Comments for Refocusing the Poverty Debate at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 14 out of 14 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Mon, 20 May 2013 14:28:27 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8288 “96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food. Eighty-three percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat. Eighty-two percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.” Having enough food to eat forms the foundation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Food insecurity is the single biggest source of shame for poor families, and as such self-reporting on the issue can't be trusted. Children in public schools in poor communities have claimed that the only meals they eat are in school. Who do you choose to believe, a child who has no connection between money and self-worth, or an adult who can't afford to feed their kids? Prioritizing social issues is each individual's responsibility. Children go to bed hungry in this country every day. Abortions happen every day in this country. You shouldn't have to rationalize why one is more "important" than the other based on second hand statistics about home electronics. - Rob Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:47:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8247 Great Article !!! Someone should forward it to all 350 staffers in the USCCB in DC so that as they prepare the draft position papers that the Bishops are asked to review and sign off on at each Meeting they will stop the decades long downplaying of the Pro-Life Imperative that small minds like Mother Teresa and John Paul II have identified for the Faithful for decades now as the Central Evil in America and with a new found unity finally purge the curse of Abortion from this hurting land. - veritas Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:17:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8246 Responses to Lisa and Smitty: 1. If people are not actually suffering, I don't see that they have a legitimate claim for public assistance. That is, we should marshal our resources for people who are genuinely hurting. This would include especially, I think, those married couples who have large families. 2. It is no shame to inherit clothing or appliances or whatnot from family members helping out. That is what families are for. It is not the government's role, generally speaking, to supply the function of a family. 3. It is one thing to say, "If I give a hundred dollars to John, then John will benefit." It may or may not be true, by the way, but it is at least a personal and local matter. It is quite another to say, "I will enact a law whereby everyone in Mary's situation will receive a hundred dollars." Then, we have to take into account not just the immediate benefit to Mary, but the general and long-term effect of such a law. That is what conservatives have long objected to -- it is their contention that welfare has some inherent perverse incentives, or perverse disincentives. For example: if John is shacking up with Mary and they produce a child, it will be "better" for them, as far as the government is concerned, if he pretends to be living elsewhere, and if they do not marry, so that she will qualify for more money. 4. The difference between welfare and genuine personal care for the poor is roughly analogous to the difference between incarceration of criminals and an attempt to reform them that takes into account their status as spiritual beings. It is good for both the recipient and the giver of assistance that it be local and personal, not bureaucratic and impersonal. 5. My grandfather and his family were on public assistance. That's because, after fifteen years of working in the coal mines, he had a nervous breakdown, and could never hold down another job. That, I suppose, is what welfare was for. Still, the assistance was pretty minimal, and that meant that the six children had to work hard from an early age to help support the family. A tighter bunch you would not easily find. 6. I suspect that men and women do not view this issue in the same way. Men tend to believe that there is something shameful in having to take things from their neighbors, which is essentially what public assistance does. They aren't right about that, if it's their pride that's speaking, but they still resist the notion that just because they are out of work, let's say, they have an entitlement to someone else's money. - Tony Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:48:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8245 Manfred: It is not just African Americans. The rate of out of wedlock births is skyrocketing. That is the other part of Rector's report, the dirty little secret that one of the primary causes of poverty in American is no father in the home. - Austin Ruse Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:57:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8240 Another aspect of the poverty issue, Mr. Ruse, is the fact that African-Americans are tending more and more to not marry at all. They remain fecund and they produce children, but very often these children are being raised by single mothers and grandmothers. The result is they remain a "permanent underclass" as they do not have the role models and the finances and the social networking to assist them in acquiring substantial educations. St. Paul was adamant that he would practice his trade (tent making and repair) when he visited each Catholic community so as not to be a burden to his hosts. (Would that this fact be better known.) - Manfred Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:06:22 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8238 Thanks Austin, I have often questioned American poor/homelessness. First, having traveled a bit to third world countries, its hard not to notice the skinny and sickly poor and homeless. Its hard not to notice when I come home and walk around DC to see not so skinny and not so sickly poor and homeless. Secondly, I have a hard time figuring out why all these types of social programs have to be at a federal level. I pay my taxes into something called "federal taxes". From that, am I to feel better that American needy are taken care of through these social programs and my conscience is clear? OR shouldn't it be at a local level where I can look a human being in the face and help financially, emotionally, spiritually and lovingly from one human to another. - terri egan Fri, 23 Sep 2011 04:47:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8237 "Poverty" in this country would be living the life of Reilly in most of the Third