Could we abolish all poverty for a third of the cost?
Jul 3, 2018, 6:56 AM
Personal belongings of a homeless person can be seen scattered around a tent that displays an American flag in the doorway in Dallas. (AP File Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
(AP File Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
The president’s promised welfare reform has already been criticized as a thinly-disguised attempt to punish black families.
But at the conservative Heritage Foundation, researcher Robert Rector said their polling shows most Americans don’t see it that way.
“We’ve run a poll where we ask the simple question: should an able-bodied adult who receives cash, food, housing, or medical care from the government be required to work as a condition of getting that aid? About 88-90 percent of the public say yes, they should.”
He thinks once people understand the actual amount of money being paid out, most everyone — except the far left — will conclude that something has to change.
“A single mother with two children working at the federal minimum wage – that mother gets around $14,000 a year. She’s also going to get around $7,000 from these tax credit programs, she gets about $3,000 in food stamps, and on top of that in most states she’s going to get Medicaid for herself and the children. She then gets housing on top of that. Her economic resources go up close to $50,000 a year.”
He says we could abolish all poverty for one third of what we spend now. All he has to do is get people to believe him.
Read more of Dave Ross’ commentaries, which air on KIRO Radio every day at 7:35 a.m.
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