Propose a proposal to help the poor. Lets see your stuff!!!!

[inthebrain]

Lets see if we can get some people off the same old stale rhetoric we hear about drug addiction, laziness and dependence when it comes to poor people. Proposing that they "buck up and suck up" is royally fucking ignorant.

Those that are poor either have jobs or know they need one. So the argument that they need a little encouragement is a little stupid.

I say we need to have a responsible discussion in this country regarding access to health care, housing, clothing and food. People with brains know that depending on the free market to supply you with these things is also "dependency". Nobody should be stuck at the mercy of markets to provide them with basic human needs. Work should be rewarding as opposed to something that allows you to barely get by.

And please spare me the clap trap of higher education, where costs are soaring through the stratosphere. Those that are poor can barely afford the time and money take classes. Not to mention the debt that comes with taking out student loans!!!!

I offered this to conservatives and all I received was the need for more tax cuts. That seems to be their only resort when when presented with a problem. Let's get some real responses to this question from some Progressives!!!!

The Right constantly claims that we have no ideas. Let's show them what we are made of, and that we are in fact, capable of coming up with real solutions!!!!

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Reinstate 90% top marginal rate for starters

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

[coalition_unwilling]

2. I'd like to resurrect George McGovern's "Guaranteed Annual Income"

Ironically, during this apotheosis of Reaganism, it's forgotten that the anti-poverty programs of LBJ and Nixon actually worked to get people out of poverty.

McGovern's "Guaranteed Annual Income" proposal (from the '72 campaign) took existing anti-poverty programs and consolidated them (as I recall) to ensure that every American had at least a certain money income. The mechanism was to be the IRS (a bit like today's Earned Income Credit, if memory serves).

Reagan was able to play on white middle-class racism and resentment with his endless anecdotes about "welfare queens" and "food stamp cadillacs". Lost in the shuffle was the hard reality that directly transferring wealth to the poor has the effect of pulling them out of poverty.

[Stinky The Clown]

18. I'd modify this just a tad ..... "Minimum Standard of Living"

George McGovern is a personal hero. He was right then. A "minimum Standard of Living" is the right thing for today.

Rescind the tax cuts, take the cap off FICA and raise (not lower) the rate on all earnings above ... I dunno ..... $250K? Strengthen the military but cut the bullshit out of the military budget (not a pair of mutually exclusive concepts if the right person does the job). Depersonify corporations and make them pay **all** their taxes.

[katmondoo]

3. Higher education may not be affordable but apprenticeships

could be offered by those with high paying job skills. Those taking on an apprentice could receive tax breaks or something to stimulate interest in taking on an apprentice.

[inthebrain]

6. Tax Cuts and Tax credits

are in the Republican pool.

How about we slash 20% of the military budget and use that to fund free housing?

Propose a thing.

A BIG THING!!!!!

Something that challenges the myth of the free market and offers people more choices in life. Something that levels the playing Field.

As far as tax cuts go. We already have a party willing to do that. They are disingenuous about it but they own that pool.

[Lerkfish]

4. An Idea I've been kicking around for a while: incidental land use

take unused stretches along highways, (you know that space that mowers and bushhogs constantly have to go over) and allow the poor to plant and harvest crops there, with some help from local agriculture experts.
Additionally, on all public land, only plant trees and plants that bear edible fruit, instead of ornamental trees and flowers. Allow the poor to help in gathering, canning, distributing, etc. in return for part of the bounty.

Or if Bush is hellbent to have faith initiatives, have churches make pies and breads and other staples from all the harvests on incidental unused land to feed the homeless and poor.

If even only the medians on city streets were planted with blackberry bushes, there would be a large enough readily available sustenance for homeless at least for part of the year.

there is a great deal of incidental land doing nothing except being mowed all over the US, and it would cost very little to plant things that bear fruit or grain.

Even if it was haphazard farming, whatever it yielded would be more than places have now.

[Lerkfish]

7. well, my idea has the beauty of being doable now.

without having to change the current economic structure very much.

[sandnsea]

11. I gotta comment on the blackberry bushes

I swear we could make a cottage industry for the poor on the wild blackberry bushes in my town alone. They are friggin' EVERYWHERE, and most of them don't get picked. It's funny you mention it because I think of it every fall. I bet the country has tons of wild roots and berries that go to waste every year. Not to mention the fruit trees that people don't even bother to pick anymore, all over our towns. It's a damned shame.

[Mountainman]

5. The federal and state governments should build factories to build what is

not made in this country. Such as small affordable fuel efficient cars and electronics. The factories would hire and train Americans who are out of work. They could learn management skills with OJT and give it college credit. Include higher education and day care on sight. These factories can be profit oriented with ownership by the workers. Sell the items on the global market.

The right says competition is good so let's employ people and compete. Germany made the Volkswagen this way. Also we could have government infrastructure companies to build roads and bridges etc. Like the CCC during the depression.

Why should my tax dollars go to Iraq? We will throw billions down and black hole there. Why not use that money to put people to work?

[inthebrain]

9. Volkswagon

Was made on the backs of prison camp labor.

