Nina Davis -February 12, 2016
The central idea of the book thus far appears to be the
struggle to keep America out of poverty. The author uses many statistics, data from
the Federal Reserve (pg8), data compiled from the U.S. Census Bureau, and many
stories from people who struggle to live day-to-day in poverty or to just above
it. Many passages in the chapters I have
read have angered and alarmed me. One of the first things I read early in the
first chapter, on page 26, when facts tell us that the top 1% are getting
richer, while the other 99% is declining in net worth. That 1% of the
population control 40% of the country’s wealth, (p32) makes things seems
hopeless. What can we do with this information? Even reading the rest of the assigned reading
tells at how things got better when “The War on Poverty” began with President
Lyndon Johnson starting in 1964. The numbers looked good, but that was only on
the surface. Had the “war on Poverty” not been interrupted by the Vietnam War
would the country be out of poverty? Would things have been turned around?
Probably not! America is still, I “eat
or heat” society it’s just more hidden, or less talked about in the press and politics
than it used to be. We are spinning, once more, out of control. The rich are
getting richer and the poor, poorer. A country set up by immigrants that came
over to this country to make a living stacked the deck in their favor, to keep
the wealthy in power and the lower-income out of the race to make changes that
will work because it will cost the rich a lot of money. The Swedes tolerate
higher taxes (p51) because they see where their tax money is going and know it
is being spent where is suppose to be spent. Even with healthcare systems set
up for veterans, food stamp programs, food banks backed up by USDA surplus, and
nutritional assistance programs set up to combat poverty, America is still
sinking into poverty. When there is an improvement in one area, the government
seems to move or cut funds. Poverty is seen as a sickness that just needs one
cure, when in fact, there are so many faucets of it; it would take a large
change to “fix” poverty.
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