Why are they poor?

Don’t you just hate it when people sugarcoat it rather than give it to you straight? If you answered yes you’re probably in the minority. We always talk about how we want some straight talk but then people get bent all out of shape when they hear it.

I’m going to lay some straight talk on you and each time I tell people this their body language tells me they’re getting defensive. It tells me they really don’t want to hear it but they need to

hear it. Facing the truth is the only way we’re going to solve problems. We overcomplicate things by ignoring the real reasons they exist.

Okay, here it is. Most poor people are poor because of the poor choices they make. Some of you are already bowing up on me but it’s true. Until we embrace that realization there’s nothing in the world that can be done to help the poor. If you coddle them or make excuses or just give them free stuff from the government you’re never going to improve their plight.

Kevin Williamson recently compiled some stats for National Review and they were eye-openers. He dug down into Census Bureau data and found that for the bottom income group there’s an average of 0.42 earners per household. What exactly does that mean? It means that there’s less than one person per every two poor households that’s working. To illustrate it another way, 68.2 of the households were not working at all. Imagine that. In almost 70 percent of the poorest of the poor households there was no one working. 

At the other end of the spectrum, the top income group averaged 1.97 workers per household. Almost 2 workers per household at the top. Only 13.3 percent of the top income group had no one working. I know it sounds elementary but when nobody’s working in your household you’re going to be poor.

Marriage was another big discrepancy. For the top earners, 78.4 percent of those families were married couples. It was only 17 percent for the lowest income group.

The data don’t lie. The clearest way to get out of poverty is to find a job, work hard, get married and stay married. You may say that’s an oversimplification but at least we should encourage that first before we start all the excuses why poor people can’t get ahead.

Other habits contribute to poverty. How many times have you had to stand behind someone buying one of those irritating lottery tickets? ‘Let’s see, give me two Pick-Six. Naw, make that one Pick-Six, three Aces & 8’s, two Find the 9’s. Naw, forget all that. I’m gonna do the Jumbo Bucks.’ ‘Will that be all?’ ‘Yeah, well, naw. And two packs of Marlboro Reds and this 12-pack of beer.’

And all you wanted was to pay for gas on Pump 5 because the credit card reader was broken. By the way, that transaction you just witnessed was north of 30 bucks and for some poor folks it happens several times a week. Sometimes every single day. Notice you don’t see much of that over in the rich section of town. 

If I were emperor-for-a-day no one taking any kind of government handout would be allowed to buy lottery tickets, alcohol, tobacco or drugs. I would pee-test them for the aforementioned substances and find a way to restrict lottery ticket sales. Oh, okay. If I’m emperor, I eliminate the lottery entirely.

Until then, we have to shoot straight with people. Bad choices have bad consequences.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Bill Maher is finally starting to get it

Notoriously liberal television host Bill Maher may actually be starting to get it.  He complained recently that he was paying too much in taxes.  He said, "It’s outrageous what we’re paying (in California) – over 50 percent. I’m willing to pay my share, but yeah, it’s ridiculous.”

The question is no longer about fair share.  It's about reasonable spending.  Maher's point - and I'm not even sure he knows he made it - is that none of us really minds paying taxes as long as our tax dollars are being wisely spent.  Maher obviously makes millions per year and having over half of his money confiscated is starting to trouble him.

California just raised taxes on people like Bill Maher.  The implication is they're not paying their fair share.  The assumption is the government is putting that money to good use.  That assumption is now starting to crumble, even in the eyes of die-hard liberals.

The question has historically been what kind of country do we want?  Because of the reckless spending the question now is how much country can we afford?  We have enticed and trapped literally millions on government dependency. 

I was at the ACC Basketball Tournament in Greensboro recently and one of the main sponsors was the North Carolina Lottery.  They had a booth set up at the entrance where they were urging people to come over and buy a lottery ticket.  I thought of how pathetic it was that the government outlaws gambling but spends untold millions trying to lure you into gambling with them.

Our government dollars have been spent on public nuisances like housing projects which not only trap their residents in a miserable existence, they terrorize the surrounding neighborhoods with crime.  According to the Chicago Housing Authority, when they demolished these petri dishes of societal decay they saw violent crime reduced by 60 percent, property crime down almost 50 percent and gun crime reduced an astonishing 70 percent.

Like the failed green energy companies our government has chosen to back, government bureaucrats are famously horrid stewards of our money.  The poor and Bill Maher's money are much better served by private sector solutions to our problems rather than government programs that simply exacerbate them.