# What would be elements of a successful new American "War on Poverty"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 14, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052 "2005-11-14T20:59:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/61 "2005-11-27T05:23:35Z")
So the answer to poverty is that we need more great men? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/62 "2005-11-27T07:50:27Z")
> [@](#): > > **Sam Stone** : Talk to them? I grew up with them. I AM them. Or was. I worked in a grocery store bagging groceries when I was 14 years old, and never earned a wage over $10/hr until I was 25 years old. My mother never made more than $35,000 a year in her entire life, and usually much less. Today she lives in a house trailer. So when I talk about what it’s like to be poor, I’m not some rich guy giving you a rich guy’s perspective. I know all about it. > [@](#): > > **Sam** : Sam Stone: Now we want it all. People today expect to come out of college, buy a house, start a family, have a nice car, go on vacations, etc. And if you can’t manage those things right out of the gate, you’re ‘poor’. You’re a failure, someone who needs a ‘leg up’ in order to succeed. And plenty of liberals will bend your ear and tell you how it’s not your fault, how the rich are keeping you down, how the big corporations steal all the money and impoverish the people, yada yada yada. > [@](#): > > **Sam** : Sam Stone: The poor in America today generally live about as well as the middle class did in the 1940’s and 1950’s. **Sam** , what you think of when you use the word _poor_ and what comes to mind when I use the word _poor_ are stunningly far apart. From some of the news reports I heard during the flooding in New Orleans, some of the families in the 9th District in New Orleans were trying to live on less that $10,000 a year _before_ their homes were destroyed. Two years ago my hometown church found a man and his wife who tried to feed themselves on $100 a month. > [@](#): > > **Sam** : But my main point is that they are lumped into the category of ‘working poor’, when they really shouldn’t be. You are the one who is taking the struggling middle class and trying to describe them as impoverished. $32,000 a year and a mobile home does not qualify someone as _the working poor_ in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/63 "2005-11-27T08:56:41Z")
> [@](#): > > **Sam Stone** : I have plenty of compassion for the ‘working poor’. Then can you explain why you put quotation marks around it as if it didn’t really mean what it says? Wouldn’t you feel a little insulted if the front page of your newspaper referred to Mrs. Stone in this way: "Sam Stone was seen leaving the hotel through a side entrance with his “wife”? > [@](#): > > **Sam Stone** : Frankly, liberal ‘compassion’ isn’t very compassionate. The best thing you can do for a poor person is help them find a job. The next best thing you can do is help them learn to be more productive. You need to do that without destroying the values of self-reliance, pride, and confidence… Liberals don’t help the poor to find jobs? They don’t help them to be more productive? They don’t encourage self-reliance, pride, and confidence? Can you say PEACE CORPS? VISTA? The Civil Rights Movement? The Rainbow Coalition? The Women’s Movement? On and on… > [@](#): > > Conservatives are much more likely to say, “Your life is what you make of it. Work hard. Save some money. Don’t have children you can’t afford. Take marriage seriously, because divorce is incredibly destructive. The only one who is going to determine whether or not you are successful is you. If you fail, it’s your fault. Be self-reliant, don’t demand things of others, and regardless of where you wind up on the economic ladder, take pride in the fact that you got there by virtue of your own hard work and wits.” Where in the world did you get the notion that Conservatives have the monopoly on conventional wisdom? Do you think that Liberal parents teach their children different principles? About the only thing that I would disagree with is “Don’t demand things from others.” I would think that people who advise that are probably people who have not been denied their rights or been subject to frequent discrimination based on gender or race. > [@](#): > > And the health care available in free clinics or under medicaid today is vastly superior to what was available 50 years ago. That certainly isn’t so in rural areas. Doctors have become scarce. A single nurse practitioner may now be responsible for an area where two or three doctors made house calls fifty years ago. The costs of medications is unthinkable. (Anecdotal example: My sister travels 250 miles roundtrip once a month to take a shot that costs $7,000 _each_ (prior to insurance payment). > [@](#): > > Nothing they [the day care workers] learn in school helps them cope with babies and three year olds. (parenthetical added) As educators they’ve surely had a course in child psychology and often a course in developmental psychology. But your point is well taken. Do none of them have chldren of their own? > [@](#): > > They had the best of motives. They want to help the kids. The problem is that they can’t hope to have the same aggregate knowledge as all the day care operators who have had decades of experience to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Do you see why teachers become so frustrated at decisions made from afar by government officials who haven’t the foggiest notion of the reality? Grrr-r-r-r-r ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/64 "2005-11-27T19:05:13Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > And the health care available in free clinics or under medicaid today is vastly superior to what was available 50 years ago. Even this is wrong! Sam, you know shit all about the poor. Right now in Oakland it’s a two month wait to see a doctor at Planned Parenthood to get a refill on your birth control pills- a ten minute procedure. Free Clinics are a godsend, but it’s nothing like having regular medical care. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/65 "2005-11-27T20:03:03Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > So the answer to poverty is that we need more great men? Why not. The definition of poverty is kinda stupid anyway. Most definitions are either a household income that is anything below: 1. 3x the household’s food budget 2. The average or median (I forget which) income of the nation as a whole divided by two But you can ‘cure’ poverty by getting a roommate. If one minimum wage single parent makes 11k and is below the poverty line then marries another minimum wage single parent with a poverty level 11k income their combined household income is now 22k and above the line but they are still struggling just as hard as before. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/66 "2005-11-27T22:32:30Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > > [@Sam Stone](#): > > > > And the health care available in free clinics or under medicaid today is vastly superior to what was available 50 years ago. > > Even this is wrong! Sam, you know shit all about the poor. Right now in Oakland it’s a two month wait to see a doctor at Planned Parenthood to get a refill on your birth control pills- a ten minute procedure. Free Clinics are a godsend, but it’s nothing like having regular medical care. I think you missed the point - fifty years ago birth control pills didn’t exist. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/67 "2005-11-28T18:58:50Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > Why not. The definition of poverty is kinda stupid anyway. Most definitions are either a household income that is anything below: > > 1. 3x the household’s food budget > 2. The average or median (I forget which) income of the nation as a whole divided by two > But you can ‘cure’ poverty by getting a roommate. If one minimum wage single parent makes 11k and is below the poverty line then marries another minimum wage single parent with a poverty level 11k income their combined household income is now 22k and above the line but they are still struggling just as hard as before. Your point – insofar as I can discern it – seems to be at least arguable, but what has it to do with **even sven’s** point? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052/68 "2005-11-29T01:35:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Your point – insofar as I can discern it – seems to be at least arguable, but what has it to do with **even sven’s** point? It doesn’t. I don’t think poverty can be eliminated by Horatio Alger stories, except in small pockets. But it is better to at least try to improve your lot than accept it and give up, even if you fail miserably at least you tried. The problem in my view is that most of the world’s greatest achievements in things like medicine, human rights, technology, etc occured when the countries in charge were welfare states so the idea that the welfare state eliminates motive to achieve doesn’t really make sense to me. If anything a person can make the arugment that a welfare state leads to more Horatio Alger stories as it gives people less reason to turn to despair and crime and gives them more opportunities to get an education and contribute to society. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-elements-of-a-successful-new-american-war-on-poverty/331052.md?page=3)