World. Ever see these so-called "poor people" profiled on the news? None of em look like they ever missed a meal. Most look like candidates for Weight Watchers or the Biggest Loser. Go to your local food pantry and see who's getting free food and handouts. They pull up in nice cars (saw one woman in a Mercedes), fat and happy, every other week, loading up at the expense of the producers. Then they go back home, turn on their 50-inch Plasma TV's and eat Doritos and drink beer all day while collecting unemployment. Half the country is supporting the other half (who don't pay taxes). Solution: Ship the parasites overseas where they can live like royalty and, voila, unemployment rate goes down to zero. - Grump Fri, 23 Sep 2011 04:04:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8236 Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta identified the real poverty in America. Speaking of the difference between the poverty of those she served in India and those who suffer in Western nations, she said, "But in the West you have another kind of poverty, spiritual poverty. This is far worse. People do not believe in God, do not pray. People do not care for each other. You have the poverty of people who are dissatisfied with what they have, who do not know how to suffer, who give in to despair. This poverty of heart is often more difficult to relieve and to defeat. In the West you have many more broken homes, neglected children, and divorce on a huge scale." This spiritual poverty includes the willingness to kill the innocent. "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." We certainly should help those who are unable to meet the basic human needs of shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. Your article suggests we are doing that reasonably well as a nation, and I pray we continue to do so. I also pray that we will bring the same sort of energy and resources to relieving the sort of poverty that Mother Teresa talked about - the spiritual poverty of abortion and coldness of heart. - Teresa Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:54:01 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8235 Mr. Ruse, excellent article and real food for thought. Of course there is much more beyond what you had space to write. Lisa has gone the wrong way. These are not questions of material as your article points out. These are matters of virtue, or lack of it. J Smitty, read Rerum Novarum as it was intended to be read. - Achilles Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:53:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8234 I concur... Passing the duchie ain't so bad. Getting murdered takes away all chances. A lot of poor people are happier than rich people and experience joy often despite their situation. Smashing a baby in the womb is like a concentration camp, all evil and no good. - Jacob R Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:53:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8233 Lisa, I don't think you read the column... - Austin Ruse Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:04:39 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8232 jsmitty, actually what I point out is that it is the Census Bureau that does not take into account all the benefits to poor people when they do their poverty calculations. And regarding point 2, none of those programs could have passed or been upheld without Republican support at one time or another. Helping poor people is a bi-partisan idea. - Austin Ruse Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:02:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8231 What a poorly thought-out article. So many things to say, that I will limit myself to just four. a) Stating that the poor have an appliance/piece of furniture does not necessarily mean they purchased it. Many of the items listed could be acquired second-hand or through assistance of family and friends. The figures don't show that the poor can afford an LCD TV, just that they happen to have one. b)So, perhaps their standard of living is not as dire as we might at first imagine. The children eat food (incidentally, what kind of food? Cheap processed stuff or nutritious, expensive meals?). Are you denying that these people have hard lives? What is the standard of poverty you will accept before you feel any sympathy? c) Why does caring about the unborn preclude us from caring about the poor? We need to have sensible candidates, not to back down on our morals. d) Finally, if you do care about the unborn, make it so that families are able to afford them. My husband and I are a slice above the povert line; we can't even afford a pet, never mind a child. Many women who abort choose to do so out of economic desperation. Children are not cheap; even giving birth costs if you don't have health care. Fighting legislatively to ban abortion should go hand in hand with attempting to improve the lives of the poor so that they can have as many children as they want. Mr. Ruse's article pits these ideas against each other when, in fact, they should be part of the same strategy. - Lisa Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:21:46 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/refocusing-the-poverty-debate.html#comment-8227 OK Austin, you make some good points.....being poor in the US is better in 2011 than it would have been being poor in the US in 1951. Just as being poor in the US in 2011 is much better than being poor in most any other country. Agreed. But two things...1) you fail to point out that the increased well being of the poor is at least in part because of govt. anti-poverty programs like medicaid, schip, food stamps, AFDC, section 8, WIC and so on and so forth which conservatives usually opposed either outright or would like to make less generous--while liberals, including liberal Catholics, supported them. Social Security and Medicare likewise have all but eliminated poverty in old age. And most conservatives would prefer that these program either didn't exist or were much smaller. 2) conservatives have also generally opposed efforts to expand health insurance coverage to the poor--which is one big difference in quality of life between lower income working Americans and most everyone else. If Obamacare does not get repealed then this is another reason to think that the well-being of the poor has been improved by liberals. So will you at least admit that you could write this piece arguing that the greater priority should be given to abortion in part because of the success of liberals in addressing poverty in America? - jsmitty Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:05:06 +0100