One in Three Living in Poverty in Illinois

[StrangeSox]

Far fewer services for a whopping 4% difference in rates. Again, clearly just spending more/providing more is the problem.

 

No, you're misunderstanding. Cutting Medicare, for example, doesn't make people not-poor. But it does mean that people who aren't poor are going to have even less access to health care.

 

There's a lot of problems, none of which many people even acknowledge exist because they believe poverty is mostly the result of merit or lack thereof, that there aren't institutional problems of race, gender and class.

[StrangeSox]

They also ran a budget surplus in 2012, unlike Illinois, and most other states.

At the expense of a s***ty education system, s***ty infrastructure and poor people suffering.

[StrangeSox]

It's generational and never ending.

 

Poverty is generational and nearly impossible to escape when you struggle to even put food on the table and a roof over your head on a daily basis. The answer isn't to make the life of the poor even more difficult.

[Balta1701]

Far fewer services for a whopping 4% difference in rates. Again, clearly just spending more/providing more is the problem.

A 4% difference in the poverty rate is 12 million people.

[EvilMonkey]

Poverty is generational and nearly impossible to escape when you struggle to even put food on the table and a roof over your head on a daily basis. The answer isn't to make the life of the poor even more difficult.

And it isn't to feed and care for them like pets.

[Balta1701]

And it isn't to feed and care for them like pets.

The real problem is...a legitimate safety net will do exactly that for some people. It may be only temporary, but that's sort of how even the metaphorical safety net works. When everything falls, it is strong enough to keep you from dying.

 

But...when you're building a bridge, you don't refuse to install a safety net because you realize some jerk might jump off of the bridge since the net is there.

[EvilMonkey]

The real problem is...a legitimate safety net will do exactly that for some people. It may be only temporary, but that's sort of how even the metaphorical safety net works. When everything falls, it is strong enough to keep you from dying.

 

But...when you're building a bridge, you don't refuse to install a safety net because you realize some jerk might jump off of the bridge since the net is there.

That big bolded word up there is the key. Sadly it isn't true in most cases, hence the problem.

[StrangeSox]

ugh not that dumb meme that's in your avatar

[StrangeSox]

That big bolded word up there is the key. Sadly it isn't true in most cases, hence the problem.

 

Yes, generational poverty is a problem. Generational poverty is not caused by "government dependence," however. It's strongly tied to various socioeconomic privileges and disadvantages outside of an individual's control.

[Balta1701]

That big bolded word up there is the key. Sadly it isn't true in most cases, hence the problem.

Name for me some legit "safety net", anti-poverty programs of the sort you're talking about that aren't temporary.

[StrangeSox]

I wonder if the fact that almost all of the economic gains of the last 4 years, something like 93%, have gone to the top 1% has any impact on poverty??? Weird that the Job Creators have all of this money and yet people still got no jobs.

[witesoxfan]

Why don't you "vote with your feet" and move to one of those glorious, poverty-free, self-sufficient conservative-run states?

 

Also plenty of people question poverty, the efficacy of existing programs and the possible need for new or different ones all the time. What a lot of people don't do is say "welp, we tried! oh well, let's cut taxes and give up."

 

You mean like North Dakota? The Native American population is stricken with poverty - mostly due to no incentive to work due to government subsidies to the Native American people - but non-Native American poverty rate is incredibly good, taxes are low, cost of living is low, and unemployement is also extremely low.

[BigSqwert]

Yes, like North Dakota. Jenks, please move to North Dakota.

[StrangeSox]

You mean like North Dakota? The Native American population is stricken with poverty - mostly due to no incentive to work due to government subsidies to the Native American people - but non-Native American poverty rate is incredibly good, taxes are low, cost of living is low, and unemployement is also extremely low.

 

The situations in NA communities across the US are complex and are largely the result of generations of the way they were treated by various governments.

[Balta1701]

The situations in NA communities across the US are complex and are largely the result of generations of the way they were treated by various governments.

(a statement that can be applied to almost any minority group in the country).

