| Politics of a Portlander |
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| I believe there are ways to dramatically reduce poverty and discrimination based upon race, gender, and economic status at the same time. Win, win! By combining laws to make the equal pay amendment enforceable, removing the mandatory minimums on drug crimes, sentencing addicts to treatment rather than jail, protecting people from high interest high risk loans the lenders know the borrowers can’t pay off, allowing the reimportation of cheap, safe prescription drugs, and letting Medicare bargain on drug prices the way all other health providers do America can reduce poverty by an incalculable amount and at the same time remove discrimination from our laws and giving reason to the disenfranchised millions to participate in our government. There is already a bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act that would allow for easier enforcement of equal pay, which is being denied to most women in America. I have an article on this site about it, with numbers showing that 40% of families living in poverty would be getting a boost in income simply by making the rules already in place easier to enforce. Repealing mandatory minimums for drug crimes, which make punishments harsher for drugs most often used by minorities and less for drugs used by whites even though 80% of drug users are white is self explanatory. If the minimums can’t be repealed at least consider making them the same for all illegal drugs. The re-importation of prescriptions drugs is simple and has been claimed as a priority by Bush since he ran for president the first time in 2000, and allowing Medicare to use its numbers for bargaining the way wholesalers and retailers who sell prescriptions due continues to be discussed and would be simple because all other government programs that buy products already do this. As for stopping lenders from giving out loans at unreasonable rates to people who they know can’t pay them back this is a practice that needs to be studied to make the rules fair for borrowers who have credit problems, but essentially lenders already have the research and grade potential borrowers the line just needs to be drawn to protect people who don’t realize what the lenders already know, that they can’t pay back a loan of the amount they are requesting. Making treatment a priority over jail for drug related crimes is another choice our government could make that would make people feel government is working with them and not against them. We can make America more inclusive and less divisive by giving people who can’t afford medical treatment for their addiction the same help with their problem that someone with the money to check into an addiction treatment center would have. All of these policies would help ease the divisiveness that has reached unstable levels in America and while reaching out to include the disenfranchised America could also improve the standard of living of everyone. Two passages from The Working Poor, by David Shipler that illustrate how poverty takes the wind out of that inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, and how employers just don’t understand their work force… They’ve never been in a family where they’ve seen anyone going to work. “It becomes a cycle…I think kids role model after what they see, and the first thing they see is in the home…My dad got up at four, five o’clock in the morning every morning, and he was a construction worker.” “I say, OK, put your money where your mouth is,” declared Terrence R. Ward, assistant to H&R Block’s chairman. “The typical welfare recipient is a single mother, high school dropout, competing at a second- or third-grade level. You say she ought to get a job. How are you going to make it happen?” He got evasive answers. “If they say, ‘We can’t hire them,’ I say, ‘So you want to perpetuate welfare.’ ‘Well, no.’ Well take your choice. It’s one or the other. The only thing missing is a job, and you can provide that.” |
| Personal Ideology |
| Poverty and Rights, how to combat poverty while restoring inalienable rights. |