While it may seem like we are correcting the presenting problem, the resulting bigger government foists programs upon us that rob both the taxpayers and recipients of their natural dignity.
The Speaker of the House appointed a committee to study Poverty. Do you think with all the unemployment, there would be a proportional increase in poverty? Surprisingly, no. Taken in the aggregate, marital status is a greater indicator of poverty than job status! An old expression says, "You get more of what you subsidize and you get less of what you tax." Our national government has been subsidizing promiscuity and has been taxing marriage and those with an ambitious work ethic. The policies of the current federal administration are designed to escalate this to a higher level yet.
The only hope left is for the states to design policies that will reverse this trend because they are on a financial collision course. If you have the time to read through the report we produced, you will learn some innovative ideas that you will not hear about on the evening news. We toured the Sunshine Mission in St. Louis and heard from some of the foremost experts in the entire country about how to solve many poverty related issues. The answers will surprise you because they do not involve bigger government or more money thrown at the problem.
We are on a mission to save our state from waste, fraud and abuse. The first place to start is by understanding which programs help and which ones merely exacerbate the problem. Sometimes our methods of involvement actually do more damage than good. Those who study alcoholism understand the concept of co-dependency. In many cases, the government has been acting like a co-dependent---enabling people to destroy themselves so that they will have a greater need for more government. The only lasting solutions come from the private sector.
Here is the link to the report from the Interim Committee on Poverty: Interim Committee on Poverty.
Here is an article that appeared this week in the New York Newspaper, Democrat and Chronicle
Mike McManus: Marriage absence at root of child poverty
Mike McManus • September 28, 2010America's press blamed America's high unemployment rate for the problem. However, though the jobless rate doubled in a year from 5 to 10 percent, poverty increased only one percent.
The primary cause of poverty is not joblessness but marriage, or rather, marriage absence. Indeed, the Heritage Foundation published data last week: "Marriage: America's No. 1 Weapon Against Childhood Poverty."
It notes, "Marriage Drops the Probability of Child Poverty by 82 percent."
That's stunning. However, 36.5 percent of families headed by a single mother were poor in 2008 while only 6.4 percent of married, two-parent families are poor.
Yet the marriage rate has plunged 51 percent since 1970.
Heritage notes that children of unwed parents have soared eight-fold since 1960 when only five percent of births were out-of-wedlock, to 40.6 percent in 2008. A third of America's children live in unmarried families, seven-tenths of whom are poor.
Marriage absence should be a major political issue in the current campaigns for governors, state legislators and even Congress.
Why? "Marriage absence is driving federal and state deficits," says David Usher, president of the Center for Marriage Policy in St. Louis.
"Health care coverage, personal bankruptcy and home loan defaults are infrequent problems for married couples. Children raised in intact families are the last to get in trouble, flunk out of school, join a gang, have babies, become chronic substance abusers, or grow up to be criminals."
What can be done to reverse these trends? Heritage suggests federal strategies:
Reduce anti-marriage penalties in welfare programs. Why should the government reward single parenthood with welfare, food stamps, free medical care, housing subsidies, etc? Robert Rector of Heritage estimates that "the cost of subsidizing single parenthood is $280 billion. The people who receive large subsidies should no longer get one-way handouts." He asserts those subsidies should require full-time work. Welfare Reform took that strategy, reducing welfare rolls 60 percent.
Require welfare offices to provide factual data on the value of marriage, and require federally funded birth control clinics to provide information on benefits of marriage.
By contrast, the new Center for Marriage Policy is recommending initiatives that could be taken by state government.
Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis, the Center's executive director, says present law provides "perverse incentives" to destroy rather than preserve marriage. For example, she tells of a woman who was "poisoned by her friends to get out of the marriage. They said she could get custody of their child, which comes with a big lump of money, plus she got her husband to pay her lawyer's fees. Their child was a teenager who did not want to live with her mom, but her dad, which she did. But the mom got a court order for him to pay child support to her anyway."
To put it differently, the state provides incentives for marriage destruction, not marriage preservation. Hundreds of studies prove that couples with enduring marriages are happier, healthier, live longer and have more sex and better sex. (See "A Case for Marriage" by Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite.)
Davis introduced a bill requiring that couples with children agree on the divorce, unless fault (adultery, abuse) is proven — a reform of no fault divorce that I have called "mutual consent."
Why? She says, "It is simple. If there are children, more people are involved. Mutual consent would breed more stability for society in general." The bill did not pass, but she was term-limited and will be out of office next year. As the center's director, she can pursue legislation as a private citizen, yet with a knowledge of people and issues that only a former legislator would have.
A second reform that could cut the divorce rate is to require divorcing couples to live apart for a year if there is mutual consent, and two years if contested. Maryland, Illinois and Pennsylvania have such a law and their divorce rate is half that of states with no requirement to live apart.
Why? If couples have to live apart for a year, many couples decide to reconcile before the divorce takes effect.
Usher, center president, charges "The welfare state is eating Missouri alive. The cost to taxpayers of marriage absence is at least $1.3 billion per year. A sensible marriage policy could reduce illegitimacy and divorce by half. The deficits will abate when marriage is restored."
Your thoughts are important to me, so please let me know what you think about government's role in poverty. You can send me your opinion by clicking here: Cynthia Davis
A Little Bit of Humor
Ben invited his mother over for dinner. During the meal, his mother couldn't help noticing how beautiful Ben's roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between Ben and his roommate and this only made her more curious.
Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Ben and the roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Ben volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Allison and I are just roommates."
About a week later, Allison came to Ben and said, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. "You don't suppose she took it, do you?"
Ben said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll write her a letter just to be sure."
So he sat down and wrote: "Dear Mother, I'm not saying you 'did' take a gravy ladle from my house, and I'm not saying you 'did not' take a gravy ladle. But the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner."
Several days later, Ben received a letter from his mother that read:
"Dear Son, I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Allison, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Allison. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now. Love, Mom"
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