How the Democrats Destroy the Poor

There are two major areas where the Democrats have harmed poor people in America - at the national level, and at the local level.

Nationally, when they have been in power they have pushed dozens of welfare programs. "Welfare" sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? In most cases, it is anything but good. People get addicted to welfare just as they do to drugs. We now have three generations of welfare recipients in some families, none of whom have ever held a job. People tend to live what their parents model. If the parents are self-sufficient, the kids will probably follow in their footsteps. The reverse is also true.

I shouldn't have to do this, but I will make a disclaimer here. Any time I touch on a "touchy" subject, I get howls of hatred from liberals. (One recently told me that “God hates you!!”) So, yes, I believe that some welfare is necessary. We have to take care of people who can't work. But the Bible says that if a man won't work, he shouldn't eat. If we stopped feeding and housing able-bodied people who refuse to work, I guarantee you that the hunger pangs would force them to work.

At the local level sometimes it is even more insidious. Make a list of all U.S. cities that have the most crime, poverty, and homelessness. In every case, Democrats run those cities and have usually done so for generations. That's because they are more concerned with politics than people. Their first (and often, their only) priority is getting reelected. The people they are supposed to serve are way down at the bottom of their list of priorities.

In these cities and counties, most of the effort and money go to things designed to help the mayor and the city councilmen (or county commissioners) be re-elected. This includes many unethical actions, such as appointing an unqualified major campaign donor to a cushy, high-paying job (or to a prestigious high visibility job that will help their own political career.

Another is building useless, flashy projects that bear the name of the politician who pushed for the project. A good example of this is the Congressman who twisted arms to get an airport and terminal built in his tiny town. The result? The airport has one flight a week, and the terminal is empty the rest of the week. But the airport is named after the Congressman.

How about $100 Million taxpayer dollars spent for an unused airport and a harbor with no boats. All this for the use of an Alaskan town with 75 residents – and no roads to reach either the airport or the harbor. If the townsfolk do manage to get to the harbor, they will find it has no electricity, no running water, and – not one boat. Think about how that $100 Million could have been used to provide job training and encourage job creation by businesses.

Florida Congressman Bill Posey describes how the Department of Agriculture spent $100 Million to figure out how to avoid $5.8 Million in fraudulent charges on government credit cards. “Taxpayer-funded purchases included Ozzy Osbourne concert tickets, tattoos, lingerie, bartender school tuition, car payments, and cash advances." I can tell them how to stop almost $6 Million in fraud without a study that cost $100 Million. And my advice is free. Fire the employees who defraud the government, prosecute them, and put them in jail. Once the other employees who haven’t been caught yet see the government is serious, they will stop stealing. But the government doesn’t really care. It’s not their money. They’d rather spend $100 Million on a study with which they can give their family and friends jobs.

Here are just a few of the outrageous ways the government spends money that could be used for ending homelessness and on job training:

The Department of Education spent $34 million supposedly helping Americans become better shoppers and homemakers. How is that their responsibility?

The federal government proposed spending $14 million for a new Army Museum, although there already were 47 Army Museums around the country. Fortunately, that idea was squashed by a citizen’s watchdog organization, Citizens Against Government Waste.

Without Congressional authorization, the federal government spends almost $20 Million every year on the International Fund for Ireland.  Sounds good, but what does it do? The money was spent on projects like pony-trekking centers and golf videos.

The Pentagon and the CIA wasted $11 million on psychics, hoping they might give us insights on foreign threats! Are they insane? Or are they using the psychedelic drugs that the CIA has experimented with?

Social Security has a wonderful program call SSI (Supplemental Security Income) which costs the government (us) $25 Billion annually. An estimated 79,000 alcoholics and drug addicts are believed to spend SSI checks - $360 million every year – on drugs and alcohol. A Van Nuys, California, alcoholic received a $26,000 SSI check, then spent the money on a van and two cars which he subsequently wrecked while driving drunk. Thousands of prisoners receive a total of $20 Million every year, most of which is spent on the drugs that are easily available in almost every prison.

Money meant for the poor is regularly diverted by crooked politicians and bureaucrats. The Economic Development Administration spent “anti-poverty” funds to help build a $1.2 million football stadium in South Carolina. Democrat Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” established the Appalachian Regional Commission. 30 years and over $6 billion later, the region is more impoverished than ever.

I could go on and on, but I feel my blood pressure rising. If you have good blood pressure levels or have some Valium, do an Internet search for “Government Waste.” It is truly revolting to see the $ billions corruptly spent by our government on projects that will benefit the politicians who vote for them, or are just plain ridiculous (like millions spent on the sex habits of rodents in Siberia – not by the Russians, but by the U.S.)

Let’s look at what the Democrat-run cities spend money on, whether from the federal anti-poverty dollars or their own citizens’ tax money.

San Francisco is the most visible example of horrendous governance. The city has 7,400 homeless residents. One obvious answer to this problem is to build affordable housing in a city with one of the highest housing costs in the nation. Instead, when the weather gets cold they house the homeless in hotels at a cost of millions per night. Homeless people defecating on the sidewalks are a huge problem. Instead of providing sufficient public toilets, the city has established a “Poop Patrol.” No, I’m not kidding. The city pays employees $184,000 in salary and benefits to patrol the city picking up human feces.

Some of the nation’s worst-performing schools are in Detroit, Michigan. The blame for this is not wholly on the corrupt Democrat politicians who have run the city into the ground. One of Detroit’s biggest problems is that it is no longer “Motor City.” The Democrats encouraged the labor unions there to strike again and again for higher wages, eventually pricing Detroit out of the automotive industry. Now most cars produced in America are in Southern states that don’t force workers to join unions, as the Democrats did in Michigan.

