A Two Step Process That Would Do More To Alleviate Poverty Than The Entire “War On Poverty.”

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A Two Step Process That Would Do More To Alleviate Poverty Than The Entire “War On Poverty.”

Written By : John Hawkins

“You will always have the poor among you.” — Mark 14:7

What a waste of time and money this will turn out to be.

Obama unveiled a new “big hearted” but “hard headed” US aid policy to push the poorest countries toward prosperity. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched a 40 billion dollar drive to save the lives of millions of women and children. Britain, China and Japan also promised more help.

But many leaders still accused wealthy nations of failing to keep their promises to provide assistance. Aid groups said millions would still die unnecessarily in the final five years of UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) initiative launched in 2000.

The US and Europe have poured trillions into the third world in the last fifty years and there’s very little to show for it. Had we done absolutely nothing and left those countries to fend for themselves, it’s entirely possible that many of them would be significantly better off today.

This is the same problem we keep running into in the United States. Everybody wants to make themselves feel better by throwing someone else’s money at the problem, but what many people don’t seem to notice is that it seldom improves the situation.

Yes, it will cost money to fight poverty, but there’s a smart way and a dumb way to do it. The dumb way to do it is our current system. Here’s the smart way to do it.

1) Dramatically beef up the police force and allow them to swarm over crime ridden poor neighborhoods. There are a lot of things conservatives kvetch about paying taxes for, but cops? We like having more cops on the street. After all, the first job of government is to keep us from being robbed and murdered, either by foreigners or criminals.

The fact that so many poor Americans are forced to live in crime ridden areas is not only disgraceful, it creates more crime. Kids join gangs to protect themselves from other gangs. The gangs sell drugs and commit violence. The more people who join those gangs, the more people there are who end up in prison, and the more people who will be difficult to employ later in life. Moreover, businesses don’t want to move into crime ridden areas either; so it depresses economic opportunities, makes goods more expensive for people in these areas because they’re harder to reach, and it cuts down on the available jobs. In other words, crime is one of the big factors that helps keep poor people poor.

2) When you have crime under control, dramatically cut taxes for businesses that will relocate to those areas. That will provide jobs and drive down the cost of goods in those areas.

Granted, there are a lot of other issues that create poverty. The biggest factor is actually the decline of marriage. Poor education, the diseased welfare mentality that goes along with liberalism, and a victimhood mentality hurt, too.

But, if we did nothing more than crack down on crime and then encourage businesses to move into poor neighborhoods, not only would it help reduce crime, it would give people their pride back, dramatically increase the quality of people’s lives, and it would do more to reduce poverty over the long haul than the trillions we’ve given away in wealth transfer programs over the years.

D-Vega

Well this may be a special day, because this is yet another post today where I would have to agree with you.

We do need more police in those areas. Not just police on the beat, but also law enforcement officers to work RICO cases to break up the large organized gangs.

And special tax zones are great. The Empowerment Zone in Harlem, NY did wonders for the local economy.

Kingfisher

And special tax zones are great.

In other words, Vega, you intentionally want unequal tax zones which would punish the innocent.

Why not expand these “special tax zones” to the entire country?

Lower taxes may have helped Harlem but there is no need to punish innocent businesses. This is a good idea but it should not be selective.

D-Vega

It doesn't punish them, it focuses on the most depressed areas. Instead of moving to a foreign country, you could move to a blighted area.

The Harlem Empowerment Zone also cost billions in tax breaks. So it would still blow a hole in the budget in some way.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Danny-Browning/1666222445 Danny Browning

They already have (2) in place. There are a number of grants available to small businesses that move into disadvantaged zones.

The bigger problem is (1). I still say legalize all drugs. When they're freely available with regulated active ingredient percent the gangs won't have a money source anymore, or a reason to be wage territory wars. They might actually have to get a job at that point.

That being said, straight up handouts never work. The whole give a man a fish vs. teaching him to fish.

Good Ol Boy

I understand your argument about legalization, Mr. Browning, but I dpubt that it would do much to dissolve gangs. Having presonally known many “street soldiers” and “hustlas”, I can assure you that they would simply switch their MO from drug dealing to some other criminal enterprise, like say armed robbery.

Many (if not most) of your street-level thugs are criminals because they are lazy and have no interest in working a 9-to-5 job.

Trench_Raider

Agreed.

I've spent most of my adult life dealing with criminals and you are correct in criminality is a mindest that legalization of drugs will not change. Some of it is laziness, but a large portion of it is simply an entitlement mentality, a low IQ, and a chronic refusal to even reconize that society has rules.

