Poverty is the Dirty Word No One Wants to Utter in Polite Company (and cutting the safety net is not

[Mass]

I have long felt that America refuses to talk about poverty. The Republicans sure dont. Democrats also do not. At best, they talk about middle class people who fall into poverty, but, shhh, there is no endemic poverty in America (I am not sure how many more speeches I can hear about personal responsibility, for example, without throwing up). And these are not only DLC people. It has become impolite even with populist leaning pols to talk about poverty. Poor people do not vote, so why should they care!

So, what is described here is not surprising. That somebody like Steph would not speak about poverty is nothing to be shocked by. And, at the same time, we speak about compromising on the fiscal cliff, because, you know, we cant tax rich people...

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/poverty-dirty-word-no-one-wants-utter-polit

Nothing says self-examination by media and pundits better than watching a Sunday show and seeing the host quickly cut off a discussion about poverty. Because shhhhhhh. We don't talk about poverty in public. We don't want anyone to think there's poverty in the United States. That's for other countries. Like the starving children in Africa your mother tells you about when you don't want to eat your peas. Shhhhh.

Yes, there are starving children in Africa. I am not trying to belittle that reality. But there is another reality right here at home: Poverty is a real problem.

Worse, the deepest poverty is in what I will call the "austerity states": Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
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Yet. Watch George Stephanopoulis deflect all discussion of it away by cutting Katrina VandenHeuvel off and redirecting the discussion back to immigration reform and the Hispanic vote. I actually give Greta Van Susteren some props for bringing it up, even though she intended for it to be a slam on current policies, and bigger kudos to Katrina VandenHeuvel for starting to hammer on it a bit before GSteph interrupted her. Why did he?

Because talk of poverty is unseemly? Because if we don't talk about it, poverty will suddenly disappear into the broader-brush portrait of an invincible nation? Because, like magic, it will simply be disappeared by immigration reform and symbolic gestures by our Congress while states gut their safety nets while millions of people cling to the shreds by their fingernails?
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Some very good people are pushing ahead to address poverty in the context of education, for example, like the AFT and their efforts in West Virginia and Ohio. Recognizing that education doesn't happen in a vacuum, the AFT has tackled these areas as projects for robust public-private partnerships in order to improve the economic status of the entire area. They see this as what must happen in order for children to succeed educationally, and build on that success to innovate and create new ways to improve their own communities.
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Transcript follows below the fold.

VAN SUSTEREN: Because, you know, the president had a tough argument to brag on the economy. He had a real tough argument this time. I mean, it has not been vibrant, robust, or anything else, and that was what -- that was what Governor Romney ran on.

Obviously, Romney said the voters were not particularly impressed...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Although one of the things that might have been happening at the end, you have some September forward consumer confidence going up, home sales going up, you had good jobs numbers basically for the last six months. He had a little bit of a wind at his back on the economy.

VAN SUSTEREN: But you've also go -- let's not forget the inner-city, which everyone seems to ignore, let's say the inner city in very tough times for a lot of people. If you look at the numbers that just came out last week on Food Stamps, Food Stamps, the last number, the most recent number is August, went up about 421,000 people in the month of August for Food Stamps.

VANDEN HEUVEL: But Greta, the president did not lose the inner city.

(CROSSTALK)

VAN SUSTEREN: No, no, but I'm saying that, the economy in those areas, we have -- everyone has completely ignored it.

VANDEN HEUVEL: And in is second term, I think there will be a commitment out of this White House to pay attention to those issues. But you know it didn't help that the Republican Party traveled the country calling the president a Food Stamp president. I mean, he has done more in his -- in the recovery program, there was more anti-poverty funding than there had been since President Johnson's...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Before we get to the second term, I want to pick up on something -- hold on a second. I want to pick up on something that Congressman Schock was just talking about, immigration, because you've heard that Paul Gigot, from a chorus of Republicans since the election. House Speaker John Boehner, Sean Hannity saying he's evolved on the issue of immigration.

[riderinthestorm]

1. I'm back out the door for work but can't leave without a K&R for this post. nt

[ismnotwasm]

2. It's a discussion in healthcare

I work in healthcare. And while many people seem to be enlightened enough to understand how lack of healthcare, or preventative healthcare is tied to poverty, there are still those soulless idiots who want to blame the poor for being poor, instead of trying to understand the basic forces behind poverty.

I agree, another elephant in the living room.