John Edwards' plan to alleviate poeverty in South Carolina

[JDPriestly]

Ending Poverty In South Carolina Within A Generation

"Restoring our moral authority means leading by example and making clear that the hard challenges don't frighten us. There is no better opportunity than the challenge of poverty – the great moral issue of our time." -- John Edwards

Every day, 37 million Americans wake up in poverty, without enough income to pay for their basic necessities. Wages are stagnant for most workers and by some measures inequality is at its highest levels since the 1920s, but poverty is still not on the national agenda.

* There are 640,000 South Carolinians who live in poverty, including 228,000 children.
* South Carolina's child poverty rate grew from 18 percent in 2000 to almost 23 percent in 2005, the most recent available.
* There are 250,000 South Carolina households who went hungry in 2006 – the fourth-highest rate in the nation.

Today, John Edwards outlined his ambitious plans to create a Working Society and end poverty within 30 years. In the Working Society, everyone who is able to work hard will be expected to work and, in turn, be rewarded for it. The initiative includes major new policies in the areas of work, housing, education, debt and savings, and family responsibility.
Ending Poverty within a Generation

Edwards called for a national goal of ending poverty within a generation. A national goal will rally support for the cause and help us measure our progress, as it has in Great Britain. Specifically, Edwards believes we should:

* Cut poverty by one third within a decade, lifting 12 million Americans out of poverty.
* End poverty within 30 years, lifting 37 million Americans out of poverty.

Rewarding Work

Efforts to fight poverty in past decades had some success, but failed to do enough to create the opportunity for families to work their way out of poverty. To create more opportunities for work and reward those efforts, Edwards will:

* Raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2012 and then index it so it grows automatically over time. In South Carolina, 33,000 workers earn the minimum wage or less.
* Cut taxes on low-income workers by tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for adults without children and cutting the EITC marriage penalty.
* Create 1 million Stepping Stone jobs for willing workers who cannot find jobs because of where they live, a lack of experience or skills, or other obstacles like a criminal record. These short-term jobs will help them move into permanent work.
* Create economic opportunity in rural America by investing in renewable fuels, creating a REACH Fund to help small businesses, and promoting fairness for family farmers. Nearly 90 percent of America's poorest counties are rural.
* Strengthen worker rights by passing the Employee Free Choice Act to give workers a real choice in whether to form a union and cracking down on abuses of minimum wage and overtime laws. Union membership can be the difference between a poverty-wage job and middle-class security.

Overhauling Housing Policy

Decent, safe, and affordable housing near jobs and good schools is critical to economic opportunity. However, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's programs concentrate low-income families far from jobs and schools, and HUD has become a symbol of bureaucracy and mismanagement. Edwards will:

* Create 1 million new housing vouchers over five years to help low-income families move to better neighborhoods. He will also phase out housing projects that tie families to certain locations and are often lower quality and more expensive than private sector alternatives.
* Invest in struggling neighborhoods, rather than abandoning them, by reforming and expanding the HOPE VI program to replace dilapidated housing in areas of concentrated poverty.
* Promote state and local efforts to build affordable housing close to good jobs and schools.

Strengthen Schools and Make College Affordable

A strong system of public education is the foundation of America's ladder of opportunity. Edwards will:

* Create a universal system of Great Promise early childhood education centers and promote young children's healthy development through a national Smart Start initiative.
* Invest more in teacher pay and professional development, particularly for new teachers in high-need schools, and create a new National Teachers University.
* Radically overhaul the No Child Left Behind law to promote a broader curriculum and help struggling schools with more resources and flexibility, rather than punishing them.
* Create Second Chance schools and invest in adolescent literacy programs to help students who have fallen behind or dropped out a chance to get back on track. South Carolina's graduation rate ranks 49th in the country.
* Pay the public college tuition of everyone willing to take a part time job through a new College for Everyone initiative.

Help Families Save and Get Ahead

Savings are critical to financial security, helping families absorb a lost job, car repairs, medical emergency, or other unexpected needs. They are also the key to helping families build up assets and get ahead. To help families save, Edwards will:

* Subsidize bank accounts for the 28 million Americans without them.
* Create new Work Bonds to help low-income workers build up savings accounts.
* Protect families against abusive financial products, including payday loans, predatory mortgages, abusive credit card terms, and refund anticipation loans.

Support Responsible Families

Strong families are a foundation of economic security. To help support strong families, Edwards will:

* Encourage and reward responsibility from fathers by helping them find work and requiring the help support their children.
* Discourage teen pregnancy because the United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the industrialized world and invest in home visits by nurses to for 50,000 new families.
* Call on community leaders to recognize that there is only so much that the government can do, and we all share the responsibility of promoting strong families.

http://www.johnedwards.com/sc/headlines/20080112-ending-sc-poverty/

I'm for Edwards. He will invest our tax money in building America, not in tearing down Iraq.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Makes sense to me.

I think Edwards stands a good chance of carrying SC. I hope so...

[patrice]

2. I LOVE the bit about "Second Chance Schools"!!! nt

[Nutmegger]

3. Thank you. R&K! [n\t]

[midnight]

4. Edwards is getting my vote because he is not afraid of hard

work. He will invest our tax money in building America, not in tearing down Iraq!!!!!!!

[madrchsod]

5. john understands it`s class warfare.

if you ain`t got nothing, it does`t matter what color you are, you still ain`t got nothing

[Andy823]

6. This is why I support him

He "really" has plans for what he talks about, and he can outline it and lay it out for all of us to see. This is a fine example of what he will do.

Eveyone should go to his site and read how he will make the changes this country needs!

Thanks for posting this!:thumbsup:

[JDPriestly]

8. Yes. Go to "johnedwards.com. It's so easy. Great site.

John Edwards' thinking on the issues is very clear. Obama has the slogan, "Ready to go," but Edwards is the candidate who is most ready to go.

[Yael]

7. Thanks for the documentation JDP

That was a lot of reformatting work -- it is much appreciated!

:hi:

[JDPriestly]

9. It is directly from Edwards' site.

[2rth2pwr]

10. I read the whole thing and the programs don't match the rhetoric.nt

[jackson_dem]

11. Edwards' has the best ideas

[onehandle]

12. Kick! nt