McCain Tells the Truth About Fighting Poverty
April 25th, 2008 at 09:02am Mark Noonan
Democrats will come in and promise poor people a miraculous turn-around in their fortunes via government spending - McCain points out what a foolish concept that is, and tells people some truth they’ve long been denied:
In the heart of Appalachia, in the town where Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty but where poverty still reigns, John McCain told voters Wednesday that the government couldn’t solve all their problems.
“Government has a role to play in helping people who through no fault of their own are having a hard time,” McCain said. “But government can’t create good and lasting jobs outside of government. It can’t pay lost wages. It can’t dig coal from the earth. It can’t buy you a house.”
McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who’s on a weeklong tour of what he calls America’s “forgotten places,” faulted previous politicians for taking a top-down approach to fighting poverty. He said a better approach from Washington would be “to listen to and learn from you, about what you’re doing to grow your economy and increase opportunities here, and to find out what government is doing and not doing to help your initiatives.”
He called for providing Internet service to underserved areas. Under McCain’s plan, the government would reward companies that provided that service with tax breaks and faster depreciation of their investments.
McCain reiterated his previous calls for ties between businesses and community colleges to train needed workers, for encouraging professionals to go into teaching and for more use of the Internet to teach those in remote areas.
Finally, McCain promised to return to Inez if he’s elected and hold another town-hall meeting to hear from Martin County residents about how he’s doing in his efforts to help them.
This is poor country - the poverty rate in Inez is 35 percent. But people here say it’s McCain country. George W. Bush won the congressional district here by 62 percent to 39 percent in 2004.
“This area is conservative, rural and religious - a perfect place for John McCain to do very well. These are white hillbillies,” said Thomas Packett, a school principal for 37 years in nearby Prestonburg.
Irene McCoy works at a Wal-Mart with her daughter. Her son works in a coal mine. “It’s a hard way to go around here. We’re just poor folks,” she said.
Yet in many ways the area has changed since Johnson visited in 1964, Packett said.
“It’s a lot better than it was. A lot of people didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. Now they might be in trailers or double-wides, but they’re better off. There has been progress.”
He said LBJ’s big government aid was helpful in its day, but he agrees with McCain that now the area’s biggest need is more money for job-training education.
The crowd of several hundred - in a town with fewer than 500 residents - greeted McCain rapturously, with several standing ovations as he delivered a speech and held a town-hall meeting in an old county courthouse.
As I said before, the cure for what ails the poor isn’t more liberalism, but more conservatism…more faith in God, more rejection of consumerism, more rock-solid education (please leave aside touchy-feely self esteem nonsense at the door), more hard work. None of us are promised an easy time in life - but we are promised that doing the right thing with always work out to our benefit. There really is no free lunch - there is no quick and easy, government-funded solution to long-standing problems…all there can be is the will to work; to do the right thing; to keep faith in God and neighbors.
There is a place for government - to marshal the funds necessary for the work to be done; but the work has to be done by the willing hands of people who expect no gifts, but only the ability to do for themselves. The key to a rational, functioning democratic republic is a people who will never seek the easy way out, nor whine and moan when there are the tasks of the day to perform. For 40 years or more now, we’ve had liberals tell us that work is a horrid drudgery and that family is an inconvenience - and the result of this is evident: family disintegration and an unwillingness to engage in work unless it is “good” work, as defined by rich liberals who likely have never worked a day in their lives. Family should be at the center of our social existence, and no honest work should be disdained - the doctor and the janitor, doing their tasks to the best of their ability, are both doing a magnificent thing, and both are worthy of honor in a healthy society.
John McCain proposes we tell the truth - that we get out there and just get to work; not with a promise of an easy life, but with a promise that we’ll all feel better when we go to bed at night knowing we did what had to be done.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Republicans
14 Comments
1. Rana Quijotesca | April 25th, 2008 at 9:41 am
So does this mean that you oppose corporate handouts and tax breaks? Everyone has to deserve what they get, and they deserve what they get by working–that includes businesses. No corporate handouts for anyone…
2. John McCain News » &hellip | April 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
3. Amanda | April 25th, 2008 at 10:22 am
“…more rejection of consumerism…”
Ha. This coming from the guy who champions the president who told us that one of the best ways to fight the terrorists after 9/11 was to go shopping and buy lots of stuff?
Awesome.
