Child hunger in a land of abundance makes us all poor

[RestoreGore]

This is happening right here in AMERICA, and it is something that has been getting persistently worse since 2001. WHY Democrats aren't talking about these issues is very alarming to me. But oh, I remember now... REAL issues don't win you elections. What BS. NO CHILD should go hungry in this country. NO child. The richest country in the world? What a crock.

THIS IS TORTURE, and I find it very sad that this is just not seen as an important issue to many people on any side of the aisle. POVERTY is simply something Americans sweep under the rug because it isn't glamorous. It isn't catty. It isn't petty. It isn't a topic that even rivals Bill Clinton slapping the face of FOX news to keep people chattering all day about right vs.left.

However, THIS IS THE CORE of what we are as Americans and it is not speaking well for us as a people. Now, not only is it fact that we torture in our own prisons, but we also torture our children by telling them that instead of making sure the future will be better for them and that they will have more opportunity, we allow this Congress to keep pissing away BILLIONS on an illegitimate war while over 14 MILLION of our children go hungry every night.

I don't know what has happened to the soul of this nation but it is obvious we have out priorities totally screwed up and frankly I'm tired of it. As an American, to read articles like this is an embarrassment and an outrage and regardless of what politics you preach it should be to you too.

I also wonder how the fundamentalist freaks who made that POS movie Jesus Camp feel about the fact that 14 million children go hungry in this country everyday. Do they think that because they are POOR that they deserve it? HYPOCRITES. I am FED UP with living in a country that values PR, political grandstanding, and nitpicking more than HUMAN LIFE. And we wonder why so many youths turn to drugs and crime? No need to wonder: WE MAKE THEM, and we are failing our children.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Child hunger in a land of abundance makes us all poor

By César Chelala

09/24/06 "Philadelphia Inquirer" -- -- While it is normal to expect high levels of hunger and poverty in a developing country, it may come as a surprise to observe a similar epidemic in one of the richest countries in the world. The Food Bank for New York City recently reported that nearly 20 percent of children in the city rely on free food to survive. According to statistics from Bread for the World, 13 million children went to bed hungry in the United States in 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

There's a debate about the real extent of U.S. hunger. The direst statistics, like those above, come (it is claimed) from advocacy groups. Others claim that "the poor here aren't really poor." Another claim is that the numbers are inflated or somehow "aren't that big," given the hugeness of the whole country. We are about to crest the 300 million mark in total population, and 13 million doesn't "sound so big" up against that. Divide 13 million by 50 states and you get about 65,000 hungry kids per state. That isn't so much - is it? Still others say that "the numbers are skewed by how bad the big cities are," as if somehow we shouldn't count the situation in, say, New York, when we look at the entire country's children. If you manhandle the numbers, you can make the problem sound smaller.

While I wish to acknowledge the controversy, I'm really not at all persuaded by these cavils. In my travels around the world, I see a lot of poor children. And I would say that, ironically, hungry children in places like the Philippines or India may be less miserable than hungry children in the United States - simply because the horizons of expectation are so much lower for the Filipino or Indian children. If we have even 10 million truly hungry children in the United States, even five million, we have a crisis, and if they are the world's most miserable children - hungry while the computer age whirls about them, denied entry into that age of plenty - we have a treble crisis.

<snip>

UNICEF has indicated that although the United States is still the wealthiest country in the world, with incomes higher than any other country's, it has also one of the highest incidences of child poverty among the rich, industrialized nations. Denmark and Finland have levels of less than 3 percent, closely followed by Norway and Sweden. All of those countries have high levels of social spending.

Several factors contribute to poverty and hunger among children and their families in the United States. Among those factors are poor education; discriminatory practices against minorities and women; limited job opportunities; unstable family life; mental illness; and substance abuse. Perhaps the most important factors are unemployment and gender earning disparities.


César Chelala, is an international public health consultant and author of Children's Health in the Americas, a publication of the Pan American Health Organization

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15592465.htm

More at the link.

[Redstone]

1. We are the richest country in the world. There is

no fucking excuse for even one child to be hungry in this country.

Christ, send four or five of them to our house. We'll manage to feed them, since the fucking government can't figure out how to do it.

Redstone

[RestoreGore]

2. AMEN n/t

[brook]

3. It's not just the children.

I work with a food program for seniors. Many are poor because of the high cost of medicines and health care. I can't tell you how many disabled people I cannot help because they are too young to qualify. And there is no place to refer them.

The bottom line, our country is failing all kinds of people - no jobs, no retraining, no rehab, almost no affordable housing, no child care and on and on. Our society is broken. Broke, too.