Despite what you see portrayed on TV and the movies as well as what the left tries to push, most habitual criminals are stupid scumbags who are a total waste of air.

TR

Trench_Raider

I still say legalize all drugs

Let me guess..you're a user hoping to legitimize your own criminal beavior, right? Many, if not a majority, of legalization advocates fall into that catagory.

TR

TheDickNixon

we have a winner

Toastrider

Offer an alternative then, gentlemen. If insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again expecting a different result, what lessons can we draw from our own narcotics laws? What kind of progress do we have to show for our efforts?

Honestly, I'd expect a major push for legalization of at least some drugs in the next couple years. Regardless of if we can push the Dems off their pedestal, the costs we've incurred are going to need to be paid off — and a sales tax on reefer might just strike congresscritters as an untapped possibility.

TheDickNixon

You could start by sealing the border with Mexico. Cutting off illegals and dope coming from the south WOULD make an impact on both the quantity of drugs in the US, the easy transport of said drugs into the US, deprive many of the gangs that sell drugs new soldiers, and drive the price up of drugs period in the US. After sealing Mexico off from the US, you then would free up law enforcement to focus on the other sources of drugs.

Mandatory life sentences for selling a pound or more of weed, a kilo of cocaine, and 8 ounces of heroin would take a bite out of it. Mandatory drug testing for all recipients of social assistance and disqualification of benefits after three positive tests for life would cut down on usage by the poor. Also, random drug testing in the public schools for all students would start cutting into the use of gateway drugs by kids.

That would be a good start.
Toastrider

The funny thing is that I agree with some of your ideas, but the whole thing makes me want to cough and remind you 'We live in the United States; not Singapore'.

I suspect bumping up border security would solve a LOT of our current ills (drug running, illegal immigration). I gots no bones with that part.

But mandatory life sentences? You do know about how the drug laws work, with 'possession with intent to distribute', right? There's also a serious internal problem with the way the drug laws have been formulated — search and seizure laws actively encourage departments to focus on drug enforcement, often to the detriment of other areas (this assumes there's no outright corruption as a result, too).

The whole concept of SWAT teams was for complete SHTF situations — hostages, etc. Nowadays, they are mostly used for drug raids. Now, I can buy that drug dealers may be heavily armed bastards and that hitting a major dealer may call for SWAT. The problem is that when you have that nice shiny hammer, /every/ problem looks like a nail.

Mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients… I admit, I kind of recoiled at this one initially, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. After all, if you want to accept that check, there are some strings to it. Don't like it? Go get a job.

I'm less inclined to accept the random drug testing in schools — for starters, do YOU trust our educational system to handle that properly? 'Cos I sure as hell don't.

I also dislike how it seems minors seem to face new and inventive limitations on their rights every time I turn around. Oh, I'm not one of those nitwits who thinks 12 year olds should be able to 'emancipate' themselves from their parents. But restrictions on freedom of speech, particularly in high school and college, grate on me.

Now, while I don't AGREE with most of your ideas, Nixon, I'm glad you posted a legitimate response (as opposed to our troll contingent, going 'ba ba ba'). After arguing with libtards all day, isn't having this conversation refreshing? :) Here's my counter offer (you'll LOVE this one):

Treat any crime perpetrated while 'under the influence' as premeditated. Why, yes, that does mean if you kill someone while stoned, drunk, or high, you'll be up on capital murder charges. Personally, I like it: simple and elegant. It may seem counterintuitive, but hey — if you meant to get high…

Now I gotta go look at that stuff Martin Hale's talking about from Britain, where their experiment in legalization didn't work. If that's the case it does tend to knock a hole in some of my ideas. Hmph…
TheDickNixon

Toast Nixon agrees with the premeditated if you are high idea. That one would make the leftists scream to the heavens if enacted.

You and Nixon agree that we need to change the rules of how the game is played, that is what counts. Unlike the liberals here, we can discuss our ideas w civility, since we are here to discuss the issues and not troll and disrupt.

Yep, you better watch that Hale fellow, he's pretty good at this socio-political stuff.

Have a good one.

mightysamurai

They already have (2) in place. There are a number of grants available to small businesses that move into disadvantaged zones.

A) There aren't enough, and B) part 2 will never work until part 1 is already in place.

Doesn't matter how many tax breaks or grants you offer to small businesses if the owners think they'll be robbed, raped, and murdered if they move into low-income neighborhoods.

