Surprising facts about America’s poor. Instead of Mitt Romney and John Burris being out of touch, it is Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times that is out of touch. Take a look at this article:

In his address to the joint session of Congress last week, President Barack Obama called for $477 billion in new federal spending, which he said would give hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people hope and dignity while giving their low-income parents “ladders out of poverty.” And today, the U.S. Census released its annual poverty report, which declared that 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. What President Obama didn’t tell America as he was pleading for more spending–and what the Census Bureau didn’t report–is what it really means to be poor in America.

In a new report, Heritage’s Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield lay out what the U.S. government’s own facts and figures really say about poverty in the United States. The results might surprise you, especially if your view of poverty is the conventional one, perpetuated by the media–namely, destitute conditions of homelessness and hunger. In reality, though, the living conditions of those defined as poor by the government are much different than that popular image. The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau:

• 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning
• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television
• Two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR
• Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation
• 43 percent have Internet access
• One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television
• One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo

As for hunger and homelessness, Rector and Sheffield point to 2009 statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food, 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat, and over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless, with 42 percent of poor households actually owning their own homes. Want an international comparison? The average poor American has more living space than the average Swede or German. You can read even more of those facts in their report, “Understanding Poverty in the United States.”

None of this is to say that the poor have it easy. Sadly, one in 25 will become temporarily homeless during the year, and one in five poor adults will experience temporary food shortages and hunger at some point in a year. But exaggerating the conditions of poverty does not do America any good, as Rector and Sheffield explain:

The poor man who has lost his home or suffers intermittent hunger will find no consolation in the fact that his condition occurs infrequently in American society. His hardships are real and should be an important concern to policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.

Those exaggerations about the symptoms of poverty don’t solve the root causes of the problem, either. As Rector and Sheffield write, “Among families with children, the collapse of marriage and the erosion of work ethic are the principal long-term causes of poverty.” In order to truly benefit the poor, they say, welfare policy must require able-bodied recipients to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. And it should strengthen marriage in low-income communities, rather than ignore and penalize it.

Poverty is a serious problem that requires serious solutions. But policymakers and the public need accurate information about what poverty in the United States really means. Only then can they implement the right policies to help those Americans who are truly in need.

Video below from Blue Arkansas Blog:

Occupation of Clinton Presidential Library / Occupy Little Rock / LRPD Agrees With Occupation

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I enjoy reading the Saline Courier and there is a writer by the name of Clark Hopper that writes from a liberal perspective. He is the chairman of the Saline County Democratic Party and has been involved in politics in the county for many years.

I come from a conservative perspective, but I am always glad when a healthy debate can take place in a civil way. Hopper’s past articles have all been consistently logical from the liberal point of view and I hope to provide a conservative response on this occasion.

During the last few years I have helped conservative candidates in their campaigns by word of mouth and making phone calls. I have learned that it is very difficult to get volunteers to man the phones and go door to door or hold up signs. People are just too busy and very rarely can candidates get people to do things like this. However, in the last couple of years the most faithful volunteers for conservative candidates have come from the Tea Party ranks.

Tea Party members are upset at the bailouts which were available because of cronyism and they are very mad about all the federal deficit spending.  Tea Party members blame the politicians in Washington D.C. primarily responsible for these deeds.

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According to the article, “Peaceful rally gives people right to  express opinions,” Oct 22, 2011, Clark Hopper and his wife recently took part with 300 other people in the Occupy Little Rock March that took place on Oct 15, 2011 that began at the Riverfront Park amphitheater and ended up at the Capitol after stopping at the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, several banks and the Federal Building. The marchers chanted, “The banks got bailed out and we got sold out.”

Hopper noted:

It was really nice to be surrounded by people with the same thoughts of what is wrong with America and what is needed to correct its course. Americans have had enough of corporate greed as witnessed by the occupying of Wall Street and other marches taking place across America…

Corporations are not seeking consent to take wealth from the people, or the earth…This comes at a time when corporations run our government and place profits over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality….Those holding great wealth versus those living in poverty in America is way out of balance…

I think that unlike the Tea Party which is focused on just a full issues, the Occupy Wall Street crowd really is not sure about what direction is heading yet. Nevertheless, there are some statements and actions of their members that I would like to comment on.

First,  I wonder how peaceful this movement is. Jim Lendall is one of the organizers and back in April he stood on the steps of the state capitol at a “Make Them Pay Rally” and called for erecting guillotines and placing them in front of corporations like Bank of America to remind these business leaders that the rich leaders of the French government of the 1700’s were beheaded during the French Revolution because of their greed. Also the downtown branch of Bank of America reported that a large brick was thrown into a glass window near the first floor entrance of the bank.

Second, how big is this movement compared to conservative movements? Every year I take part in the “March for Life” which is a pro-life march that takes place every January. Last January we had over 5000 marchers, but the Occupy Little Rock March had only 300 marchers.

Third, both the Occupy Little Rock crowd and the Tea Party both are mad that the bailout was available because of cronyism. This is one area that I have in agreement with the Occupy Little Rock group, but we must take the next step. The Tea Party has done that by discouraging the larger role the federal government has been taking in recent years by controlling our lives with increases spending. The Tea Party has correctly condemned the federal deficit spending of the politicians in Washington D.C. as the primary problem. The Occupy Little Rock crowd never mentions that issue because their answer is to spend more money. If the USA is to avoid the fate of Greece.  Why does the federal government think it has the money to bail out anybody?

Fourth, the Occupy Little Rock crowd thinks we need more regulations and taxes on the big bad corporations.  There are two points here. If we raise taxes on those corporations then they will raise their prices on their products and we end up paying the higher prices at the retail stores. Also more regulations will hurt upstarts like Steve Jobs who started as a poor teenager in a garage with an idea. Steve Jobs later grew his company to over  350 billion dollars in sales and the  company  made a lot of money for lots of Americans who worked for him. Furthermore,  Steve Jobs also provided various products to the public that changed life for billions across the globe. Is that the type of progress that the Occupy Little Rock crowd is opposing?

Fifth, the Occupy Little Rock crowd talks about the system in our country that punishes the poor and helps the rich, but the facts clearly show that  the ability to move from poor to rich is more abundant here than any other country in the world.  Just consider Steve Jobs who was mentioned in the point above.

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