Obama and the Poor

By TRB

Obama is loved by many, understood by few and presides over a place in time where the poor are becoming more poor, the middle-class are headed toward extinction, the public schools continue to fail, the commercial banks and private lending houses are raiding the Fed and gambling the proceeds on Wall Street while cutting the number of personal or business loans they make in the U.S., foreclosures are again on the rise. If the economy doesn't improve soon we are perhaps two generations away from having no middle class at all. Just the very rich and the very poor, as you would expect to find in any third world country.

How does one explain Barack Obama's popularity with the poor? With them, he still rates over 50 percent in popularity, while having done virtually nothing to make their lives better than they were under Bush. Mysteriously, Obama is not as popular with the wealthy and near wealthy, even though he has extended their tax breaks, saved their corporations and banks with working-class tax money and money borrowed from China and created new laws making it easier for them to retain the wealth they already have. Meanwhile the great money transfer, from those who really need it, to those who really don't, goes on, unimpeded by Obama, his financial team and Congress.

Most will now agree that December was a month of many accomplishments for the young president from whom little was expected only a month ago during a lame duck session of Congress. But much was achieved. Gays and lesbians will be able to legally join the Armed Forces. But the president trusted the implementation of the plan to his various uniformed service chiefs, so it might be a while before gays and lesbians see this new law in effect. In other words, don 't ask, don't tell for now. The president gave the most wealthy U.S.citizens an extension of their ludicrous tax break (Imagine a tax break during war time. One of the second or third of its kind in U.S. history.) He also dramatically lessened their estate tax requirements, a tax break that will effect such a tiny number of people,chances are they are related in some fashion or other.

For working people he offered a payroll tax deduction, which is all well and good, with gas prices predicted to go through the roof before the summer even gets here, but it won't make things better for the general economy. The Republicans, with the help of seven Democrats defeated the so-called "Dream Plan," which would have offered a path to citizenship for immigrants who were brought here as children and have since become outstanding individuals with many achievements - indeed better people in general and in character than the politicians who voted down their attempt to become U.S. citizens. Obama got the START Two missile treaty approved. He managed to convince Congress to extend unemployment benefits for another year in light of the 9.8% unemployment rate. He even put together a good trade deal - favorable to the U.S. - with the South Koreans.

His crowning achievement, however, is considered by many to be his National Health Care Program - mostly because it is the first of its kind in U.S. history. Aside from that, it has a short history of problems that considerably dull its luster. For example, there is no single payer plan, even though Obama promised one all the way through his '08 campaign. Drugs can not be purchased through the program from Canada. The U.S. Veterans Administration, among the largest of health care programs in the nation purchases its drugs from Canada. This Obama plan in many places seems like it was written to benefit U.S. drug and insurance companies. Its single biggest problem, however, and perhaps the one that will kill it in the courts, is its mandate that those who are uninsured must buy into the program or they will be fined. This fine is either punishment for not joining or incentive to join. It might be unconstitutional either way.

So Obama has been very busy his first two years as president, bailing out commercial banks and private investment houses to the tune of trillions of dollars, actually purchasing General Motors instead of letting it fail, allowing the Fed to keep the presses running all night doling out money to the already wealthy class in the U.S. Meanwhile things just kept getting worse for the majority of citizens. Foreclosures in Dec. 2010 will top 349,519, 15% higher than in December 2008. According to the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin in 2010, 43.6 million people in the U.S. were living in poverty, or 14.3 percent of the U.S. population. This represents the largest number of poor people in the U.S. since records were first kept 50 years ago. More than 20% of children under 18 in the U.S. live in poverty. That is 15.5 million children.

In practical terms, Obama has done nothing for the poor of the U.S.. Their housing is still the worst. Crime in their neighborhoods goes on. Their schools continue to decay and slide off the edge. There is a historically low number of jobs available to them. Their earnings are actually going down. The poor are the forgotten or voiceless class in the U.S. Many are single women with children. It can be difficult to find information about America's poor or what is considered a level of income that would qualify one as poor. It is as though the poor have been erased from government records, or hidden under layers of print and various speculations. Finding a chart that lists the various income levels of the poor can be trying to say the least. Perhaps no one wants to talk about it. I did manage to find out that $16, 680 a year does qualify you as poor, or at least that is the maximum income one can make to qualify for food stamps. So that figure is probably slightly above the real poverty level.

Some might say, so what, there is still welfare, now called "transitional assistance" and good for about $700 a month (good for only a year), public housing, which you need if you make only $700 a month, and food stamps, which you also need if you make only $700 a month. Some might say, why should I give "these people" my tax money? One could easily answer with another question. Why do you give up your tax money to subsidize the incomes of millionaires, corporations and banks? Welfare came to an end decades ago because some "experts" - mostly Republicans - claimed that welfare programs created a class of people that couldn't stand on their own without help from the American people. And that this just wasn't morally right. Many agreed. Even the overtly empathetic Jimmy Carter.

So we have gone from allegedly creating a class of people who couldn't stand on their own without help from the taxpayer, to creating banks, investment firms and a small group of billionaires and millionaires who can't stand on their own without help from the government. Meanwhile, people who need help, just to afford breakfast for their children are ignored by the American taxpayer, by the federal government and by Barack Obama himself.

I sincerely believe that those in the middle class who feel themselves sliding into the lower middle, if there is such a thing, should take a good look at the conditions under which America's working and unemployed poor are forced (that is correct "forced;" especially with the current job crisis) to live. Take a good look. That just might be your future if the economy doesn't improve soon.