dilloduck said:Would you be willing to admit that the US not only takes care of it's own citizens but by default is now also expected to take care of the poor citizens of the WHOLE world---isolationism is a lot cheaper huh?
Did you read what I wrote:
The official US poverty rate in 2002 was 12.1 percent, up from 11.7 percent in 2001. In 2002, people below the official poverty thresholds numbered 34.6 million, a figure 1.7 million higher than the 32.9 million in poverty in 2001. This from the worlds biggest economy.
According to the latest statistics on poverty in the United States, released in 1996 by the U.S. Census Bureau, 14.3 million children in America are living in abject poverty that is the direct consequence of official U.S. social policies.
For example, overall spending on child well-being is about $230 billion a year in France (France's population = 59,329,691 ), compared with only $146 billion in the United States (US population = 295,203,947).
In fact, most Western European nations spend two or even three times as much as the U.S. on families with children, which explains why so many more American than European children live in poverty.But after receiving tax breaks and all the social benefits, only 5.7 percent of French children and 7.3 percent of British children are still considered poor, while nearly 21 percent of U.S. children still suffer in severe poverty.
So as far as I know the US government is not taking care enough of it's own people...don't accuse our government of doing too much...