READER'S POST # 9 - Al Sharpton Questions What Federal Programs We Have For The Poor

By: 32slim32

I sure hope no one spit any beverages on their monitor and keyboard after reading that headline. That’s even better than, "Resist we much. We must, and we will much about that be committed." Maybe that’s why New York Times best-selling author and radio host Mark Levin calls him Al Not-so Sharpton.

Newsbusters has a great story on it and audio from Sharpton’s  radio show here:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jack-coleman/2012/02/02/al-sharpton-denies-existence-federal-programs-aid-poor

Here is Sharpton’s quote:

“The statement by Mitt Romney today, he's trying to walk it back saying that he wasn't concerned with the poor, concerned with the middle class, that he's trying to clarify it but even in his clarity I think he exposes to many the misconceptions. He said, well, there are programs for the poor, I meant my focus.

What programs for the poor? They [Republicans] keep acting as if poor people have all of these things that are helping them.”

Another interesting article to debunk Mr. Sharpton’s claim can be found here:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/09/obama-to-spend-103-trillion-on-welfare-uncovering-the-full-cost-of-means-tested-welfare-or-aid-to-the-poor

Also, you may want to download the entire 54 page report from the link above too on the Download pdf link at the story. (In yellow just below the headline on right side)

A couple of interesting excerpts from the above mentioned story:

“Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent vast sums on welfare or aid to the poor; however, the aggregate cost of this assistance is largely unknown because the spending is fragmented into myriad programs.” 1^st paragraph

“Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dol­lars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all other wars in U.S. history was $6.4 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars).” 11^th paragraph

BIG DISCLAIMER: This report came out 9/16/2009, so yes, the costs of the wars may have gone up, but so has welfare spending.

Holy Cow! Since the beginning of the War on Poverty we have spent $15.9 TRILLION on fighting poverty. Wow, that’s more than our entire debt which stands at $15.288 TRILLION (source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/figures-government-spending-debt-201733446.html) as of February 1^st.

Census data shows the poverty rate in 1964 at 15.0% and in 2010 a rate of 11.7%.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/families.html

I guess if you want to be optimistic, we should have this poverty thing whipped in about another $56 TRILLION or so.  Provided we can continue at the same rate of progress we have made over the past 46 years worth of data (1964-2010).

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