[Jenksismyhero]

Name for me some legit "safety net", anti-poverty programs of the sort you're talking about that aren't temporary.

 

Public Housing

Healthcare for children and the poor

Food stamps

 

 

Pretty much the big three are not at all temporary. The only one that's "temporary" is unemployment benefits, which is funded by employers.

[Jenksismyhero]

Yes, like North Dakota. Jenks, please move to North Dakota.

 

Unfortunately I'm not licensed there and I doubt it's a "sister" state to Illinois.

[BigSqwert]

Aw shucks

[StrangeSox]

Eliminating public housing, healthcare and food security will motivate the poors to finally get off their lazy asses and take one of those jobs none of the Job Creators can fill.

[Jenksismyhero]

Eliminating public housing, healthcare and food security will motivate the poors to finally get off their lazy asses and take one of those jobs none of the Job Creators can fill.

 

No, but making them temporary and/or requiring public works employment for those entitlements would be a step in the right direction.

[Jenksismyhero]

And really my position on this is that it's not a problem that conservative policies can fix either. It's an individual/community based problem that government cannot - and will never - solve. When you grow up in s***ty neighborhoods with s***ty parents, it really doesn't matter if your check every week is 200 bucks or 2000 bucks. You need the knowledge and the desire to get out of that situation and live on your own and government will never provide that.

[StrangeSox]

Making them temporary means eliminating them for those who haven't been able to miraculously escape poverty.

 

Requiring public works employment eliminates jobs that would otherwise be paid positions if you're not talking about a massive jobs program expansion. Which I would be down with. BTW this is the problem with prison labor, too, the prisons can seriously underbid private competitors.

[StrangeSox]

And really my position on this is that it's not a problem that conservative policies can fix either. It's an individual/community based problem that government cannot - and will never - solve. When you grow up in s***ty neighborhoods with s***ty parents, it really doesn't matter if your check every week is 200 bucks or 2000 bucks. You need the knowledge and the desire to get out of that situation and live on your own and government will never provide that.

 

Government is a community working together through democratic means. Plenty of other countries have more robust government programs and much less economic stratification and poverty problems. You want kids to have knowledge, start with better schools and better funding for them and other educational and outreach programs.

[EvilMonkey]

Making them temporary means eliminating them for those who haven't been able to miraculously escape poverty.

 

Requiring public works employment eliminates jobs that would otherwise be paid positions if you're not talking about a massive jobs program expansion. Which I would be down with. BTW this is the problem with prison labor, too, the prisons can seriously underbid private competitors.

Requiring public works employment would make them paid positions, just not paid UNION positions.

[caulfield12]

I mean no one - not anyone on this board, not anyone in the media, not anyone in government, etc. When it's conservative policy that is failing (tea party government cutbacks) everyone jumps up and down and says "see how dumb this is? It doesn't work!" When it's liberal policy, no one says a damn thing but "well we actually need to do MORE." Education, jobs, poverty, etc. etc. It's never the liberal belief of "don't worry, we'll just spend our way out of this and give people s***" that's the problem. It's that the government just doesn't have the funds to be able to provide enough!

 

A third of people in this state are poor. A third! How is that acceptable? Why do the same crooked and corrupt democrats get elected to office on the same platforms? Guess whose income tax is going to go up another 2-4% in the coming years? Guess how they're going to pay for the massive pension problem.

 

And yes, SS, I would gladly move to a different state. The wife and I have already talked about moving even if the commute does suck.

 

 

Where was the Tea Party from 2001-2008 when the "fiscal cliff/debt ceiling" was really beginning to become a problem?

 

Where were those people speaking out on behalf of not increasing the military/defense budget every year?

 

If you want to talk about a truly HORRIBLE return on investment, look no further than Afghanistan and the Middle East. What do we have to show for all those trillions of dollars spent? Money that wasn't spent on Americans...is the world really a safer place?

 

Lots of policies by governments have failed, but just as many have been foreign as domestic/social programs.