(Friends, please print out this commentary and study it. And use it next time you are debating poverty with a liberal or in any public forum. You can even read directly from it. Thanks, Nikitas)
Debating the average liberal is like debating a wall. They believe their arguments are impeccable even when they are dead wrong, which is always. For instance they say that only liberals care about "the poor" and about "working families" while capitalism is a system that benefits “the rich”.
Nonsense; the exact opposite is true. It is free-market capitalism that creates prosperity, helps the poor and builds a middle class everywhere it is applied while socialism causes whole societies to become poor and causes the middle class to disappear.
Just go to Europe these days and see the despair that Greek and Spanish socialism have produced. And it was all supposed to be utopia. Even communist China is using capitalism to save itself from total economic destruction.
You can always defeat a liberal in a debate if you know your facts and how to use them. That is why liberals always seek to censor conservatives and avoid debate, like on college campuses. That is why Al Gore will never debate in public about ‘global warming’ – because he knows that he will lose.
I recently was having dinner with some conservative friends. One liberal was there. I always avoid political debate in social settings, but the liberal, a retired college professor, expectedly started throwing out the usual charges and instigating trouble. One charge was something like this: “Republicans want poor people to be in that movie theater”, a reference to the Colorado shooting.
This is typical of the extremist demagoguery that liberals always use because they are ignorant and shallow and cannot debate. So they pull out the most emotionally charged statements because that is all they have. This shows weakness. And that is their Achilles heel and it gives us conservatives the opportunity to come back at them and defeat them in debate with facts.
When the professor started needling one of my conservative friends she replied by saying something like “Republicans don’t hate the poor…” and then went on and on about this and that.
Her response shows how much liberals have shaped the debate, which always comes from the point of view that “conservatives hate the poor”. Which is untrue. In fact every time we conservatives offer a real solution to poverty and not a band-aid the liberals come along with another taxpayer-funded handout and say that only they “care about” the poor.
Baloney. Liberalism actually creates more and more poverty with every passing day. So the next time you get a liberal accusing you as a conservative of “hating the poor” or “not caring about those in need” you need to be armed with facts.
So imagine that a liberal has just said that “We know that Republicans and conservatives want to cut government programs, showing that they don’t care about the poor.” You must respond with these 28 crucial points, all of which are verifiably true. Ask yourself as you read each point: “Is this true?” And you will see the wisdom of this essay:
*Big government handout programs do not “solve” or “cure” poverty; they only sustain, cultivate and nurture more poverty. In fact the more money you give to the poor via these increasingly unaccountable government programs the more the poor will refuse to help themselves. This creates a downward economic spiral where “the poor” become more and more dependent on the taxpayer.
And it actually increases poverty by making more people comfortable being poor and dependent and then having children on the dole too. And their children often end up repeating the cycle. Why do you think that we have tens of millions of poor people in America today after so many tens of trillions in handouts over the last 50 years?
*These big government programs never help ‘the poor’ like they are supposed to, and for good reason: Ronald Reagan used to say that “It costs two dollars in government administration costs to get one dollar of aid to the poor”. And it’s true. By that he meant that most of the money in these programs never gets to ‘the poor’ in the first place; it is consumed by the government bureaucrats who run the programs. That money therefore would be much better spent elsewhere, like being kept in the private sector creating jobs for poor people or in private or religious charities which have vastly lower levels of administrative costs.
*Many of these programs are shot through with so much corruption and fraud that they end up having a negative impact on everyone. They often don’t help ‘the poor’ at all and they enrich the wrong people, often very corrupt and lazy people. And the bad public image that these programs have often discourages proud but truly needy people from accessing the programs when they say “I don’t need that kind of help…” They simply do not want to be associated with the programs.
*Many of the aid recipients are lazy deadbeats who are exploiting the programs. And they prosper while more deserving people suffer. When a poor person gets something for free they immediately respond positively. If you put out free food on a city street you will actually attract not only poor people but many other people who will take advantage of the situation. This just creates more fraud and abuse.
*Under these programs many millions of idle poor people have a middle class standard of living without even working. Tens of millions of ‘poor people’ can get $10,000 or $20,000 or much more (tax free!) every year from the government in direct payments or in services. This is often more money than many middle-class people, working-class people or working poor people even earn in a year. This is morally wrong, another travesty of the welfare state. Thus those liberals who support this type of income inequality are morally wrong to do so.
