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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Bill Press
John Edwards may have turned out to be a scoundrel. But, back when he was a candidate for vice president, he articulated better than anyone else one of the most serious problems facing this country.
"The truth is, we still live in a country where there are two different Americas," Edwards told the 2004
Since that time, the gap between those at the very top and those at the very bottom has only gotten wider. According to the
Think about it.
Here in the wealthiest nation on the planet, 15.1 percent of us -- almost one in every six Americans -- are living on
less than
The poverty rate's even more severe among minorities and children: 27.4 percent for blacks; 26.6 percent for Hispanics; 22 percent among all children; and a staggering 40 percent for black children.
Now, for a glimpse at today's widening income gap, contrast those shocking poverty statistics with results of a survey issued last month on executive compensation. According to the
We are two Americas, indeed: the very rich and the very poor, with an ever-shrinking middle class stuck in the middle. Wages for the middle class, in fact, have been stagnant for at least a generation. In 1988, according to
Shocking? Yes. And here's what I find more shocking:
Even though 15 percent of Americans are already living in poverty, nobody talks about it. When's the last time you heard a politician talk about the shocking level of poverty in this country? Not since Bobby Kennedy? When's the last time congressional hearings were held on how to help families lift themselves out of poverty?
The truth is, except for the rare few like Bernie Sanders, politicians ignore the poor. For one simple reason: They don't vote. Therefore, they don't count. And if poor people did vote, Republicans fear, they'd probably vote Democratic. So why bother? The poor today are on nobody's political agenda.
But it's worse than that.
The current Republican leadership doesn't just ignore the poor. Their policies would actually make things worse. They would increase the number of poor -- by destroying the very government safety nets that keep millions of Americans from falling below the poverty line. An additional 14 million seniors would be living in poverty today, according to the
Yet the entire Republican agenda today is to destroy
There's a much more important dimension to this issue, of course: the moral imperative. Isn't it clear? Read the Gospels. If there's one thing Jesus taught us, by both his work and his words, it's our special obligation to help the poor.
And one thing's for sure. When he told us "the poor you will always have with you," he wasn't suggesting we should try to create even more of them.
AMERICAN POLITICS
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The Poor You Shall Always Have With You | Politics
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