John Edwards is coming to UW-Madison to preach big government
The defeated Vice-Presidential Candidate John Edwards is coming to Madison on October 26 at 2pm to talk about his new endeavor: Project Opportunity, an anti-poverty campaign.
The sad news about his visit is, like all liberal causes, there are strings attached. An excerpt from Project Opportunity's website says:
Today's young people do a lot of community service. But too many of us have given up on public service. That's a problem because to beat poverty, we need good policies. And to get good policies, we need good people to push for them. Therefore, Project Opportunity has a two-part mission: get young people more involved in community service, and get them to advocate policies that expand opportunity for people living in poverty. (emphasis added)
They are basically saying that yes college studentsvolunteerr a lot, but it really doesn't help anyone and government has to come to the rescue.
Why can't John Edwards just keep the message simple and say "help thyneighborr" or volunteerr and make the world a better place." Nope. His visit will be preachy and their goal is to turn good hearted individuals that want to help through service into another cog in their political machine.
The parent organization of Project Opportunity, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, wants to mandate a higher minimum wage and "buildmomentumm to launch a nationwide youth movement.
When will the liberals learn that throwing money at poverty does not solve the problem?
posted by Rob at 02:29
2 Comments:
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that the edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." - MLK
Unfortunately, Edwards gets it and you don't. He has often said that it is not about charity, but instead about justice. A vast majority of poor are the "working poor" i.e. they work full time. Why should they have to live on charity despite working full time? Don't they deserve the dignity of making enough for themselves?
"Helping" the poor is great, but the true help will be done when they don't need our "help" anymore. That is Edwards' goal. Now, you can look at him and say that he is a liberal and has liberal policies. However, all of the things that he has proposed are not about welfare projects, but instead about how to make work pay.
It's superficial name-tag barriers that people like you create, that prevent anyone in this country who wants to do good and talks common sense to move forward and do the good they envision.
Just encouraging young people to do community service is not good enough, we have to restructure the institutions in this nation that allow a full-time worker to be in poverty... that allow the wealthiest nation in the world to have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world.
Sat Oct 08, 11:35:00 AM CDT
Helping people in today's capitalist economy is now construed as "justice". How can paying people according to the labor market and wage rates be considered unjustice or unfair? If they want to raise the unemployment rate, according to economic theory wage rigidity will increase and there will be a greater number unemployed. Look at the numbers over in Europe (aka Germany and France consistent rates of 8-12% unemployment) where there is a high minimum wage, a highly unionized workforce, and long-term unemployment benefits. The US already has policies like the income tax credit to help low-income workers. What else does John Edwards want to do? I will list a number of things: turn the US into a much more protectionist nation, give labor unions more power, make business capital less mobile, put lots more federal money into declining rural areas, and continue to be the king of populist economic rhetoric within the Democratic Party. If we let politicians like John Edwards run our government economic growth will slow, the state will gain even more power in controlling our economy, investment from abroad and domestically will slow, and the US will become a decidedly less efficient nation. But he doesn't care, he doesn't understand economics or business, and all he wants to do is show people that he is a compassionate human being that cares. The US economy, its workers, and investors can do much better with pro-growth policies but John Edwards and a large number of liberals will never understand.
Sat Oct 08, 01:41:00 PM CDT
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