*These government programs cater to the lowest common denominator and demand nothing in return. They give money to the worst people, no questions asked. This creates a worse class of poor; they become arrogant and demanding and act as if the world owes them a favor. All you have to do is listen to one of these opinionated ‘poor people’ complain about everything and you know what this means. And when nothing is asked in return, this one-way generosity becomes a sham.
*Government programs show no accountability. Massive amounts of money are spent with absolutely no test of the effectiveness of the spending. If a private business did this, it would go out of business. Government never does; it just keeps taking more money from the taxpayer.
*Huge programs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were supposed to help “the poor” by guaranteeing housing loans. Instead they guaranteed trillions in bad loans and then collapsed, leading to the collapse of the entire American economy. This is another way that socialism has dragged us all down.
*These programs often offer poor people “training” for jobs that they never get. They are a complete waste of money. That’s why the best ‘job training’ is… a job. Because then the person can train for the job he is working at rather than training for some job that he may never get.
*The government bureaucrats employed in these giveaway programs are very often lazy, unambitious, greedy and unproductive, particularly in the corrupt cities. And they make a lot in salary and benefits and pensions, consume large amounts of wealth that could be going to needy people, and represent a malicious breed of Democrat functionary who produces little and gets paid a lot. Many of these people are completely unnecessary and are part of the bloated bureaucracy. They are a huge drag on the economy and a bad example for others.
*Social Security has been hailed for decades as a successful socialist program to fight poverty. Yet SS just passed an economic milestone – most people from this point forth will get increasingly less out of SS than they paid in. And this situation is expected to get much worse as time passes. So SS is another ‘do-gooder’ government program that is harming the whole society while a simple bank account (a conservative idea) would provide millions of people with a much better retirement than Social Security. Meanwhile liberals claim how much they “care about” everyone, including the poor. Nonsense. Everything they do backfires including Social Security.
*Millions of ‘poor people’ access these government handout programs without conscience because they are taught to be selfish by the Democrats. They are taught – particularly the blacks – that they are “owed” food stamps, housing subsidies etc., and that the United States is “rich” and can afford to support them. This occurs even though the deficit spending to cover these programs is harming the nation irrevocably. Meanwhile millions of good people will not access these programs because they know that they harm the nation. These good people have a conscience about the “common good” while millions do not.
*Many idle welfare recipients now have luxuries like air conditioning, cable TV and pets that working people cannot afford. This is another travesty of the welfare state.
*Blacks in the inner cities, who collect the most from government programs, have the worst level of achievement of all Americans despite this massive infusion of taxpayer wealth. There is a direct reason for this; there is no incentive for them to improve themselves. They often live on the dole for their whole lives and never gain any skills or education to make their lives better because they are comfortable living off of the taxpayer.
*America has spent tens of trillions of dollars on these programs for “the poor” yet we have more poor people than ever. This shows more than anything else that these programs have failed. What more proof do you need?
*All those trillions of dollars have been taken out of the private economy by the government. If they had been left in the private sector and invested in jobs and growth, they would have provided jobs for most of ‘the poor’ to support themselves. Instead these poor people continue to rely on the taxpayer and often remain idle their whole lives. This is an intentional outcome of socialism – to turn people into unproductive eunuchs who are thankful to and dependent on the Democrats for the only money that they have.
*The cost of these big government programs hurts all taxpayers, including middle-class taxpayers, making them poorer. So when a liberal tells you how heartless you are about “the poor” because you want to scale these programs way back, you tell the liberal how heartless he/she is about the middle class and all the other taxpayers who are footing the bill.
*These programs have caused our national debt to explode. This hurts all Americans including the poor. It is destroying our economic future. Socialism is ruining us again.
*Millions of working people have lost their jobs and have been made poor by Obama and other Democrat policies. This never should have happened in the first place. These people need to have jobs. And those jobs never will be created by government handouts. They must be created in the private sector.
*Conservatives believe in small government programs, preferably on the state or local level, to help the genuinely poor, along with more private and religious charity. Because small government programs are the most effective and accountable while private and religious charities are vastly more accountable and efficient than public handouts.
*Millions of people actually choose a life of poverty and sloth when the taxpayers subsidize their basic subsistence through handouts. Said one homeless man in a YouTube video about having no home and virtually no possessions: “In a way I’m free ‘cause I don’t have to worry about nothin’”. This is creating more poor and dependent people who are actually happy with their lot in life with no worries, no job, no alarm clock, no bills and no responsibilities.
