The Larger Shame Of Poverty

[NATO AIR]

Nick Kristof has another liberal column in the NYT... however, it is worthwhile to read for 2 redeeming statements that are often overlooked in the blame game that many (especially myself) have engaged in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/o...and Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Nicholas D Kristof

But Hurricane Katrina also underscores a much larger problem: the growing number of Americans trapped in a never-ending cyclone of poverty. And while it may be too early to apportion blame definitively for the mishandling of the hurricane, even President Bush's own administration acknowledges that America's poverty is worsening on his watch.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported a few days ago that the poverty rate rose again last year, with 1.1 million more Americans living in poverty in 2004 than a year earlier. After declining sharply under Bill Clinton, the number of poor people has now risen 17 percent under Mr. Bush.

If it's shameful that we have bloated corpses on New Orleans streets, it's even more disgraceful that the infant mortality rate in America's capital is twice as high as in China's capital. That's right - the number of babies who died before their first birthdays amounted to 11.5 per thousand live births in 2002 in Washington, compared with 4.6 in Beijing.

This is, as we say in the navy, unsat. From abortion to poor medical care, babies are getting a raw deal in this country right now. And no one wants to constructively talk about. Let's consider those floating babies in the water in the Gulf and start having that talk right now. (by the way, i think he's spinning that bs about the poverty rate declining sharply under clinton, though it may be true because of the economic boom)

So the best monument to the catastrophe in New Orleans would be a serious national effort to address the poverty that afflicts the entire country. And in our shock and guilt, that may be politically feasible. Rich Lowry of The National Review, in defending Mr. Bush, offered an excellent suggestion: "a grand right-left bargain that includes greater attention to out-of-wedlock births from the Left in exchange for the Right's support for more urban spending." That would be the best legacy possible for Katrina.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Too bad the left is run by the hyper-left loonies right now.

 

[NATO AIR]

and Jonah Goldberg at NRO (who about jumped the shark last week) responds to Kristof...

again i don't totally agree with either of them, but it is good we are seeing this debate.... let us see if it continues and where it leads

http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200509090824.asp

Let’s have no more of this nonsense. First, China requires parents to abort their “extra” children (the quota being reached at one). Perhaps that has something to do with the extra care Beijing’s parents put into child-raising. Second, China is a very different place. The poor of Beijing are indisputably poorer than the poor of Washington, and yet they take their children to get immunized.

And this raises the larger point: Cultural factors are enormously important. For example, the U.S. vaccination rate for toddlers in 2003 was only seven points higher for those above the poverty line than it was for those below it. Whatever that says about America, it says more about culture than it does about class.

More to the point, since the days of the Great Society, the U.S. Government has thrown literally trillions of dollars at the poor. It undoubtedly helped some and it indisputably hurt others.

The people it hurt most are poor blacks, helping to erode social and family bonds. We are told, for example, that out-of-wedlock births are a uniform cultural phenomenon these days. This is simply a lie. Seventy percent of blacks are born out of wedlock, most of them poor. Murphy Brown notwithstanding, upper-income women overwhelmingly wait to get married before they have their kids. Nothing is a better predictor of a child’s success in life than if he comes from a stable, two-parent family. It doesn’t matter if they’re rich or poor. The problem, as the University of Pennsylvania’s Amy L. Wax recently noted in the Wall Street Journal, is that there’s a shortage of poor black men willing to take on the serious responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. Of course, many are. But nowhere near enough of them.

Of course, welfare policies that encouraged family breakdown are not the only villain. We’ve witnessed a profound cultural transformation over the last 40 years, in which social and personal customs have been rewritten. In some case the increase in personal liberty has been welcome. In other cases it came at an enormous cost for those without the resources to cope when the bill for risky behavior comes due.

If we must have this “conversation” again. Let’s start there.