Behind every fortune lies a great crime.

[blondeatlast]

8. Resurrect a sort of Works Project Administration for starters.

Employ people in the inner cities to beautify their own surroundings by building parks, planting trees, salvaging abandoned buildings, the list goes on.

Property values go up and pride in the neighborhood helps crime rates go down.

Some citizens could be sworn in as peace officers, assisting the police.

I live in a city where we have two branch libraries in what are considered to be very bad parts of town. The people in these neighborhoods are very protective of their branch libraries and don't take kindly when their own--including the gangs--mess with the libraries and parks.

Incredibly good cost-to-benefit ratio with this, I suspect.

[meow2u3]

10. Change affirmative action

Change affirmative action from one implemented on the basis of race to one on the basis of socioeconomic class.

In other words, give all the poor, including and especially poor whites, a chance to get out of poverty and enter the middle class, not just minorities, even though minorities still will benefit from class-based affirmative action. Who knows--we could well defeat the divide-and-conquer tactics of repukes and corporate big shits.

[1932]

12. 1) fund EXCELLENT public schools, even in poor neighborhoods and

2) pay for college with an intest-free government loan that you only pay back if you make higher than the median income and only pay a maximum of 10% of your after-tax income, and you have your whole life to pay it back, and if you don't pay it all aback, that's OK.

[1932]

13. To hell with "equality of opportunity." Focus on equality of outcome.

What does it matter if we have equality of opportunity (or, do we really even have it?) if there's such incredible inequality of outcomes.

Let's look at everywhere in society where we're having vastly unequal outcomes and figure out why and not rest until the outcomes are more equitable.

[JeffR]

14. A modest proposal

Which may strike some as a joke, but give it some thought.

According to the National Priorities Project (http://nationalpriorities.org/) the quagmire in Iraq has cost roughly $247,995,200,000. Check the quick-hit link on their site called Cost of War - it's scary. Annually, this works out to $82,665,066,666. For simplicity's sake, and because it's late, I'll round that down to $82 billion annually.

Again being generous, let's take the Census Bureau's 2003 poverty numbers (assuredly worse now...) which state that 35.9 million Americans were below the poverty line. I'll round that down to 35 million.

If you take the annual $82 billion cost of pursuing the Dictator-Tot's war and redirect it to the 35 million poor Americans, you could write each and every one of them a check - every year - for $2342.86.

From the Census Bureau's site: "As defined by the Office of Management and Budget and updated for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2003 was $18,810; for a family of three, $14,680; for a family of two, $12,015; and for unrelated individuals, $9,393."

So Americans in poverty could receive income supplements ranging from around 8% for members of a family of four to 25% for individuals in poverty.

If this sounds like a stupid idea, I can only say that in comparison to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, it's fucking brilliant.

And this doesn't even make a dent in those precious tax-cuts-for-the-rich.

Great thread, inthebrain!

ON EDIT: If I got any of the math wrong, my apologies. I'm a bit fried and thinking about all this makes me so goddamned angry it's tough to think straight.

[Hidden Stillness]

15. Direct Cash Payments are Actually the Only Thing that Helps

The most efficient, effective way to help poor people, and stimulate the economy, is by giving direct cash payments to people. Roosevelt knew it, the New Deal that ended the Depression was based on it (until Republicans started dismantling programs around 1938 and brought unemployment and poverty back up again). It does not help during a time of recession to give tax breaks, etc., to businesses, because, as the economy is bad, they will not hire new employees anyway--they would just have to be laid off; sales are slow. Giving direct cash payments to people who need it, though, gets things started right away again, because they immediately pay bills, buy food and clothes, fix their cars, etc., reinvigorating the local economy as no capitalist tax scheme ever could. Every Depression or recession has been solved just this simple way.

This also reminds me of something I just heard on the TV news, but can't remember the source; it was an objective government source though--Government Accounting Office, Office of Management and Budget, Congressional Budget Office, one of those. They just reported on the monumental disasters of FEMA, not responding etc., that if they had just directly bought and paid for a new, middle class house for every single family who lost theirs by the hurricane(s) that hit the Gulf Coast, rather than all this funneled, unaccounted for money that went to corporate scams--if rather than the whole, muddled set-up they had, they just bought everybody a house--it would have cost the government less. After all the costly stupidity the Bush Administration did--ice trucks driving interminably around the country, mobile homes no one gets to use, contractors not fulfilling contracts, etc.--that helped no one; if they had bought every family a house, period, it would have cost less; and it would have helped. Republicans would rather die than give money to poor people to help them; they would rather funnel it all to corrupt corporations and fuck the whole thing up.

If the idea is to help them, then getting them money now, so they can start to regain their lives, is just as important as training people with workplace skills, etc.

[JeffR]

16. Right on

Funny how a poor person spending a buck somewhere never figures into the fRight Wing calculus of stimulating the economy, but a huge tax cut for the Dick Cheneys of society is touted as a great stimulus, even though most of it gets socked into an offshore account somewhere.

[inthebrain]

17. Kick