Many “homeless” people choose that life intentionally. Then the bleeding hearts wring their hands and serve them dinner every night while the hard-working taxpayer worries every minute about his/her finances and tax burden and struggles to pay his/her bills.
*Only private-sector economic growth can provide the wealth to help ‘the poor’ in the first place. Yet Democrats thwart the private sector in every way.
*Tens of millions of Americans vote Democrat and thus believe that they have “taken care of the poor” with their support of giveaway programs. That is one of the main reasons that they are Democrats and are so obnoxious about being Democrats.
Meanwhile these Democrats’ attitude makes them think that they don’t have to do anything real about poverty besides giving away Other People’s Money. Then these same Democrats try to block every social and economic reform that conservatives propose to really fix poverty.
And finally five crucial points:
*Only economic growth and jobs can truly help ‘the poor’ long term. And liberals always thwart economic growth (see the many ways below). This is perhaps the single most crucial point of all.
*Sloth is a sin and these government programs are encouraging sloth on a national scale by tens of millions of people. It is a scandal.
*Living off of the sweat and toil of others is a sin as well. And the welfare state is allowing many millions of the idle poor to live off of the toil of hard-working taxpayers. It too is a scandal. Many millions of poor people today are like the plantation owners sitting on the porch in the shade while the taxpayer works his heart out in the hot sun. It is shameful. It is literally “tax slavery”.
*These programs have wasted many trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Waste is a sin. And this waste is particularly sinful because it hurts good and productive people who pay the taxes.
*Liberals always want to help every poor person no matter who they are. So we conservatives must always remind America that millions of people deserve to be poor. Because millions of poor people are ignorant, lazy, manipulative and they lie like crazy. Many are criminals. And that is a truth that many people agree with even if they will never admit it.
Conclusion: Those liberals who support these unaccountable government programs year after year, decade after decade, are in fact the sinful, immoral people who have caused our economic collapse while failing to help ‘the poor’.
And then they point the finger at conservatives who have been demanding fiscal accountability and they say we are bad people who don’t “care about” the poor.
What a pack of lies…
Friends, debate these people with facts and you will win every time. Never ever again let the liberals put out their falsehoods and arrogance and self-righteousness. We conservatives must stick by our guns and stand up for the conservative approach which can be summarized in one simple sentence: Conservatives want poor people to earn their keep through hard work and self-improvement, which is infinitely better for them in the long run than handouts.
Of course liberals will be shocked speechless at all of these truths. They will call you names if you speak them. Because liberals are always shocked at the truth and are adept at censoring contrary opinions. Because they always have intimidated everyone into cowering in the corner every time ‘the poor’ are discussed by using deception and fear tactics.
That is why we must enunciate the above points vocally and with confidence. Because ultimately most productive people will understand this point of view. Print out this page and read it to your liberal friends in a debate if necessary.
Here are more ways to debate liberals on the subjects of wealth and poverty. These examples below show how Democrats thwart economic growth, jobs and self-sufficiency among everyone including the poor and the ways that conservatives are seeking to help all people including those made poor by Democrat policies:
*Excessive taxation thwarts economic growth. The power to tax is the power to destroy, goes the old saying. Indeed it is. Throughout history heavily taxed economies have suffered with high unemployment and more poverty, while lighter tax loads have in every single case produced more wealth and more evenly distributed wealth.
All Americans including "working families" are being made poorer by relentless taxation in two significant ways:
First, the money that workers already have in their pocket is disappearing to taxes. This is a travesty and is making all people poorer. New York state, for instance, has an 8.25% statewide sales tax. This is harming all the residents of the state, especially the poor. Chicago has an 11.25% sales tax. This only is taking more money away from the people of the city and driving prosperity and business away. Shoppers increasingly are avoiding Chicago.
Second, endless taxation of private business by Democrats is taking wealth away and preventing those businesses from paying their workers better wages, making their workers poorer. This taxation also prevents private companies from accumulating capital to modernize their plants and ultimately employ more workers. That is why businesses are fleeing liberal states. They cannot survive there.
Conservative solution: Tax everyone at a moderate rate and reduce government spending to create more wealth for all. It's really simple.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Once the Democrats stop their War on Business and their War on the Taxpayer, we will have more business and more jobs. That will help everyone including the poor.”
