Rhetoric versus record

Politics and poverty

By Tommy Owens
From the December 2005 Print Edition

Former senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in the Pauley Ballroom on October 25. He toed the liberal line on the issue of poverty, especially in regard to inner cities and the response to Hurricane Katrina. What Edwards failed to mention is that his policies — throwing money at problems with no accountability, and strengthening a state of laissez-faire social policy — are already codified law in this part of the country.

Nationwide, 48.3 percent of Americans voted for John Edwards and John Kerry in November 2004. In Alameda County, where Kerry and Edwards received 75 percent of the vote, liberal social policies have prevailed for decades. Democrats, Socialists, left-wing independents, and Greens have a monopoly on the government in and around Berkeley. Enormous sums of city and state funding goes toward curbing urban poverty and homelessness — but to what avail?

Take a walk down Bowditch Street by People’s Park, drive down Market Street in San Francisco, or ride around East Oakland to find the clearest evidence that Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee and Mayors Gavin Newsom and Tom Bates are not doing enough to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves. A simple visit to these officials’ Web sites will show their interests are elsewhere; Lee and Pelosi concentrate mostly on attacking the president and the GOP Congress, while Newsom and Bates are concerned with other civic projects and ribbon-cutting events.

On the right, President George W. Bush and Senator Rick Santorum are fighting hard for new initiatives to solve poverty — initiatives that congressional Democrats and their local constituents rabidly oppose.

Bush wants to release the “armies of compassion” of faith-based organizations, backed by federal funds, to address what the government has demonstrated it is unable to remedy. It is just another American army, seeking to make this country a better place, that liberals cannot stand. In addition, keep in mind Bush’s $200+ billion reconstruction project to repair damage done by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. If Bush doesn’t care about African-Americans or the urban poor, why is he spending so much money to rebuild those communities?

Santorum, in his book It Takes a Family, proposes that government subsidize, not punish, socially beneficial actions. Santorum rightly argues that establishing a small business, getting married, having a child, or establishing a privately run charity is good for society. He proposes substantial tax cuts to encourage others to take actions in this manner. Big government — “the village,” to which Senator Hillary Clinton assigns such high value — only desires to tax those actions to raise more revenue, which thereby discourages those actions that strengthen families and communities. Current government policy and social attitudes espoused by Edwards and the like perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

San Francisco had 6,428 persons living without a home earlier this year, according to sfgate.com. Berkeley has 500 youth homeless. Is this progress? Is pure, unadulterated liberalism as found in San Francisco and Berkeley truly making headway? Or do our local politicians blame the governor and president for their own problems in order to grandstand for their radical constituencies? In conservative Austin, Texas, there are only 600 people without homes, as reported by kvue.com; Austin is nearly as large as San Francisco. I concede that the GOP has not done enough in recent times to solve urban poverty, but have Democrats done even a mediocre job up to this point? Does the rhetoric about how Democrats represent the poor and underprivileged match their record on paper?

Face the facts: Lyndon Johnson’s 40-year War on Poverty has completely failed — we need to move on. Should we give them another 40 years to try it again? How many more babies have to be born poor before we step up to the plate? Throwing more money, and not more accountability or reform, into the system will only perpetuate the cycle of urban poverty. The Republican Party of Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan did not have an adequate solution toward fighting inner-city evils like drug addiction, poverty, infant mortality, AIDS, or broken families. But the Republican Party of Bush and Santorum is quickly gaining ground on the Democrats, who have long taken the votes of poorer Americans for granted.

I have only been alive for 19 years, but I understand something some folks twice my age do not: Actions speak louder than words. I find people who actually volunteer their time to community service, donate to legitimate charities, and lead lives of example to be doing a greater service to their neighbors than those who merely complain about society’s ills and exploit popular passions for political gain. Edwards, Pelosi, Bates, Newsom, and Lee all fall into the latter category. President Bush, a vehement proponent of an “ownership society,” cares more about African-Americans — no, all Americans — than most any “social activist.” The GOP has been silent for too long on these issues, but its ideas are quickly gaining on those from the “Party of No.” The popular myth that liberals are always superior to conservatives in regard to urban poverty and homelessness is as erroneous, gilded, and deceptive as a John Edwards smile.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting the Patriot