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A Poor Way to Help the Poor

AliveInHim Wrote: Sep 22, 2009 1:55 PM

a lot of these 'poor' seem to have no problem whatsoever buying their beer and cigarettes and stereo systems. It seems that to a man-and woman-they've all got tattoos-which are not exactly inexpensive. The ladies seem to manage to afford makeup and hair coloring as well as fake nails. Cell phones, iPods, satellite/cable/internet subscriptions too. Cars. Air conditioning. Microwaves and dishwashers. They have all these as DH and I do. What we resent is that we have to pay for theirs as well as ours. Why shouldn't we be resentful, when with hard work and a proper perspective, many of them too can eventually earn what we have?

"Poor", my foot. "Poor" in this country mostly lies between one's ears-and so too the remedy thereof.

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A Poor Way to Help the Poor

Quite a few questions surround the war in Afghanistan. Should the U.S. change its approach? Would more troops help? What’s the exit strategy? Washington policymakers will spend a fair amount of time answering these queries this fall.

But there’s a bigger, longer and more expensive war that deserves scrutiny. It also requires an exit strategy: the War on Poverty.

President Lyndon Johnson launched this war in 1964. Since then it’s cost taxpayers some $15.9 trillion in constant 2008 dollars. That’s more than twice the amount ($6.4 trillion in constant...

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