*America’s cities, controlled by Democrats without challenge, have so much corruption and bureaucracy that urban residents, and especially poor residents, face great obstacles in starting businesses to improve their lives. Rudy Giuliani, a tough-guy Republican was elected mayor of New York City in 1993 and over the next eight years he completely turned the city around. For decades the collapse of New York was considered unstoppable. Because only Democrats had held power. No alternative was ever considered.
Conservative solution: Get more conservatives elected in our cities to aid economic growth, cut bureaucracy and root out corruption as Giuliani did. That will allow more businesses to flourish in our cities, helping everyone including the urban poor.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “When we get more honest Republicans in office in our cities like Giuliani we will have more prosperity for all including the poor.”
*Labor unions kill jobs and wealth. Everyone knows that Democrats are partners with labor unions. Throughout the 20th century unions acted in a belligerent and confrontational way with business, demanding artificially high wages and putting private employers under financial duress. Trillions of dollars in wealth, along with millions of good jobs have been destroyed as unions have pushed companies and entire industries (steel, railroads) out of business, killing opportunity for "working families"… and everyone else including ‘the poor’. Everyone knows that this is true but only some will admit it.
As a result huge numbers of workers today are freely voting against unionization because they do not want their future well-being put in the hands of a few labor bosses. They have seen the sad result.
Conservative solution: Let the market, and the employer, set wages. This creates a sustainable economic climate that is much better for all.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Labor unions have destroyed jobs and wealth and have taken more and more of the nation’s wealth only for themselves. Without unions the poor will be much better off, along with everyone else.”
*Democrats and liberals for decades have been advocating and allowing the destruction of marriage and the nuclear family. Single motherhood is the single most preventable cause of poverty in America today. Single women and their children and much more likely to be poor than married women, and even to be victims of crime. This subject is so vast and deep that you could write a book about it.
Conservative solution: Support marriage and families.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Since the Democrat War on Marriage started in the 1960s the number of poor, dependent single mothers has skyrocketed. And their children become poor too. This is the #1 problem among the poor.”
*The welfare state has caused lazy government-aid recipients to become lazier and to consume even more of the nation's wealth. This drains hard-earned money away from the productive people in America. Even the late and very liberal Democrat US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York warned that the welfare state would destroy poor black Americans. When the out-of-wedlock birth rate among blacks was 25% in the 1960s Moynihan sounded the alarm bell. Today after decades of increasingly generous federal government handouts the rate is over 70%. Out-of-wedlock mothers and their children are four to six times more likely to end up poor than the general population. Thus this giveaway system, which liberals say is ‘helping the poor’ in fact is creating more and more poor people.
Conservative solution: Shrink all anti-poverty programs and move them back to the more accountable state and local level, and to private and religious charities. Urge poor people to marry before having children, and to believe in God and in a righteous and moral life.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Democrats have waged a War on Poverty for 50 years now and poverty has won. We have spent tens of trillions of dollars on ‘the poor’ and we have more poor people than ever. This approach has failed as we conservative predicted it would. Millions of lazy welfare recipients are ruining our nation with more and more sloth and dependency because the liberals have given them gold-plated hammocks to lie in.”
*Environmentalists are pushing up the prices of natural resources – from timber for housing to gasoline for cars – by restricting the supply. Over the last 30 years environmentalists have become the most powerful lobby in history. This has happened for two reasons: They have many ultra-rich backers in the urban and suburban Democrat elite. And they get free and favorable media coverage for any crisis they wish to declare. This media coverage is worth tens of billions of dollars in free advertising every year.
Ecologists have used their power to restrict the harvesting of natural resources for decades now, pushing up the price for consumers. Oil and timber are particular commodities that enviros have been restricting. Now they are seeking to stop natural gas production.
Environmentalists also are seeking to stop every rural development project that they can, making rural Americans poorer. In the 1990s the fake ‘spotted owl’ controversy led to the loss of 30,000 logging jobs in rural Oregon alone. Many more associated jobs were lost. This increased poverty in rural Oregon. This war on rural America goes on in every single state today. Go to any small town in America and you will see examples.