4. OhioOrrin | April 25th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I beg to differ w JMac.
a socialist govt can TRY to do all those things…and ours is as inefficient as it gets when it trys.
however, as John Kenneth Galbraith noted the only acceptable socialism in america is for the rich.
I’d add corporate & medical.
also, Mark u wrote “…more rejection of consumerism…” which is antithetical to supply siders.
5. George Bush » McCai&hellip | April 25th, 2008 at 11:09 am
[...] Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com wrote an interesting post today on McCain Tells the Truth About Fighting PovertyHere’s a quick excerptBut people here say it’s McCain country. George W. Bush won the congressional district here by 62 percent to 39 percent in 2004. [...]
6. js | April 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
The title to this should be Raping the US Economy through unchecked capitalism…..
7. Magnum Serpentine | April 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
And now the Obstructionist Republicans declare war on the Poor. Its very funny that when the Government created jobs in the 1930’s that millions of people moved off the streets and into nice apartments or homes.
I also wonder, since its not the governments place according to the Obstructionist, to offer government handouts to the poor, does this also mean its wrong for george to give handouts to the big banking, big wig businesses which have received untold billions in government business welfare?
8. dickvee | April 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
JS and MS =BS
Only a commie would spew the coded words, ‘unchecked capitalism’, and suggest it was raping our economy. Pathetic. Poor in spirit as well as material. Come try and get my money you pile of socialists.
9. Rana Quijotesca | April 25th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Magnum Serpentine-
Actually, the government did more harm in the 1930s than good… just look at the data…
10. SteaM | April 25th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
“White hillbillies”
11. js | April 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
what was pathetic was enron…unlimited greed exceeds the needs of corporations at the expense of the consumer…
example…tomatoes were .10 each…one year we had a freeze and tomatoes went up to almost $1 each….the following year the price didnt go down to even close to what tomatoes were….they are still over 500% of the price it used to be…the farmers didnt get a 500% pay raise…the processors are not spending any more money to bring the tomatoes to the market…the crazy profits are going toward giant corporation chain stores…whose employees didnt get a 500% pay raise either….so dont bard BS at us and tell us you cured the problem…this model is spreading to almost everything they get their hands on, some slowly, some blatanly like cucumbers and tomatoes….
unchecked capitalism…its not communism or socialism…its corporate responsibility….
12. DBM | April 25th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Have I awoken in an alternate universe?
Or, more reasonably, do we have impostors using the signature lines of JS and Mark Noonan?
Protests against corporate greed and “unchecked capitalism”? A call to “reject consumerism”?
I’m giggling with the absurdity of it all.
Dare I say that maybe - just maybe - JS and Mark Noonan are now Commie Liberals? (or is it Liberal Commies? I’m new to mindless labeling, so I may have it backwards).
Ok, everyone, now that we’re all of one mind here, let’s all sing “L’Internationale”.
13. Diana Powe | April 25th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
The notion (and it is a notion) that Senator John Sidney McCain III, who suffered nobly as a prisoner of war 35-plus years ago, is some kind of irreproachable beacon of virtue as he desperately seeks to fulfill his burning personal ambition to be elected President of the United States grows more absurd with each passing day. The only “truth” that matters to the good Senator is those words which can pass from his mouth that he believes will bring about his standing with Chief Justice Roberts in front of the Capitol next January.
In an uncommon swerve from the routine deference to his “war hero” credentials, he was asked some pointed questions today by Meredith Vieira on the Today Show. When asked about his Senate votes against funding for aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina (who were the recipients of God’s judgment according to his friend, Pastor John Hagee) he could only say, “I have been helpful. I’ve been down here. I’ve supported every effort that I could.” Apparently there weren’t very many efforts that he could find his way to support as, almost three years on, he can still show up in New Orleans, metaphorically wring his hands while talking about how botched the recovery effort has been and claim (sans evidence) that such a thing would never happen during a McCain presidency. Nearly three years have elapsed and all would-be President McCain can do is show up, say that it wouldn’t have been this bad if he’d been president and then dodge the fact that he worked against fulfilling President Bush’s promise of “…here in New Orleans, the street cars will once again rumble down St. Charles, and the passionate soul of a great city will return” by, among other things, voting against an investigation into what went wrong. John McCain will say anything to try to become president, but his own actions and lack of action speak much louder.
14. It’s The Economy &l&hellip | April 25th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
[...] 25, 2008 · No Comments And John McCain doesn’t understand it. While Conservative bloggers are impressed with his Kentucky visit, others are [...]