, talking about working for Wal-Mart and still having to skip meals and only able to minimally heat her northern New York home in winter. One can hear ahigh school counselorin Las Vegas talking about the nearly 200 homeless students she works with in one school.
About 46 million Americans are on food stamps, and millions more are poor enough to qualify but for many reasons are not receiving government assistance -- many literally skip meals on a regular basis. Instates like Texas, approximately one quarter of children live in poverty. Fourteen million people are unemployed, and millions more are out of work but no longer looking for employment. They are euphemistically defined as being jobless.
The problem with Obama is that he came in to office with both the house and the senate. He had a blank check. None of his policies or ideas worked. (Please read article and observe the current economy) So the country voted in a republican house who offered better ideas. Because of his earlier ilures, Obama has little cred to get the same iled ideas passed. Dont blame others, blame the president. This is his watch.
Here are a few ideas Id like candidate Romney to look at as he sets out on his new war on poverty:
Clearly, Romney was being surprisingly candid in the opening part of his statement: In recent years, neither political party has prioritized poverty, nor has either party, wedded as they are to large donations from wealthy donors, really embarked on a serious effort to address growing income inequality in the country or to adequately tackle the national shames of mass homelessness and joblessness that have defined so much of the past half-decade. But, at least rhetorically, the Democratic Party has acknowledged that poverty is a problem, and, over the past months in particular, has tried to include the voices of Americas burgeoning poor in the national conversation about political priorities.
s, middle class is the only cash cow for them. They would like to squeeze the middle class till they becomes poor class.The GOP ideas would devastate the middle class sector and subject seniors, retirees, wage workers and the poor to the disappeari
The number of needy people has just exploded. But if I thought Romney would actually do what he said, Id vote for him over Obama any day.
. Nothing more. You take Romneys comment out of context and presume he has no compassion simply because hes wealthy and a republican
Sasha Abramsky medical office supplies,OBrien seemed somewhat stunned by this admission, and asked the likely Republican presidential candidate to explain. Well, he hastened to say, what he was saying was that he wasnt concerned about the very poor because they had a social safety net to ll back on, and if there were holes in that net he would repair it.
In California, the state that I live in, only half of food stamp-eligible residents are on the federal program. Romney should commit all the might of the federal government to ensuring that the millions of Californians who arent enrolled receive the benefits that they are legally entitled to.
s, middle class is the only cash cow for them. They would like to squeeze the middle class till they becomes poor class. They also do not worry about the rich class, because rich class are always have special considerat
Even in an era of increasingly inane political oratory, Mitt Romneys latest comments stand out. Fresh off his primary win in Florida, an ebullient Romney told CNNs Soledad OBrien, that he wasnt concerned about the very poor in America -- that he washref=choosing to focushis political energies on the plight of middle-income Americans.
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Read this article again. Does it sound like Obama and his people are really helping the poor?
yed Americans need to use the social safety net now, but in many cases, they are prohibited by various rules and regulation
"I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have the safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them. ... And there’s no question, it’s not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. ... My focus is on middle income Americans, retirees living on Social Security, people who can’t find work, folks that have kids getting ready to go to college. These are the people who have been most badly hurt during the Obama years.We have a very ample safety net, and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthen
Finally, theres the problem of the minimum wage, the existence of which is so loathed by large segments of the GOP and its corporate backers. Where many of Romneys colleagues want to end the minimum wage, I have to assume that a man committed to filling in the holes in the safety net is, in contrast, now committed to increasing it. After all, theres something truly ghastly about a large company paying a middle-aged, or elderly worker, $7.25 an hour, and then either not paying for health insurance or the worker pay thousands of dollars a year in premium contributions and co-pays. Romney could end this problem in one of two ways: either support an increase in the minimum wage to something closer to a living wage level, a practice already embraced by several cities and states throughout the country, or support the provisions within the Affordable Care Act that make it harder for employers to opt out of their responsibilities on providing health coverage to workers.
For these millions of men, women and children, their lives are circumscribed by their poverty, in ways that a man who earns tens of millions of dollars a year cannot begin to imagine. For these people, eating a decent meal means sacrificing necessary medicines; paying the rent means putting off buying a new pair of shoes or school supplies for the kids; replacing a blown tire on their car might well mean having to postpone paying the monthly bills and risking the electricity or gas being cut off.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said on Wednesday that hes not concerned about the very poor, citing the social safety net in place for that...