The bigger problem is (1). I still say legalize all drugs. When they're freely available with regulated active ingredient percent the gangs won't have a money source anymore, or a reason to be wage territory wars. They might actually have to get a job at that point.

No it won't. Legalizing and regulating drugs will only drive the price of drugs back up and create a black market for un-regulated drugs. So we'd just be recreating the problem we're trying to solve. Not to mention that drugs are not the only way gangs make money.

Furthermore, your plan disregards the damage done to poor communities by the drugs themselves. There's a reason that drug addicts often have to steal to finance their habit. When you're high all the time, holding down a 9-5 job just isn't possible.
http://conservativebootcamp.com Martin Hale

I still say legalize all drugs. When they're freely available with regulated active ingredient percent the gangs won't have a money source anymore, or a reason to be wage territory wars. They might actually have to get a job at that point.

This idea is frequently floated around and yet it's a fact that out of all the countries on earth, not one of them has 'taken the plunge' and legalised all drugs. There must be a reason for that – a reason which transcends borders, cultures, political '-isms' and schools of political thought. But, let's look at some of the recent history of legalisation/liberalisation.

Back in the '60's the UK experimented with regulated legalisation of heroin. It was available to addicts on prescription and provided to them free of charge at their local chemists shop. It was done for humanitarian, health and legal reasons. The idea was to eliminate street heroin and all the criminal element which accompanies it. They also wanted to ensure that addicts got clean drugs of known strength to combat overdoses and poisonings. There was also a hope that street crime done by addicts would abate. After a few years, even the staunchest supporters of legalisation had to admit that it hadn't eliminated the black market trade in heroin, nor had it made an appreciable dent in the number or types of crimes users committed. One of the problems with the programme was that the NHS wouldn't provide the regular dosage increases to addicts that they wanted – the doctors found that to be a bad clinical practice. I've been led to believe that was why addicts regularly augmented their NHS allotments with street heroin. The NHS finally and quietly called it off.

The Dutch have had their widely known tolerance programme for cannabis and hashish in the larger cities of the nation, but that too is slowly ebbing. Amsterdam has steadily been decreasing the number of coffee-shop licences they allow for about the past 5-7 years as have Maastricht, Rotterdam and Utrecht. And above all, theirs has always been a tolerance programme, not legalisation. It still is and always has been illegal to possess or consume cannabis or hashish outside of a coffee-shop though the penalties for amounts under 15 gm are pretty light, and cultivation/distribution has always remained illegal there.

More recently, back in the UK, under Tony Blair the government moved cannabis from Schedule B to Schedule C, essentially making possession of small amounts a minor civil misdemeanor. After about five or six years, it was reclassified to Schedule B again due to the widespread problems (legal, social, medical) they experienced. But during the trial period, there were several well-done peer-reviewed studies to emerge
from the UK linking chronic heavy cannabis use (especially the high-potency cannabis being grown there) with increased likelihood of schizophrenia. Not a direct causal link, mind you, but an increase in the neighbourhood of six times more likely, or so. Statistically significant.

I'm more than willing to entertain the idea of legalisation/liberalisation and normalisation of drugs use, that appeals to my libertarian/small government impulses. But on the evidence I've seen so far, I'd say it's an idea that looks better in the abstract than it does in reality. If legalisation/liberalisation is contemplated, it probably would be best approached experimentally on a drug-by-drug basis, and the obvious starting point would be cannabis. It's hard to imagine a social benefit to legalising a drug like methamphetamine which literally consumes the bodies and minds of its users.

baoxian

There was an experiment in legal hardcore drugs. China. It absolutely obliterated their workforce and eventually brought down their government, opening the door for the balkanization of the country under warlords that the Chinese Republic couldn't control, thus opening the door for Mao and the Communists.

Not a very good “pro” argument.

StanW

I still say legalize all drugs. When they're freely available with regulated active ingredient percent the gangs won't have a money source anymore, or a reason to be wage territory wars. They might actually have to get a job at that point.

Sure, because it is a well know fact (TO LIBERALS) that if you take a person that has been breaking the law for years and suddenly make their crime “LEGAL”, that they will instantly be transformed into a law-abiding citizen with an 8-5 job in the city and a nice white picket-fence existance in the suberburbs.

That's what they tell us will happen if we give illegals instant citizenship, and what will happen to gang members if we legalize drugs.

Danny, as Trench said below, you are using too much of your own PRODUCT to live in such a fantasy world!
Kingfisher

I still say legalize all drugs.

