'Insidious': Emails Show White House Lied, About US Poverty Levels, To Discredit Critical UN Report
- 'Insidious': Emails Show Trump White House Lied About US Poverty Levels to Discredit Critical UN Report,'- By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, Fri. Aug. 3, 2018. *With its attempt to falsify statistics and whitewash uncomfortable facts about poverty in America, the White House once again demonstrated its "contempt" for the poor, one critic argued*
Infuriated by a scathing United Nations report estimating that over 18 million Americans are living in "extreme poverty" and accusing the Trump administration of "deliberately" making such destitution worse with its tax cuts for the rich, the White House insisted in its June response to the U.N. analysis that the United States is overflowing with "prosperity" and that claims of widespread poverty are "exaggerated."
But internal State Department emails and documents obtained by Foreign Policy and the non-profit journalism website Coda Story show that the Trump administration ignored advice of White House economic analysts and knowingly lied to the public about the severity of American poverty, which the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston described as "shocking." Foreign Policy reported on Thursday that officials who were consulted last-minute on a draft of the White House's rebuttal of the U.N. findings "questioned the accuracy of the data the administration was citing."
Despite the fact that the U.N. analysis cited government statistics to bolster its claims about poverty in America, the Trump administration opted to draw from a report by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which concluded that 250,000 Americans are living in extreme poverty—a stark contrast to the U.N.'s conclusion that the correct number is 18.25 million. The Heritage report cited by the White House also concluded that the conditions of the poor must be improving because many families living in deep poverty own cell phones and DVD players.
"This is not as dramatic as Trump's tweets or bald-faced lies at press briefings. But in a way it is far more insidious; the contempt for facts is pervasive and maddening."- Jeff Greenfield
In contrast to the officials who raised questions about the White House's economic claims, Mari Stull, a senior State Department adviser, attacked the U.N. report as "propaganda" in emails and mocked the U.N.'s accurate claim that American child poverty rates are among the highest in the industrialized world. Bathsheba Crocker, a former U.S. diplomat and vice president of humanitarian policy at CARE, called Stull's comment "unbelievable" and wrote that it demonstrates once again the "contempt" the Trump administration has for poor Americans.
>READ MORE, Specifics, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/03/insidious-emails-show-trump-white-house-lied-about-us-poverty-levels-discredit
*"The American March to Inequality, Why UN Alston Report Alarms Trump Plutocrats," Common Dreams, June 23, 2018.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016209206
President Donald Trump shows an executive order after signing it beside members of his cabinet in the Oval Office of the White House on March 17, 2017 in Washington, D.C.
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*With 'Carefully Calculated Strategy' to Slash Safety Net Underway, White House Claims War on Poverty 'Largely Over,'* Common Dreams, July 13, 2018.
>New Trump administration report calls for imposing work requirements for federal benefits programs, which anti-poverty advocates warn would harm poor Americans.* More, https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016210806
- A homeless man looks for food in the garbage along a street in Brownsville, Texas on June 22, 2018.
*Currently over 32 percent of residents in Brownsville live in poverty, one of the highest rates in the nation.*
When you can get away with lying about them
