Kate’s Take: Edwards’s “Other America”

[mr mahs]

Really good read about the falacy of the poor in our country. This is for the Micheal Moore "hate america crowd" who brand the poor in our country as starving and we are ruthless for not helping them,when the standard living condition of a poor person in the US is better then any place on earth. I've read the FACTS disputing the assumption that children go to bed hungry every night and this article brings those facts to light..

Bottomline is AMERICA isn't as cold hearted as the nine idiots want you to beleive and in the words of Bill Maher, a leftist loon I love to hate..."If you are hungry in america then you aren't looking hard enough"

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http://www.nationalreview.com/kob/kob200401230833.asp

Senator John Edwards's stump speech stunningly shows that the genial, upbeat, fresh face in the Democratic field has found the rationale for his candidacy in a bleak past, unrecognizable to most Americans. Edwards has adopted the portrait of widespread, dire poverty famously depicted in Michael Harrington's The Other America — without checking its publication date. The passionate call to arms for anti-poverty warriors was published in 1962, when John Edwards was eight years old. Over 40 years, and hundreds of billions in welfare spending later, Harrington's, and now Edwards's, "Other America" doesn't exist.

Senator Edwards passionately talks about the deprivation facing the 35 million Americans identified by the Census Bureau as living below the poverty line. His audiences seem enthralled. Maybe they think he's cute when he gets on a roll? In fact, the incidence of material poverty has been dramatically reduced and those defined as "poor" today have a higher standard of living than those considered middle-class in my grandparents' day. Thanks to the Heritage Foundation's indispensable Robert Rector, we know that government studies paint a dramatically different picture about the well-being of our nation's poor than John Edwards's delusional portrayal. A judge would tell the experienced trial lawyer, "Argue the facts, counselor."

Rector's case is based on the data provided by a host of government studies. His conclusion: "Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded." A few more highlights: Forty-six percent of all poor families own their own home, 30 percent own two or more cars, about a quarter have large-screen TVs, cell phones, and personal computers. The biggest nutritional problem facing our nation's poor is obesity. Finally, the typical poor family with children is supported by only 16 hours of work a week.

About a third of those categorized as poor do face some material deprivations, such as overcrowded homes or temporary hunger, but the widespread despair of John Edwards's "Other America" is a figment of his ambitious imagination. As Robert Rector has argued, the problem of significant levels of material poverty has become a problem of behavioral poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in a single-parent home. He concludes, "If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three-quarters of the nation's impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty."

Someone should tell the excitable Edwards, "It's Nashua, 2004, Senator, not Appalachia, 1962."