[RestoreGore]

8. I agree

But this article primarily focused on children. But I agree with you wholeheartedly, and will then rephrase my last sentence to state that we are failing our people. And thank you for what you do.

[brook]

12. And thank you

for bringing this to people's attention.

[jwirr]

4. I commend both of you for wanting to help but when we take

over the governments responsibilities we are playing right into *ss's hands. He wants to "privatize" even this. While we are helping to feed them we need to be absolutely clear that the government is needed to do the things they have done in the past.

[lgn19087]

5. Why?

Government is inherently inefficient. I couldn't disagree with you more. This is a problem we should all help fix, a problem we must all contribute to the solution. Government is not a compassionate entity, but people are. When I pay my taxes, I want that money to go to roads, bridges, and schools. I want to be the one to decide where MY money goes for charity, not some paper-pusher in Washington. The "responsibilites" of the government are spelled out in the Constitution, and "promoting the general welfare" falls under "WE the PEOPLE".

[jwirr]

6. "Government is inherently inefficient" : that is exactly what the

pugs want everyone to think so that no one will protest the destruction of social programs. I have a daughter with severe developmental disabilities and I have had to deal with government programs for all of her 47 years of life. I have never found them to be inherently inefficient. They were inefficient in the two pug states that I lived in (Iowa and Nebraska) but here in Minnesota I have had them offer her miracles. I don't think it is the government the is inefficient - it is the specific leaders who are in charge. For instance, when you have *ss as a governor things are not going to work as well as if you had a Bill Clinton. One believes in government intervention and the other hates it. There is a reason why the south believes so throughly that "government is inherently inefficient". Their philosophy regarding social programs is absolutely negative. My niece just started as an investigator for child abuse and neglect. She was raised in the north and is horrified with the lack of resources for dealing with the families in Texas. She knows up here she would have resources to combat the causes of abuse and neglect. That is what I see as the problem.

As for "WE the people" - I give my thanks to all the taxpayers who have paid for my daughter's care over these many years. I have often said there should be a sign on the back of her wheel chair that reads "Your tax dollars at work" like you see at highway construction sites.

The problem with social services is the old "fox guarding the hen house" issue. You need workers who really care about something other than themselves.

[lgn19087]

7. that may be, but

the fact is, private charities and services can do the same things that government can do at much lower cost. I understand your daughter has been helped by social services, but why couldn't that same help have been offered by private entities, funded willingly by volunteers and not using taxpayer dollars?

[RestoreGore]

10. You think our dollars should instead fund wars?

Give me the choice ANY DAY of my tax dollars going to help a disabled person in lieu of funding this bloody illegal war that is actually making more disabled Americans, and you know what I pick.

[lgn19087]

13. Where did I mention wars?

I read my couple of posts pretty closely, and the only specific examples I could find are roads, bridges, in schools...do you have any kind of moral objection to roads, bridges or schools? Kindly point out where I mention wars, or apologize for making a groundless ascertion.

You did, however, say something interesting: "Give me the choice ANY DAY of my tax dollars going to..."

That's exactly my point. We're not given a choice when it comes to our tax money. What happens with your money should be YOUR choice. Not the choice of some politician sitting in an office on K Street.

[jwirr]

15. In my experience there are politics in church and charitable

organizations as well, just not the kind that we get to vote on.

[RestoreGore]

19. My point was...

is that taxpayers are now paying for an illegal war not of our choosing. I would much rather that money go for helping the disabled and those who need a helping hand in this country. But I also understand your point as well, as the infrastructure of this country is in serious need of funds. The point in general then is that our taxpayer dollars if we are spending them should be going for the common good, not the good of the politicians and their whores.

[lgn19087]

20. Okay, look

I work in fundraising for higher ed. I spent some time on Wall Street, but I've been in philanthropy for several years now. You can say what you want about the Bush Tax Cuts, but when they were passed, our numbers went up. A lot. We tanked after 9/11, but those tax cuts are what kept us afloat. This isn't my personal analysis of the statistics, this is what the donors told us. The reason this is relevant is because the lower taxes are, more money gets pumped into the system. The "system" is defined as the general economy as a whole...it might be the stock market, it might be a new car, a second residence, or the establishment of an endowed faculty position at a college. The point is, the higher taxes that result from the entitlement spending that we use directly subtracts from the ammount of money going to charity. If we eliminated the entitlement programs, the extra money would be infused into the economy, and eventually private charities will take up the slack.