Conservative solution: Speak out against the wealthy urban and suburban elites in the enviro movement who are using their power to harm the rest of us, including rural Americans. Advocate the wise use of our natural resources for the common good. Promote access to resources so that average working citizens, along with poor people, pay less for housing, gasoline, electricity and everything else.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Environmentalist elites are waging economic war on all Americans including the rural poor. Rich people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are leading this assault as he sits in his air-conditioned office proposing ineffective ideas like windmills and mounting endless challenges to economic development in rural areas.”
*Public schools are failing to educate tens of millions of citizens. Our publicly-funded, government-run education system, controlled by Democrat bureaucrats and public-sector teacher unions, is failing to educate a large percentage of the Americans who attend public schools. When those people end up unable to function in the workforce they slip into poverty. These public school bureaucracies are entrenched and unresponsive to public pressure and to common-sense suggestions to improve themselves.
Conservative solution: Offer alternatives to public schools like charter schools and school vouchers for children to attend private or religious schools. This would end up costing taxpayers less money over the long run because the education system would become more efficient. And students would be more productive and much less likely to be poor after they graduate instead of falling into poverty and living off the taxpayer.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “When conservatives get the educational reforms that America needs and that Democrats are blocking, poor people will get better schools and better education and will be much better off.”
*Incompetent government workers and overstaffed bureaucracies are costing us all hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Ever pass a group of state highway workers? You see one guy working and four guys watching. This is happening all over bureaucrat America from the roadside work site to the tax office. This is the socialist ethic that drains our economies and sucks the life out of (impoverishes) the taxpayer and out of the general economy, making poor people even poorer. Virtually all government functions (except the military, the courts, law enforcement etc.) can be taken over by private enterprise and accomplished at one-half the cost of government bureaucracies, or even much less.
Conservative solution: Privatize government functions wherever possible. Everywhere it has been tried privatization has been successful. Government workers and socialist politicians, however, do not want Americans to know how successful privatization has been and how much money it can save the average "working" person, whom socialists claim to represent.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Taxing everything in sight and inflating the bloated and inefficient government bureaucracy ultimately harms everyone, including the poor.”
*Trial lawyers are pushing up the cost of all business, including health care, for every citizen. This is one of the pressing issues of our day. Health care costs are skyrocketing for everyone, and particularly for the middle class, for one main reason; ambulance-chasing lawyers are suing medical personnel and businesses all over the nation. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association said that an astounding 76% of doctors said that concerns about possible malpractice suits were the main reason why they gave patients more aggressive – and thus more expensive – treatment.
Indeed every action in the health-care field is undertaken with the medical professional thinking: "I want to avoid getting sued." So they double or triple up on tests, surgeries, procedures and doctor visits to cover all bases in the event of a legal challenge. Useless paperwork is multiplied, costing even more. Malpractice insurance to cover medical professionals is draining away tens of billions of dollars and driving good people away from medicine. This hurts ‘the poor’ as well as everyone else.
Trial lawyers are all Democrat liberals who give their campaign contributions exclusively to Democrats while the Democrat party is repaying them by blocking any reform that would restrain these lawyers.
Conservative solution: Reform the legal system to cap lawsuit awards and to punish these lawyers for frivolous litigation. This will significantly reduce the cost of medical care and make it affordable for everyone, including "the uninsured" and “the poor” whom liberals claim they care about.
The state of Texas reigned in the trial lawyers and doctors are flocking into Texas and away from liberal states. Always pay attention to realities like this.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Left-wing trial lawyers are making health care more expensive for everyone including the poor, while enriching themselves.”
*Colleges are charging far too much tuition. The far-left Democrat liberals who run our colleges and universities are charging exorbitant tuitions that are far out line with the general inflation rate, and with the rise in the cost of other commodities. The media only make occasional and casual mention of this gouging, while college professors and other bureaucrats in the educational establishment get higher and higher salaries, while working less and less. This happens as the average "working family" works harder and harder in order to pay more and more for college. At the same time, low-income people increasingly are being shut out of expensive college education.
Conservative solution: Let's investigate the colleges for this ongoing gouging of the consumer. This rip-off is yet another transfer of wealth from the productive and hard-working citizens of America to the Democrat left, in this case the academic elite.
Here’s what we conservatives must say: “Congress must hold hearings, expose these colleges and universities for their fraud and price gouging, and force them to cut their tuition charges. So that everyone can get a better education for one-third the cost.”
(Please bookmark this website. Thank you, Nikitas)