Another Ohio Poverty Push

Dear Governor Strickland,

The Dispatch reports today you’re making a big issue of Ohioans living in poverty. When hasn’t it been the major issue? I moved here in 1967, and the first community event I went to was discussing a central Food Bank to eliminate hunger. What year hasn’t the Dispatch done a series on poverty? You’ve been meeting with the folks (100 groups?) who make their living pimping the poor (so why would they ever want it to end?). Well, good. I’ve been in 4 of the 5 quintiles myself, and in the 1980s I actually worked for the State of Ohio in a poverty program (JTPA older workers jobs program), so I have some experience with this topic.

Here’s the major problem as I see it. Our three jewels, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, cities which are among the largest in the United States, have been in a Democrat party strangle hold along with organized labor for decades. Jobs were first sent south, then overseas, thanks to government programs and union greed. Cleveland in 2006 was the largest major city in the U.S. with the lowest median household income; Cincinnati, at No. 8 on the list, joined Cleveland among the poorest cities; Columbus saw its poverty rate increase almost 2 percentage points in 2005 from the previous year, according to the Columbus Dispatch obligatory poverty report which helped in your 2006 election.

Because you are a former Methodist pastor, you at least need to tell the truth about poverty. The claim is that the tipping point is an income of $21,200 for a family of four, but that figure leaves out SCHIP, WIC, Medicaid, earned income tax credit, school and summer lunch programs for the children, special housing allowances, to say nothing of the church run food pantries which provide 3 days of food each month, if the family wants it. I know a man who earns $10 an hour, is married with 3 children--he actually can't afford to move up--he'd miss out on too many benefits provided by the state and federal government. Not only that, but he feels he's "entitled," which may be one of the most damaging things you've done to him (next to letting him leave school at 16 in 9th grade because he hadn't learned anything)--you've destroyed his initiative.

I hope you’ll look at our schools in Franklin County and the rest of Ohio. What’s this latest push on “self-esteem?” How will that help a kid read his diploma? And what about “retention” or “remediation” (i.e. flunking)? Which is more harmful to Ohio. Graduating stupid 18 year olds or having them repeat third grade at age 8 when there was hope? And if you’re going to give these kids 2 meals and a snack each day during the school year, at least require that daily PE be required. For that, you'd also need to reinstate the 9 period day.

You also need to review some of the cities’ renewal and rehab programs, which drove poor families from their neighborhoods (Columbus: German Village in the 60s, Victorian Village in the 70s, Short North in the 80s) because of lead paint or asbestos, or various beautification and preservation projects or just to make work for the architects and contractors under the guise of progress;

regulatory agencies decided that the automobiles of the poor (usually 2nd hand, used) weren’t safe or emitted too many toxic substances, so those were taken away;

and how many neighborhoods of the low income workers were displaced in the 1960s and 1970s by free-ways and interchanges--that they'd probably never drive on because you declared their cars weren't safe;

then you (not you personally but the social rocket scientists of the late 20th century) decided the children needed to be bussed to meet some sort of social goals, and that included taking black teachers away from black children, their positive role models;

over the years, liberals and conservatives alike have closed orphanages and homes for the mentally ill and challenged (or whatever the current PC term is), moving them first to “group homes,“ and then to the street to fend for themselves;

you (again, not you personally, but liberals) decided that children didn’t really need fathers, so you continued to be foster-dad in absentia for generations of children, which drove their own fathers away to hang out with their buddies while making it virtually impossible for a single man to receive any government benefits or assistance, in turn making them dependent on girlfriends or grandmothers;

you listened to or dabbled in every social, labor, medical and economic theory that dribbled out of Ohio State University, Cleveland State, Yellow Springs or Dayton about mass transportation, the poverty gap, mixed use neighborhoods, drug use and jobs programs for the elderly.

Now you and the poverty groups of Ohio wonder why it isn't working. Go figure.

See also: The story of single moms Melanie (fast food employee) and Tanika (librarian) and how the poverty programs hurt them, with the best intentions, of course.