Left Out of the Bailout: The Poor

[ck4829]

As the roster of corporations and financial institutions on line for government bailouts seems to grow, some public policy advocates in Washington D.C. are calling on policymakers to focus more efforts on the nation's poorest. The ranks of the destitute are growing quietly but alarmingly as much of the world focuses on troubles surrounding Wall Street. "Recent data show poverty is already rising quite substantially," says Robert Greenstein, the executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "There is a strong potential for more hardship and destitution than we have seen in this country in a number of decades."

Greenstein's center released a new study on Monday projecting a sharp rise in the number of people living below the poverty line, which is roughly $21,200 annually for a family of four according to Department of Health and Human Services. An estimated 36.5 million Americans currently live below the poverty line, but those numbers will likely increase by as many as 10.3 million if current projections for the depth and duration of the recession hold true. According to the center's analysis, the number of poor children will grow by as many as 3.3 million. And the number of children in deep poverty, those in families living on less than half the wages of the official poverty line, will climb by as many as 2 million.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081125/us_time/08599186184300

So many people and things to 'thank', where to begin, right? Trickle down economics, deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and all their backers, you all need to take a hike.

[midnight]

1. Why are the poor and the working people in the country not

important enough to have a bail out?

[ellenfl]

2. poor? we don't have no stinkin' poor people . . . just slackers. eom

[DBoon]

5. you mean like this?

[sarcasmo]

11. President Bush, is that you?

[tuckessee]

3. Hmmph! Let them drive Yugos. n/t

[Breeze54]

7. WTF?!

:wtf:

[Fovea]

4. I talk to third world Americans several times a week

people who are homeless, who unload produce trucks in the local market and sleep under overpasses and abandoned warehouses.

Their misery is profound. They may not be hungry in the market, but they are sick and exposed to the elements in KC weather.
Their numbers have already swollen, to numbers that security is forced to remove from the small park across the way.
These people are not un-employed. They are broken. And who cares about the broken? they are low productivity citizens.

They are golng down the tubes quickly or slowly depending on how much booze they have to consume to deal with reality.
Most can't face that reality and do what they can to escape it. Overcoming it is their dream, but they are living a nightmare.

I think that public works that can employ the homeless would be a great boon for the broken among us. Public housing would be better.
There are several good designs for temporary modular housing based on shipping containers that are low cost and durable.
I bet many of the homeless could learn several skills making housing for the homeless. Most every city has reclaimed brownfields close to the sorts of employment
that homeless can get. It would be a solution. Train the community policing how to keep order among transient populations in a community setting.

That would go a long way in the short term till universal health care.

[wolfsbane]

9. Personal Responsibility has to come in somewhere.

Its true, there is a second class society breeding right before us that remains overlooked or perhaps unseen, and that is the homeless and destitute. Yet, the feel I got from your post is that you are of the opinion they are almost helpless to their circumstances. I disagree. While alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental illness is rampant among them, only one of these issues arises from circumstances beyond their own control. Now, I'm not meaning to preach that they are scum for first picking up a bottle or because they take that next hit. What I am saying is that they are not suffering from a situation which is beyond their own control. Any recovered addict will tell you that your recovery starts with you. Public housing can seem almost an impossible dream, with long waiting lists or restrictions on who may qualify. A job, offering a living wage, in today's economy is not always easy for the unskilled worker to secure. Yet, there are programs available, while not always the best, that offer assistance with many of the systemic problems of being homeless. These programs often provide merely the basics, but, when you are truly at the bottom, to quote the old adage "every little bit counts." In Alaska, our statewide homeless population is far smaller than, say, my native New Orleans. The services here are, therefore, able to offer a bit more; more meat in the soup, a thicker mat, or even an extra day on which the clothing room may be opened. However, to get at the heart of my point, government should always keep the basic welfare of its citizenry close at hand whether they be the high paid executive, the hardworking seamstress, or the ex-felon who can't find a job yet refuses to assume only illegal ventures are open to him. At the same time, America is a nation whose entire existence today is due to the value we place on perseverance and hard work. If you are broken, and many Americans, for many reasons, are; pick yourself up. If you need help, look to the guy next to you and you guys pick yourselves up. The situation with our homeless is not going to be solved by looking the other way, nor will a strong social reform, alone, give everyone who is without just what they need. Change has to start within. The destitute and homeless can start back on the road to success, but its not easy, its not without sacrifice, but nothing ever worth it is.

Corndogs.

[Fovea]

12. I believe in the value of labor.

I was working 60 hour weeks when I had my stroke and two heart attacks.
I am now broken. I am taking four shots of insulin a day.
I am as picked up as I am going to get at this point, that does not include putting my shoulder to the wheel anymore.

I was lucky enough to have private disability insurance.
Let me say however that if you want to live in constant worry, let your livelihood depend on an insurance company.

My proposal is to teach the homeless to make functional living structures out of containers, a commodity we have
a surplus of. Basic welding, basic wiring, basic plumbing. It may not get them back to productive, in a full labor sense,
but by and large, these folks are not psychologically participating in the first world and the twenty four hour news cycle
and in order to work at least back toward self sufficiency, they need a fixed living quarter that locks and is heatable with scrap wood.

This depression may get really deep. And this is the last ditch level of home we can provide with minimal resources.

I agree with you on the uniformity of services strongly. My home state Missouri's state motto is "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law."
It has a great deal of resonance to me, even though Missouri has not taken it seriously since the Reagan years..

Local charities provide some food, water, and hygiene materials. It seems that it is hard to get services here. Kansas is a right to work state, and has gotten a lot more
brutal over the years, IMO.

[Breeze54]

6. "the poverty line, which is roughly $21,200 annually for a family of four"? It's now $40,000. a yr!!

That $21K figure is a bush LIE!!!!!! :grr:

[Anarpeace]

8. Support the troops -- fuck the poor nt

[Lilith Velkor]

10. Prison labor contractors always need fresh bodies

I trust I don't need to draw you a picture.

[JuniperLea]

13. If they bail out the poor... all that money would be spent to get out of debt..

And, voila! The banks and corporations have their bailout.

They are going at this bassackwards.