Big City Democrats and Poverty
“I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty but leading them or driving them out of it.”
What hate-mongering politician would be so politically incorrect as to suggest that things like higher minimum wages and more government handouts don’t actually help the poor? I’ll identify the culprit at the end of this column, but for now, I’m more interested in figuring out why that statement sounds so controversial.
Poverty is one of the few national issues that, at least on the surface, unites us all. It’s not a political condition; it’s a human one. After all, when’s the last time you’ve heard a politician campaign on a pro-poverty platform?
But although the problem may unite us, the solutions don’t. And perhaps nothing illustrates that better than what’s been happening in Detroit, Michigan, and Buffalo, New York.
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