Poverty in America is One of Ideas

Root cause of poverty:  Jobs.  If you have a good job, you won't be in poverty

Everything this government does on the economy should be focused on providing a good employment environment for American citizens.  Handouts demean the recipient and sap his self-sufficiency

A business-friendly environment is key.  Businesses and rich people are where the jobs come from.  Tax and regulate them to death and the jobs go away.

Why doesn't government just hire everybody who wants a job? 
Because the money to pay them has to come from somewhere.  In a business, it comes from customers buying goods or services.  A business spends money to make more money.  Government doesn't work that way.  Rather than turn a profit, governments must tax citizens to get money.  


A thrifty, well-behaved government keeps taxes low and dedicates itself to the basics.  Government-provided infrastructure can be a boon to private enterprise, but anything beyond that takes bites out of the economy.  Look a California:  Government has become so huge, consuming ever bigger chunks of the economy that economic activity has been smothered and productive people are leaving in droves


Even Salon's Michael Lind admits it's all about the J-O-B.  Only the most curmudgeonly Ayn Rand acolyte would deny a government stimulus program that funded needed infrastructure projects.  But the majority of this current stimulus has nothing to do with "shovel ready" infrastructure, and rising unemployment proves it.

"Stimulus" Understood
Further,  liberals conflate three distinct issues when talking about The Stimulus:  Federal aid to state and local governments, unemployment benefits, and economic stimulus.

Giving state and local governments money to cover budget gaps is not a stimulus, and may actually have the negative effect of allowing elected officials to continue their irresponsible fiscal promiscuity.

Unemployment benefits is not a stimulus; it is a palliative to keep someone who's lost his job from going under. 

Federal government paying a private enterprise for goods and services is the only action of the three that could loosely be called "stimulus," and even that is dubious if bureaucrats blow it on chimeras like immature "green technology." 

The better route is to incentivize business, the job creators, by creating a stable business climate of minimal regulation and low taxes, but nobody outside of Texas gets elected doing that...

ABC - Poverty
Salon - Michael Lind