Policy Decisions, Immigration, And Greed Drive America’s Poverty Industry

American Thinker 

One of the big myths that drives leftism is that America has an almost unholy amount of poverty, which is totally at odds with the false consciousness that America is a wealthy country in which people thrive. However, lending credence to the saying “lies, damn lies, and statistics,” it appears that much of America’s so-called “poverty” is a bookkeeping designation, with welfare keeping many people afloat on a sea of unrecognized wealth.

Thus, a Wall Street Journal article from last week completely upends the idea that we have many poor people in this country. Yes, I know that the idea is preposterous, yet it appears to be true. Did you know that welfare programs are not counted as income?

In the essay, Phil Gramm & John Early write that federal welfare spending now totals $1.4 trillion. If divided evenly among the 19.8 million families the government classifies as poor, each would receive more than $70,000 a year—yet none of these benefits are counted as income for eligibility or poverty measurement.

Even accounting for the “skim” (the money the government and NGOs rake in off the top), it’s a staggering number. It is impossible to reconcile the $1.4 trillion with what Democrats and the media maintain is a system that “neglects” the poor.

What this suggests is that everything we’re being told about the poor is a lie, or at least being called poor and not having money are separate things. How can we reconcile such foundational issues as “one in seven children go to bed hungry” with the reality that suggests strongly that there is little to no correlation between being poor and hungry and an unjust economic system? In fact, the contrary appears to be true.

Democrat and socialist politics depend on making Americans feel guilty. What if we all woke up one day and realized that the greatest scam of all was the underlying lie that not ‘paying your fair share’ meant you were not paying sufficient graft? In other words, our poverty complex isn’t about helping poor people. It’s about helping criminals (obviously aided by bureaucrats) enrich themselves with taxpayer funds by pretending to help poor people.

Here are two more examples that I believe make my case:

First, Joe Thompson is leading the federal investigation into fraud across 14 Minnesota-run Medicaid and human-services programs. According to reports, his investigations reveal that Minnesota has paid $18 billion to these programs since 2018, with Thompson stating that “half or more” of that may be fraudulent. This implies losses of up to $9 billion.

Given that 82 of 92 defendants named in the currently existing fraud cases are Somali, it is ridiculous not to connect one with the other. The other side wants you to believe that we must separate and sanitize the crime, not tie it to any ethnic group. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Somalis participated in the fraud for their “cut” of the theft.

Second, we have an identical situation with the Haitians, who were let in with little screening. Credible reporting concerns two Haitian men charged in Massachusetts with $7 million in SNAP (food stamp) fraud. I can promise you that this is the tip of the iceberg. It’s becoming common to shy away from accusing anyone from the immigrant minority community for fear of being tarred with the racism brush. This, in turn, leads to the lie that immigrants are more law-abiding than native-born.

As a nation, we need to grapple with whether it ever a good idea to allow anyone in on whatever visa de jour one could get for people who are not “natural fits” for our country, based on cultural values, education, and propensity to assimilate? The answer should logically be a resounding “No.”

That, however, is a different conversation. The conversation here and now is that poverty is a big business for corrupt government and corrupt people. In light of this fact, it’s impossible to know what America’s poverty rate actually is, and what choices people are making that drive poverty: Are these people who are genuinely down on their luck (what Alfred E. Doolittle called the deserving poor) or are they people addicted to a corrupt system that makes poverty functional (Doolittle’s undeserving poor) and, for the grifters, profitable?

Hundreds of thousands of people, politicians, NGOs, religious institutions, and others have treated the government as their own personal ATM. Once codified into law or practice, what should be deemed illegal practices at the outset become nothing more than baited fields for the unscrupulous and profiteers alike. All the fake concern they have for their meal tickets is just that, fake. It is grifting on a scale never before seen in this world, and the normal people in America are forced to pay for their own undoing.

There is a set of principles that undergird any society that wants to thrive and survive. They are:

1.    Shared Prosperity

2.    Shared Norms

3.    Universal safety

4.    Educated Individuals

5.    A disdain for malingers.

Without these five principles at the base of every decision tree, we are lost. Inconsistent principles and poor execution have led to our Balkanization. National standards can only be set by Congress and seconded by our legal system. President Trump cannot sign an Executive Order requiring sanity in our governmental practices; it’s wishful thinking to believe otherwise.

We must have rational national standards for immigration and assimilation, or no immigration at all. Separate but equal went out a long time ago. We need rigid incentives for education and morality, the affirmation of families, and a way for young people to own a home they can afford that creates a sense of belonging, the beginnings of their own generational wealth, and a desire for children.

Every good essay should remind readers that it is up to us to put thought into action. If we seek more joyous holidays in the future, we must undertake the necessary corrections to ensure such. We should come away with the belief that every generation is just caretakers for the next. It is our duty and our privilege to leave this place better than we found it. Luck is not an accident; it’s when duty, logic, and truth collide.

God Bless America!