During President Obama’s first term and again in his successful re-election campaign, virtually nothing was said or done about people in the United States who are trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair. The focus was on middle class families and their concerns.
This is not to say that the nation should ignore its need for a strong and vibrant middle class. But another sector of our society is being overlooked and underserved: individuals and families living in poverty. The true character of our society is not defined by the tax breaks we give the wealthy or the tax incentives we give the middle class. The truest character of our society involves how we care for the poorest and neediest people among us. These are the ones Jesus referred to as “the least of these.”
President Obama has largely ignored the issue of poverty. Mitt Romney actually showed contempt for people living in poverty with his 47-percent comments, implying that all people living in poverty want nothing more than government funded entitlement programs.
I can vividly remember growing up in a single-parent home in an impoverished neighborhood in the inner city of Chicago. I know from personal experience that Mitt Romney’s comments paint a false picture about people living in poverty. The issue is not about people desiring government-sponsored entitlement programs; the issue is people desiring help in creating stronger and more stable families, jobs that pay a living wage, access to health care, safe and effective public schools and, most of all, an enlightened and progressive criminal justice system.
President Obama should charge the relevant Cabinet officers and government agencies to consider a national emphasis on programs like Nurse-Family Partnership, a program created right here in Rochester. This program has a proven track record of improving the health of expectant mothers and equipping them to be effective parents. This results in children with reduced rates of child abuse, lower rates of criminal behavior and arrest, and a higher success rate in school.
The intervention of one nurse with one family can often mean the difference between another generation being born into a cycle of persistent poverty, or children being able to finally escape poverty and have a chance to attain a bright future. The investment made in such a program today can result in enormous savings to our society in years to come.
Reducing criminal behavior is especially important, because a felony conviction is the single greatest contributor to persistent poverty in this country. As revealed in Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” the United States not only requires people to serve their time through incarceration or parole. Those same people are then haunted and hindered for the rest of their lives. A felony conviction limits them in terms of further education, future employment, military service, the right to vote, home ownership, and a stable family life: all of the things that are essential to climbing out of poverty.
To add insult to injury, the vast majority of felons in this country are non-violent drug offenders who would be better served by referral to a drug treatment program. That means an annual $5,000 cost per patient and no felony record to complicate their future, as compared to incarceration at an annual cost of $25,000 per inmate followed by a lifetime of poverty-prolonging prohibitions.
Finally, President Obama must keep working to defend the programs that serve the poor, the sick and the needy; these cannot be cut no matter what argument is made for retaining tax cuts and shelters for our country’s most affluent.
It was not entitlement programs serving the poor that created this mess, it was two wars over the last nine years that have cost this country $15 billion every month since 2003. Our nation is not made strong when the defense budget is bloated with spending items that are neither requested nor required by the Pentagon. We will only have a stronger and safer nation when the voices of the poor are heard and when the policies that can dramatically reduce poverty are funded and implemented.
Dr. McMickle is president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.
This article appears in Jan 9-15, 2013.
May we respectfully suggest that Dr. McMickle — as one responsible for the education of moral leaders — take a long, hard look in the mirror. If America needs “help in creating stronger and more stable families”, that can only come from our moral leaders — it most certainly CANNOT come from politicians, bureaucrats and godless social engineers. Families don’t need “nurses” — they need FATHERS. We might ask what precisely Dr. McMickle is doing to raise up a generation of zealous moral leaders, a righteous army to go forth in God’s name to combat the epidemic of sexual immorality and bastardy that is the root cause of poverty, ignorance and criminality.
And as long as Dr. McMickle is inclined to offer free advice to Obama, he ought to focus his exertions on ending the administration’s insane ideological war on jobs and free enterprise. Until then, all the trillions in handouts just go right down the sewer.
j.a.m., typical ‘either/or’ mentality, & throwing God around like a hula hoop. Not even going to respond to the nonsense.
Dr. McMickle writes a marvelous article. I’m sure he would even agree with the idea that more fathers in every community would be great. His main point, with which I heartily agree, is that the poor & disenfranchised have been ignored & probably will be again. I’m a big fan of Pres. Obama, but it’s shocking under his administration.
@Barb: If you don’t like ‘either/or’, then you should appreciate the fact that we offered layers of context that the author simply ignored.
As for the laughable canard that the “the poor & disenfranchised have been ignored”, I’m afraid the facts are not your friend. Welfare spending at all levels of government (before you even COUNT the 800 pound gorillas of Social Security and Medicare) consumes THREE TIMES as much of the economy as it did during the height of the so-called “Great Society”. Federal aid to education PER CAPITA has well more than doubled since the end of the Clinton regime.
If you honestly give a hoot about the poor, then go out and FIGHT the government school monopoly, the environmentalist kooks, the anti-growth drones, and the rest of the leftist ideologues who conspire to keep them poor.
As a one of Dr. McMickle’s former students, I can say he, in fact, does practice what he preaches.
Like Dr. McMickle, I was raised in poverty. I recognize the complications of the poor life that people who have not experienced poverty often overlook.
For example, as a child I was often wirtten off as predestined for failure by middle-class teachers who understood little about my culture. They were often short tempered when it came to teaching me the things my middle-class counterpart had already been shown. I recognized their discontent. This made me reluctant to ask for help and guarded regarding what I did not know. Ignorance and the subsequent poverty that inevitably accompanies it became a self-fulfilling prophecy in my life. However, because of educators and moral leaders like Dr. McMickle, who were far and few between, I am an educated middle class contributor to society.
I believe Dr. McMickle has taken a look in the mirror. He should be commended for giving a voice to the mute, not criticized. He has charged himself to overcome poverty. he recognized all who had sacrificed for the opportunity he has been afforded: and once he had overcome poverty he was compelled to make a difference by witnesseing to the poor, a sacrifice all too often forgotten by people who were raised in poverty, but have overcome it.
Perhaps the issue of poverty is so big that we feel one man, like Dr. McMickle, can’t make a difference? He has made a difference in his example, testimony, and ministry. I am a witness to it. He is asking that we not forget those without a voice, especially helpless children who had no choice in their class and may turn out to be an Ivey League school graduate and professor or the President of a University if given the opportunity.
Jimmy
I think that Dr. McMicle made a good point in his article about the poor being left out by our President. May we respectfully suggest that Dr. McMickle- as one responsible for the education of moral leaders has already taken a look in the mirror. That is why he can see the political, bureaucrats and Godless social engineers that some refer to in their comments about his article. Dr. McMickle inspires moral leaders to do what is right , just and kind in our world toward human beings who happen to be poor. Speaking up to help the poor is good conduct and the right advice to give President Obama.
JoyceNGrace
I read this editorial several times looking for the word “father” somewhere in this piece. Didn’t find it anywhere. The CAUSE of these social ills is the lack of fathers, and father figures, in the lives of those that are talked about in the article. The statistics below say it all:
“In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote “The Negro Family: A Case for National Action.” At the time, 25 percent of black children were born out of wedlock, a number Moynihan called alarming. Fast forward to the present, 72 percent of black children are now born out of wedlock. In fact, 36 percent of white children are born out of wedlock. Of Hispanic children, 53 percent are born outside of marriage.” I would add to this number that the percentage of Asians born out of wedlock is a mere 17%. What are Asians doing right, that everyone else is doing wrong?
http://m.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2013/01/17/gun-culture–what-about-the-fatherless-culture-n1490940
Until you fix the lack of fathers issue, nothing will change here. Shame on Dr. McMickle for talking around the problem, and avoiding talking about the SOURCE of poverty. A littany of new social programs will do nothing to ameliorate the poverty of values in many parts of our country that directly leads to monetary poverty.