08:56 AM on 02/02/2012In Romneys plans for the country he is proposing cutting funding for food stamps, and cutting billions in medicare and medicaid.T
hat is hardly a way to fix the holes he says he will fix.If you have been paying attention medical office suppliesthe democrats have pushed many bills to help the people of this country only to be filibusted and blocked by republican
e taxes and leaves every other American paying his share to help support programs for the poor. One in nearly 4 children live in poverty while he avoids taxes. Legal or not coupled with his comments its immoral at the highest level. The poor dont want his money or a safety net they want opportunit
In recent years, a huge number of local, state, and federal assistance programs for the homeless have been cut back. Since Romney is now on record as saying he will repair all holes in the social safety net, I look forward, with eager anticipation, to seeing his plan to end mass homelessness in America. Perhaps, come 2013, I will no longer see homeless men and women sleeping under freeway overpasses in virtually every city in America.
Yet even by those meager measures, the Census Bureauestimatesthat over 46 million Americans live in poverty, tens of millions of them in deep poverty, meaning they have incomes below 50 percent of the poverty line. Following the housing bust and financial freell of 2007-8, there are now more Americans in poverty today than at any point in the last half century.
I will continue to eat all those things@HuffingtonPost: 5 foods you should never eat again
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11:47 AM on 02/02/2012I was also stunned by Romneys words. But I dont think Romney quite realized the level of commitment he was .
What a strange promise for a Republican presidential candidate to make, and what a wonderful opportunity for a national conversation on poverty.
e, how can they pay rent? I guess he/she could move into public housing and struggle back.
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07:35 AM on 02/02/2012The first hole he needs to fix is in the tax laws that allow his carried interest provision to avoid his paying taxes on the $100 million dollars hes given his kids. He avoids the lifetime limit, evades inheritanc
... By the way, I’m in this race, because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor; we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling
.
RT @mayorsamadams Great news: Komen Foundation Makes Stunning Reversal via @huffingtonpost
Lets hold Romney to this promise by sending him wish lists for safety net repair. All over the country people are working on problems. The candidate wants to hear about them -- and Americans, en masse, should respond. Write him letters, phone his offices, help him repair the holes.
t parties he throws. Dont write about Romneys presumed lack of compassion or your assumption that Romney means what he says when the president has done nothing to help these people.
s. If all those who needed help got help, the cost would run in the hundreds of billions.
Nationally, the single biggest cause of personal bankruptcy is medical bills. Thats quite a hole in the safety net. Since Romney has vowed to overturn the Affordable Care Act on his first day in office, one presumes his team is already hard at work studying how to limit, rather than increase, the number of Americans plunged into destitution by a broken healthcare delivery system.
ble to effecting the needs of the people. Too much time has been wasted working against the President and the best interest of the people.
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This is the problem with liberals and to be frank with you, the reason why NOTHING ever gets done to solve the problems you mentioned.
Romney, whoearned$42 million in the past two years, and who sits on a quarter-billion dollar personal fortune, has apparently concluded not only that poverty isnt a problem, but that theres no political hay to be made in seeking the support of thenearly 50 millionAmericans whom the government itself defines as living below the poverty line.
Its not every day that a major national political candidate commits himself, on air, to fixing all the holes in the frayed safety net. If only he meant what he so glibly said.
05:46 PM on 02/01/2012I admire your work and where your heart is going with this piece. But its propaganda
Obama is the president. He is the one who promised hed change the landscape of the country. If you want change or help for the poor and the homeless, petition him. Talk about the millions he makes a year or the extravagan
Last year, the Census Bureau estimated that 1.8 million hours workers have jobs that pay the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage, and 2.5 million earn below the legal minimum. After decades of Congressional reluctance to properly raise the minimum wage to reflect the cost of living, these millions of workersremain miredin poverty.
, and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.
ion in their heart. They want to make rich class to super rich class. So in language, Romney would like to think more about middle class; how to extract maximum from them so rich become super rich. For poor, he and his church will take care throwing some meatless bones.
Heres what he said:
RT @fwmj I will continue to eat all those things @HuffingtonPost: 5 foods you should never eat again 
The federal governmentdefinespoverty cautiously. To qualify as poor, an individual has to have access to under $11,000 a year; a mily of four to $22,000.
y he had and his kids have. Theyre just asking for a decent place to live, food, an education and a job that takes them out of poverty.
...
Its the second part of Romneys stumbling interview performance that most interests me, however. In launching an improvised damage control salvo, Romney committed himself, if elected president, to repairing any holes that might exist in Americas social safety net.
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02:11 PM on 02/02/2012Funny. This whole article is blaming Romney for the millions of milies who have become impoverish
02:20 PM on 02/02/2012Romney isnt going to cut either of these programs. Thats the scare tactic leftists would have you believe. Same with the filibuster talk. At some point the left needs to stop blaming or excuses and do something about it.
