 Everybody
is talking about the poor these days.
That's a good thing. The media
report that the gap between affluent Americans and the
vast majority struggling to survive is growing. Contrary
to what the liberal establishment and its media allies
tell you, even if this is true--how can something always
keep growing?--the disparity between the haves and the
have-nots was not created by George W. Bush.
The poor have been around for a
long time. Pick up the Bible and you can find Jesus
Christ making reference to the poor 2,000 years ago.
"For you have the poor with you always, but me you do
not have always." Matthew 26:11
I think we can all agree that
there were poor people during the eight years Bill and
Hillary Clinton occupied the White House.
The media and the left will tell
you that there are more Americans living below the
poverty line than ever before. That may be the case, but
there are also more Americans than ever as the nation's
population nears 300 million. More people means more
poor, more rich, more white, more black, more Hispanic,
more of everyone.
What the mainstream media doesn't
want you to know is that the poverty rate under George
Bush stands at 12.7 percent, compared to a poverty rate
of 13.7 percent during the same point in Bill Clinton's
administration.
When Bill Clinton goes on TV to
complain that "tax cuts for the rich are the cause of
poverty," he's full of fertilizer. The Bush tax cuts for
the middle class stimulated the economy to such a degree
that more tax revenues are coming into federal coffers
today than at any point during the Clinton
administration. Lower taxes are good. Higher taxes are
bad. All the more reason we need to make the Bush tax
cuts permanent.
John Kerry promised to raise
taxes during his run for the White House in 2004 and was
told by voters to go back to representing the Socialist
Republic of Massachusetts. Hillary Clinton can't wait to
win the 2008 presidential race so she can raise your
taxes. That's all Democrats know how to do - take more
money out of the pockets of working class Americans.
George Bush inherited a mirage
economy from Bill Clinton, who is always bragging about
budget surpluses during his years in the White House.
The reality is that Bill Clinton inherited the windfall
of the Ronald Reagan tax cuts, but squandered it away.
Clinton raised taxes every year he was in office. Where
did all the money go? Why didn't Bill and Hillary
Clinton eliminate poverty when they had all that money
at their disposal? The truth is the Clintons don't care
about the poor.
The federal government has spent
more money on anti-poverty programs during the Bush
administration than at any other point in history. Same
goes for funding public education in America's poorest
school districts. And for all the shameful race-baiting
the liberal media engaged in during Hurricane Katrina,
the left-wing elite can't ignore the fact that black
home ownership is at an all-time high in the United
States and there's a growing black middle-class under
the Bush administration. There are still poor people in
the United States and many of them are black, but the
majority of Americans living below the poverty line are
white.
If memory serves, Lyndon S.
Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964. He pledged the
full resources of the U.S. government to eradicate
poverty. So there's evidence there were poor people in
this country as far back as the 1960s when Democratic
presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon S. Johnson ran the
country. One might ask why we're still talking about
poverty 40 years and tens of billions of dollars later.
The sad truth is that liberals
deliberately work to keep a large sector of Americans in
poverty to suit their political goals. Generations of
Americans have been kept dependent on government
programs and are indoctrinated into voting for
Democrats.
Mona Charen wrote a best seller
in 2004 about this phenomenon - "Do-Gooders: How
Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help." Do yourself a
favor and read the book to understand why we still have
poverty in this country as well as crime, substandard
schools and poor race relations. The blame for these
problems can be placed squarely on the American left.
"Liberals must be called to
account for the real havoc they have created in so many
lives," Charen writes. "They must be asked to offer
something more than good intentions when their actions
lead to disaster. Are liberals truly more concerned
about the poorest and weakest members of society than
other Americans? Or are they simply in love with the
idea of their own self righteousness?"
Anybody who isn't drinking Kool
Aid mixed by Howard Dean knows the answer.
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