Many others have provided excellent feedback so I'll address this issue from a different perspective. What makes you think legalizing all drugs will cause drug gangs and lords to become model citizens and follow applicable laws?

You imply that legalizing all drugs will cause crime-ridden neighborhoods to turn into something like, “Mr. Rogers Drug Neighborhood” but that is unlikely to happen. These people have absolutely no moral compass so they'll bypass all laws if they believe they'll financially gain from their activities.

These people don't think twice before killing their adversaries. Where do you this idea that they'll willingly follow federal regulations?

mightysamurai

It mystifies me why some people think legalizing drugs will make drug gangs magically disappear. Did repealing prohibition make organized crime disappear?

whats_up

“There are a lot of things conservatives kvetch about paying taxes for, but cops? We like having more cops on the street. After all, the first job of government is keep us from being robbed and murdered, either by foreigners or criminals.”

You mean those special interests groups that Obama gave more money to? The ones the Conservatives were whinning about. You mean those cops. Pathetic.

http://www.patriotpost.com bthewolf

Did all of the money go to cops? Did we complain about the money going to cops? Then I guess you're the pathetic one, trying to claim we're hypocrites, but doing a rather shitty job of it!

Mooman

I don't see how the US and Europe can send in busloads of police officers into africa. That might seem a bit… aggressive? And training police hasn't worked so well in Iraq or Afghanistan, has it? Different culture etc.

That said, in relation to reduce poverty in developed countries the cops thing makes some sense… but I'm unsure why a business wants to move to a highly policed *poor* area. You'll need grants to get companies up and running there. Technically no-one would have any money to buy stuff… huh, i suppose all those cops would. Yeah, I guess that could work!

Good Ol Boy

I'm pretty positive that Mr. Hawkins' suggestions were aimed at how to clean up poverty-stricken areas here in America.

rjschwarz

Well the original article was about the UN and the world so that's where I'll direct my comments. The West should determine which poverty stricken nations are dictatorships and which are democracies then send the Marine Corps or Peace Corps accordingly.

Okay, I'm joking about sending the Marines all over the place but a dictatorship shouldn't be getting any help. Not Peace Corps volunteers, not aid, nor a friendly word (we can still trade with them though). That stuff should be concentrated to democracies.
TheDickNixon

Nixon wonders how many of these “poor people” have the following items or characteristics: auto's, multiple vehicles, satellite or cable tv, use tobacco and liquor, use illegal drugs, have multiple children with multiple partners out of wedlock, dropped out of school, play the lottery, and are overweight.

Do a little research and get pissed and what the “poor” do and have, while the rest of us work 12 hours a day 5-6 days a week, sacrifice, educate ourselves, and make good choices, and then listen to some POS academic who has never made a payroll bitch because we only pay half the fucking income taxes in this country while half the people pay NOT ONE FUCKING DIME IN TAXES.

There is such a thing as poor by choice. Nixon has ZERO sympathy for them. And it is a shit load of “poor” that fall into that category.
billdalasio

Fundamentally, whether in the pockets of poverty in the developed world or in the vast majority of the undeveloped world, there is one sine qua non of economic development – non-predatory government. Ultimately, many of the poor of the world are unable to practically engage in the behaviors necessary to create the framework to enrich themselves by either openly criminal gangsters or criminals operating under only a minscule veneer of official power. When you add that to the absent of any way to legally institutionalize property and you have a guarantee of continued poverty.
OhforGoodnessSake

There's a word for what you are proposing and it is freedom. We spend $MM in these besotted countries which goes straight into the pockets of dictators exploiting the poor. Protection of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (that ability to pursue personal economic good) is the key, but we would rather spend out time handing out condoms and teaching how to wash genitals than address the key problem.
Kingfisher

Obama unveiled a new “big hearted” but “hard headed” US aid policy to push the poorest countries toward prosperity.

Two thoughts:

1) John, you nailed it with this point right here. Nobody or no nation can “push” people into prosperity. Prosperity can only come from within.

2) Many people have the desire to be prosperous but are prohibited because of strict government policies that prohibit prosperity. Governments in places like Cuba or North Korea are wealthy themselves but their citizens are poor.
gfchicago

This is the same problem we keep running into in the United States. Everybody wants to make themselves feel better by throwing someone else's money at the problem, but what many people don't seem to notice is that it seldom improves the situation.

Just like the money that we are spending on education. The localities and state are much more adept and knowing what a community needs rather than the federal government.

Ed Klein on ‘The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House’

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