[jwirr]

14. Can you name one privater charity that can afford $30,00+ a year

for my child's care? She is high maintenance: feeding tube, hospital equipment, diapers, foster care now that I cannot take care of her any longer, assisted work shop in days, at least $200 medicines a month, transportation, respite care, doctors appointments, to name just a part of it. If *ss had been able to destroy the medicare/medicaid programs that take care for her I intended to sue my stupid church for the cost of her care. They would have had to use their building fund money and it would have been gone in one year. Then she could just die.

I am not saying that private charity is not needed, especially individual involvement. It is, but so is government. I attend many board meeting for private charities and one of the big cries is the lack of money to carry out their goals. They are especially upset when government cuts back in their area of interest because that makes it worse for them.

I also think that one of the reasons that government fails is because private charities step out as soon as government shows the least interest. For example, AFDC helped with money but there was a great need for mentor's etc. When I was on that program years ago there were no churches or private charities that would touch us. We were the untouchables,hopelessly lost. That is why I sit on their boards today - to keep them for turning there backs on the most needy because they are afraid that they will fail. I scares me when I think what it would have meant to be abandoned to these groups when I needed help with my daughter and her two sisters.

[lgn19087]

21. I understand your position

And I don't want you to think that I'm somehow anti-caring for your daughter, because I gladly give to charities that support causes such as yours. But at the same time, why shouldn't I have the final say in where my money goes? If we were to cut back on the entitlement spending, charitable giving in the country would increase and there would be more money in the philanthropic system to help your daughter.

[Quantess]

23. "why shouldn't I have the final say in where my money goes?"

Good point. That is part of my problem with the Iraq invasion, because I didn't want my tax money to be spent (or wasted) that way.
Republicans are the big-spending party. All that money could have been frittered away carelessly on poor children, and it still would have been more wisely spent than it was, funding the Iraq debacle.

[jwirr]

16. When I was younger I was told a about they years when the

Indian Reservations were handed over to the churches. All government services were given into the hands of various churches on the reservation. Kind of a faith-based initiative in the 1920-30s. So grandpa goes out and gets arrested by the constable from one church and before the family can get him out they have to be baptized. The family needs assistance with fuel for the winter - the minister agrees on the grounds that his family gets baptized in his church. So now they belong to two churches both telling them that they should not have anything to do with the other. They need warm coats so they go to another church - you guessed it. They have to join a church. While this uses the churches as an example there is a similar demand for conformity from other agencies.

In government there are set rules of engagement for services and they cannot be changed. Nor can you be denied services if you are a citizen of the United States. That is not true when you are looking at private organizations. Also at least in our state the government usually contracts with a private service provider that is certified to do the job giving us the benefit of both worlds. That is not often true of private groups. They tend to use service providers from within their organization that share their philosophy. I have control as legal guardian of my daughter so that with government I can approve of the services they provide but in most of the private charities I have had contact with they want control. They patronize the client as if they were children and have no idea of what is best for them.

[RestoreGore]

9. I'm talking about HUMANITY

Opportunity, compassion ... you know, all of those so called "Christian" values they claim to hold.

[brook]

11. The program

I work with is a government program...cut every year since the Compassionate Christian was couped into the WH. Like my teacher daughter, I find myself spending my own money to provide some of the amenities - like coffee, sugar, salt, pepper, cups, etc. for the congregate dining room. And though it violates the rules, I will sometimes buy a lug of in-season fruit at the farmer's market or candy corn for Halloween or...you get the idea... to tuck into the home deliveries. People who think nobody cares need to know somebody does. I'm not campaigning for sainthood. My faults would overflow the Grand Canyon.

[jwirr]

17. I in no way meant to imply that the hands on workers were not

caring. I was trying to point out that there is a difference between the administration between pugs and Dems. One believes the programs are needed and the other doesn't. That is what makes the government programs work or fail.

[RestoreGore]

18. Unfortunately...

When your kindness is the exception rather than the rule, it speaks volumes for where this country has gone. Compassionate Conservatives indeed. And I know of what you speak after working in a school where teachers even had to many times spend out of their own pockets for basic supplies. It is a disgrace.

[shergald]

22. THIS IS THE CORE of what we are as Americans?

Not since Reagan, it is not. Republicanism is based on economic and cultural divisions. Reagan began with pitting Blacks against whites, and then subsequently, rich against poor, deregulation, praise of the wealthy, the justification of inequality, and all the rest, until Bush-Rove, who got the Evangelicals into the same act of demonizing the lazy poor and praising the "have-mores." The CORE shifted.

And what have Democrats done about it? I'm not seeing any Democratic politicians or 457s publishing political ads complaining about our high child poverty rate. Have you?