100 Million Americans Are Poor, and What to Do About It

100 Million Americans are "Poor," and What To Do About It


100 million Americans are "poor" by US standards (about $24,000 for a family of four), and 50 million more are "near poor" (about $36,000). What can be done about it? Here's a link to a New York Times article to which I'm responding. The Times didn't take my comment; said "try again later."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/opinion/the-poor-the-near-poor-and-you.html

So here's what I would've told them.

Are "taxes" and "medical expenses" "unavoidable outlays"? GOP and Libertarians would cut taxes. As for medical expenses, I paid $50 out of pocket, and $100 via insurance, and insurance talked the hospital out of $250 it wanted, for a prescription I could've written myself, but needed a doctor to write. That "medical expense" of $400 was really a regulatory expense. Change the regulations so people can compete with doctors. The law is written to make doctors richer and the poor poorer.

And laws like that abound. Hey, mass transit? Let the poor paint "taxi" on their cars and sell rides: get rich selling, and stay rich paying less because competition increases supply. Let them paint "barber" on their porches and sell haircuts. Let them paint "legal secretary" and compete with lawyers. Regulations protect the ins from the outs; instead, let the poor choose! Libertarians, not bureaucrats, have the answer here: freedom!

Education? Divide the money among the students and let them choose what they want--home, private, any public, online, college...even park the money in a pension fund, study real life, and retire as millionaires. Increase diversity and parental involvement and innovation. Stop locking the poor into ghetto schools. Choices!

Child care? Dan Quayle recommended marriage over fornication.

To equalize money by force requires a non-equal Equalizer; it de-equalizes power. The rich don't come after me, but the IRS would.

Jesus Christ is rather libertarian, and that's what works. Follow Him. (Repent or perish.)

The Institute for Justice (www.ij.org) works well at getting rid of regulations that hurt poor people.

Let God arise and His enemies be scattered (Psalm 68).

My own website is www.lohr84.com, and includes links to other creations and subcreations of mine, including "Tax Day Song:"

Amazing Grace: an easy tax
Count ten and give God one
The IRS's laws of tax
Ten thousand pages run…