Poverty in the USA is solely a bureaucratic convention.
The USA has the richest "poor" people in the world. A new car, color TV,
Gameboys for the kids, etc.
So why give a **** whether those same kids can to read and write so long
as
they can live off state and federal handouts until they learn to deal
drugs
or slam dunk a basketball?
At least we quit paying women to have illegitimate babies provided there
was
no husband in the house.
Just one more artifice of the "Liberal Plantation"
end
"Marcello" <marcello@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:eRC7d.287906$4o.23877@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Gaza" <gary.humble@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:2pbhcnFiksfjU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> You seem to have remarkable difficulty following a thread.
>> I have changed the thread back and have cut the crap you posted since
>> nothing in it was in any way relevant.
>>
>> Poverty in the U.S. climbs for third year
>> Brian Knowlton/IHT IHT
>> Friday, August 27, 2004
>>
>>
>> WA****NGTON The U.S. poverty rate and the number of Americans without
>> health
>> insurance rose
>> last year, each for the third consecutive year, the Census Bureau
>> re****ted
>> Thursday. The
>> figures, which the administration released a month earlier than usual,
>> quickly became the
>> focus of a partisan debate.
>>
>> "Under George Bush's watch," said Senator John Kerry, referring to the
>> new
>> data,
>> "America's families are falling further behind." The re****t said that
the
>> number of
>> Americans in poverty rose from 12.1 percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent a
>> year
>> later, totaling
>> 35.8 million people, and that the number of uninsured Americans rose
>> during
>> the same
>> period by 1.4 million, to 45 million, or 15.6 percent of the
population.
>>
>> Median household income remained basically flat, at $43,318 when
adjusted
>> for inflation,
>> ending a two-year decline.
>>
>> The numbers were not unexpected, and do not reflect the economic growth
>> of
>> the past
>> several months, which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs.
>>
>> Dan Weinberg, a Census Bureau analyst, said that the data was typical
for
>> a
>> post-recession
>> economy, but that the numbers of the uninsured reflected continued
>> uncertainty over
>> employment. Employers, who have cited the high costs of providing
health
>> insurance as a
>> reason to hire conservatively, are also offering less generous benefit
>> plans.
>>
>> The poverty rate was the highest since 1998, when it reached 12.7
>> percent.
>> The Census
>> Bureau places the poverty threshold for a family of four at $18,810.
>>
>> The Census Bureau noted that while the overall poverty rate was up from
>> 2002, it remained
>> below the average of the 1980s and 1990s.
>>
>> Still, the new data comes amid a close election campaign in which
debate
>> over economic
>> health and fairness loom large.
>>
>> For campaign advisers to Kerry, who have been striving to turn
attention
>> away from a
>> bitter controversy over his Vietnam War record and toward the economic
>> issues, the new
>> numbers were a welcome gift. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, wasted no
>> time
>> seizing on the
>> Census re****t as evidence to bolster his critiques of administration
>> economic and health
>> care policies.
>>
>> The new figures mean that "five million Americans over five years have
>> lost
>> their health
>> insurance," Kerry told an audience of sup****ters and undecided voters
in
>> Anoka, Minnesota.
>> "About 45 million Americans go to bed every night worried."
>>
>> A Kerry campaign statement called on Bush to debate the senator "once a
>> week
>> between now
>> and the end of the campaign, so that the issues that really matter to
the
>> American people
>> - like the number of uninsured and people living in poverty - can be
>> front
>> and center in
>> this election."
>>
>> The debate proposal was of a sort often made by presidential
challengers,
>> but rarely
>> agreed to by incumbents, who are generally thought to have more to lose
>> in
>> debates. For
>> now, the candidates are expected to have three debates, on Sept. 30,
Oct.
>> 8
>> and Oct. 13.
>>
>> Bush, giving a fairly standard stump speech Thursday during an
appearance
>> in
>> Las Cruces,
>> New Mexico, did not specifically address the Census numbers.
>>
>> "We have more to do to make this economy stronger," he said,
mentioning,
>> as
>> he often does,
>> the economic shocks of recent years, from recession to terrorist
attacks
>> and
>> cor****ate
>> scandals. The president, as he also does, credited American workers and
>> entrepreneurs, as
>> well as his own "well-timed tax cuts," for moving the country beyond
the
>> worst economic
>> woes.
>>
>> But there was immediate dispute over the Census re****t.
>>
>> Some Republicans noted that even as the number of uninsured Americans
>> grew
>> by 1.4 million,
>> the number of insured did as well, by 1 million. Bush's health and
human
>> services
>> secretary, Tommy Thompson, said that Bush was working to reduce health
>> insurance costs to
>> businesses.
>>
>> Some Democrats saw political manipulation in the fact that the
>> administration issued the
>> new numbers a month before their usual release in late September. But
>> Louis
>> Kincannon, the
>> Census director and a Bush appointee, said that the earlier release was
>> intended to
>> coordinate better with other re****ts. It came, he said, without
>> "influence
>> or pressure"
>> from the Bush campaign.
>>
>> International Herald Tribune
>>
>>
> Exactly what policy of Kerry's is intended to solve the above mentioned
> problems?
>
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