Letter: What can you do?

It's comforting to know that, compared to 3rd world nations, we don't have a "poverty" problem. At least by your lights. A recent study comparing our nation's health with that of the rest of the developed world found us lacking, and far behind the rest of the advanced nations on basic indices of personal health. While no one may starve to death from famine in America, our libertarian "free market" approach to food and the poor, and our "shame and blame the victim" attitude toward poverty suggest a far deeper problem than your glib stereo-typing response. We currently have nearly one in two children living in or near poverty in this country. That should be a national disgrace--instead the right continues to show contempt for all the demographics on poverty by their continued assault on the safety net.

You were ragging on a poster for assuming your post meant that you thought folks who favor no gun limits are white supremists. Yet you state that I said we do not have a poverty issue in the US. I never said that, I said it was exaggerated. Your victim approach to all things entitlement wise makes no sense. That assumes that folks who are poor got that way through no fault of their own. That has been proven time and again to be false. There are other factors like no motivation, drug and alcohol abuse, and having babies out of wedlock with no support from the fathers. We in the US have many programs for low income. Growing everyday. The issue is not funding, the issue is dependence and the naive idea from the left that if you give folks more, they will somehow escape poverty, change their behavior and better themselves. That has not happened since the War On Poverty came into existance. The figures have stayed the same at 13%.

Thanks for proving my point with your statement: "Your victim approach to all things entitlement makes no sense." Really? You don't want to walk that one back? That gives a different cast to the phrase: "the deserving poor--meaning that some Americans (how many?) "deserve" to be poor. Which ones exactly "deserve to be poor" ? You said poverty rates in this country were "widely exaggerated" but offer only anecdotal evidence to support your point of view by claiming that being poor in America ain't so bad. Which is it: being poor ain't so bad, or poverty rates in the country are "widely exaggerated"?

There would not be a poverty problem today if Obama had not continued on his failed Keynesian economic mission. You can blame starving children on Obama. What is a 'national disgrace' is that a leader in a country with one in two children living in or near poverty takes a $4M vacation, his own children living a privileged life while he rails against the private sector, corporations and our way of life. If there was not 9% unemployment, things would be different. If we harvested our natural resources for energy it would create jobs and prosperity. But seriously, where are all of these starving children? Progressives keep telling us that there is an obesity problem with our kids. I travel far and wide and I don't see too many hungry kids or that poverty that you talk about. Funny thing about statistics and figures. Figures don't lie, liars figure.

As usual, you have the causes and the cure to our slowly recovering economy backwards. To state :"There would not be a poverty problem today if Obama had not continued his failed Keynesian economic mission" bears no relation to economic reality that any responsible economist or economic historian would recognize. The data on the stimulus bear this out, and if Obama had gotten the 2nd stimulus he wanted, we'd be looking even better. As for your intimations that poverty doesn't exist--you see only what you're looking for--it's called confirmation bias, and conservatives are masters at it. They even have their own network devoted to it.

False, hyperbole, rhetoric, demonization of those who do not buy into your propaganda, simple falsehoods. Yes we agree that you want to tax,tax,tax. That is obvious. We are not in Ireland or some Socialist country and you ought be grateful that we have the freedoms we have, paid for by patriotic Americans; allowing you to pontificate from your high and mighty perch secured to that pedestal to which you elevate yourself.

It(')saRepublic says "We are not in.....some Socialist country", but that's where much of our energy comes from, and where most of our manufacturing jobs are. These and other problems must be solved by "we" the people. I am "grateful that 'we' have the freedoms 'we' have" to put ideas up for discussion - even if the discussion frequently gets bogged down by the meaningless "rhetoric" of some of the "we" who offer no substantive ideas, facts, or figures.

Reply to itsa's assertion that claims Mitt Romney exported/outsourced jobs were "patently false": not according to this piece from Forbes, which reports on an article from "Mother Jones" by David Corn. Of course, its'a can dismiss it out of hand--it is "Mother Jones" after all. But a Forbes writer saw fit to comment on the story--and not debunk it. Care to post a "counter-factual" source that argues otherwise--with real facts?

First and foremost, we have enough energy sources right here to become energy independent. Now, we learn that with expanded fracking that we could have as much as 500 years of natural gas and oil, so there is no need to import from those "Socialist" countries. As for the manufacturing jobs, well you folks slammed Mitt Romney during the election for exporting jobs which was patently false so that "meaningless rhetoric" only works on one side, right?

Yes sail, you are correct. It is more about people who want control of others behaviors than it is about real science.

The evidence that CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels is causing the present warming is overwhelming. The comments above from Itsa and Sail are examples of head-in the-sand willful ignorance on the science and on the risks of continued denial and the resulting failure to take action to begin reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. The costs of inaction and ignorance will likely be far greater over the next 100 years than the costs incurred by implementing such rational acts as a carbon tax, and treating the need to switch to low-carbon energy sources with the urgency we once applied to the Manhattan Project or putting a man on the moon.

Nice theory, nice agenda. The added plus to your support of the climate change "agenda" is that you get to preach to others how to live, what to eat, what to drive, how to heat their homes, the size of families, how we travel, where we work. Yup, you would rather kill the economy, have us live like paupers to sooth your conscience.

Funny, I thought I was addressing the issue of climate change, and those who deny the reams of evidence on AGW. "Having us live like paupers" is what 3 decades of libertarian economic policy is forcing increasing numbers of Americans to do.