By the way, when the federal government bailed out the Big Three automakers in Detroit, the average worker was making $73 per hour in wages and benefits. The average U.S. worker making $28.50 an hour paid the taxes to bail out the ungrateful unions. Now they’re back at it – GM is striking for even higher wages. How could a city that was the envy of the industrial world, producing millions of cars and paying employees $150,000 per year end up being the most impoverished in the nation, and being the first major city to go bankrupt? The answer is easy: Democrat leadership.

The second most impoverished city in the nation, Buffalo, NY has been run by Democrats since 1954. Its corrupt government has made this once-proud city the worst in the corrupt state of New York. When Hillary Clinton ran for Senator in New York, she promised 200,000 new jobs for this economically depressed part of the state. During her eight years in office manufacturing jobs dropped by 25%. CBSNews reported:

“Clinton’s self-styled role as economic promoter actually involved loyal campaign contributors who also supported the Clinton Foundation. Through federal grants and legislation, she helped steer money to programs, companies, and initiatives that benefitted the donors but failed to reverse the economic decline of the region.”

I’ll detail just one more Democrat city’s waste and corruption before I get too depressed to write more. This one is 90 minutes away from me – Miami. It is fifth on the list of the most impoverished cities in the U.S.  The Miami New Times had a 2017 article titled, “Five Recent Corruption Busts so Crazy they Could Only Happen in Miami.” I have long known that Miami rivals Chicago for the title of “Most Corrupt City in America.” I won’t go into detail on this – the link to the full article is below. I’ll mention just one – the small city of Opa-Locka in Miami-Dade County.

After an extensive two-year investigation, the FBI raided the city offices and removed huge stacks of files and numerous computers. It turns out that city officials had spent millions of dollars on lavish parties, expensive meals, and trips for government officials. At the time of this writing, the investigation of the corruption and kickbacks into this Democrat-controlled city is ongoing. These slimy politicians stole most of the city’s money and left the mostly-black city without a functioning government.

Republican Governor Rick Scott declared a “financial emergency” and appointed a board to oversee the city’s financial and legal morass. Since then the Democrat City Manager was sentenced to three years in jail for taking bribes, and for “weaponizing” the city’s Code Enforcement Department to extort small businesses for cash kickbacks to avoid being shut down. Many other Democrat city officials have been charged and some are already serving time. The people of the city are so overwhelmed by all of this that they want to abolish the city and become part of the County government. Unfortunately, the huge County is almost as corrupt as this small city. One of its prominent judges, Alcee Hastings, was removed from office after he was impeached for bribery. Unfortunately, he wasn’t imprisoned, so now he is in Washington as one of our Representatives!

I teach in a Bible College where we tell aspiring ministers that the essence of a good sermon consists of three parts: Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them. The same framework works for articles and speeches, as well.

My first paragraph told you what I intended to tell you: “There are two major areas where the Democrats have harmed poor people in America - at the national level, and at the local level.”

Then I told you in detail just how Democrats have destroyed the poor, both from their Command Center in the Swamp known as Washington, D.C. and in the city halls of America. I could have given literally thousands of examples of their ineptitude, corruption, theft of public funds, and their complete and utter lack of empathy for the people they took an oath to serve.

Now I will tell you what I told you. Citizens who identify as Democrats are mostly good people. But they elect truly terrible people. (If someone can explain why this is true, I would love to hear about it). Democrats in national office have turned a reasonable welfare system that was designed to help people who are unable to work into a monstrosity that entraps whole generations of poor people and keeps them addicted to welfare. They do this not because they care about the poor, but because the poor know who writes their checks, and they vote for them. The same is true at the local level, only here the Democrat corruption is easier to hide because there is not as much scrutiny as there is of national figures.

I will leave you with a bonus that is not in the outline:

• If you want thousands of homeless people living on your sidewalks...
• If you want your kids to walk through human feces and drug needles on their way to school...
• If you want corruption on a massive scale in your nation, your county, and your city...
• If you want billions of dollars to continue to be stolen by elected officials...
• If you want voter fraud to make our elections unreliable...
• If you want some of the most foolish and inept people in the world to rule you...
• If you want our nation to be overrun by illegal immigrants...
• If you want the United States to eventually be taken over by a one-world government…

INTERNET RESEARCH:
 
Alaskan Town Home to Airport with No Planes and Harbor with no Boats
https://news...yahoo...com/blogs/sideshow/alaskan-town-home-airport-no-planes-harbor-no-230803871...html
 
How to Cut $343 Billion from the Federal Budget
https://www...heritage...org/budget-and-spending/report/how-cut-343-billion-the-federal-budget
 
The Most Outrageous Government Waste
https://fee...org/articles/most-outrageous-government-waste/
 
San Francisco’s “Poop Patrol” Employees make $184,000
https://www...businessinsider...com/san-francisco-poop-patrol-employees-make-184000-a-year-2018-8
 
Nation’s School Report Card Ranks Detroit Schools as Worst in Nation
https://www...wxyz...com/news/nations-school-report-card-ranks-detroit-schools-as-worst-in-the-national
 
Union Auto Workers Made $73/Hour When the Government Bailed them Out
https://www...studentnewsdaily...com/daily-news-article/union-workers-at-big-three-automakers-average-73-an-hour/
 
Five Recent Corruption Busts so Crazy they Could Only Happen in Miami
https://www...miaminewtimes...com/news/five-corruption-busts-so-crazy-they-could-only-happen-in-miami-9617674