Keeping the Poor in Poverty | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Keeping the Poor in Poverty | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "For example, few things are as important in helping people escape poverty as education."

"Yet Obama and the Democrats, in thrall to the teachers' unions, steadfastly resist proposals to give parents more control over their children's education. Washington, D.C., has a public-school system that, despite spending more per child than almost any other system in the nation, still has a dropout rate of more than 50 percent. Yet one of the first actions of the president and congressional Democrats was to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offered vouchers to permit poor children to opt out of the city's rotten public schools.

Across the country, efforts to increase parental choice are met with a wall of Democratic obstructionism. Choice, we are told, is a threat to the 'education system.' But which is really more important, the 'education system' or poor children?

And, of course, nothing is more important in fighting poverty than jobs. Yet the Obama administration is overtly hostile to the entrepreneurs and job creators in our economy. The wealthy are demonized rhetorically."

"We can't expect to create more jobs if we punish the type of activity that creates jobs. That means that if we wish to fight poverty, we must end those government policies — high taxes and regulatory excess — that inhibit growth and job creation. We must protect capital investment and give people the opportunity to start new businesses.

Along similar lines, one of the great advantages to reforming Social Security with personal accounts is that it would enable low-income Americans to save and accumulate wealth. But don't count on Democrats to lessen their opposition to the idea."

"Compassion is more than talking about the plight of the poor or giving them just enough money to make poverty a bit more comfortable. Real compassion is about creating the conditions that will enable the poor to get out of poverty."