Obama has done a good job getting support and inspiring people but recently there has been doubts on his plans on Poverty, particularly from former candidate Edwards supporters and Poverty interest groups. It seems accurate that the issue of poverty hasn't been talked about as much compared to Obama's speeches of helping more of the middle class workers.
Well, he should probably start talking. With the way the economy seems to be going and all the people losing their jobs, the number of Americans facing poverty is almost certainly going to increase. Those people he was promising tax cuts are going to want more help from the next President than just that now. I think he'll have no choice but to work and focus more on poverty now if he wants to keep support and a good image. President-elect Obama worked with poor people before, and he's going to need to work with them again in order to keep his promise of change for the better and not worse.
And Mr.Edwards is definitely not going to get a job in the White House. He might be working to help the poor and have a lot of expertise in the area but he could use else where. It won't help Obama's image to hire him. Does anyone disagree with my assumptions?
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11 comments:
I agree that it is extremely unlikely that Obama would hire Edwards. Yet it's also important for Obama to take on the issue of poverty as well. With Obama placing emphasis on changing the economy for the better, he would need to work on alleviating poverty to fulfill his promises. It's interesting how he has often talked about helping the economic woes of the middle class and has yet to make any definite plans to change poverty.
Yeah I agree that Obama hasn't talked about poverty all that much but that is when you need to look at the things he has promised off cameras. On his official website, he promises to "invest $1 billion over five years in transitional jobs and career pathway programs that implement proven methods of helping low-income Americans succeed in the workforce". There are more things he promises as well. Obama based his whole campaign around "Change" so it is very hard for me to believe that he will at the least not even attempt to complete his promises about change. Obviously the official site is (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/poverty/) and you can go there and see his policies and what he plans to do as president.
Kenny I also checked out Obama's website and clicked poverty and I found some very interesting things. Along with the money funding programs and jobs he wants to "Raise the Minimum Wage to $9.50 an Hour by 2011. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that people who work full time should not live in poverty"(barakobama.com). I think that is a very good statement, and I wish that it were true. But, maybe it can be true. If you work full time you should not have to live in severe poverty.
I also think that his tax plans will somewhat help the poor but, his actual plans will do much better.
I don't remember Obama talking too much about poverty, but I do remember him saying that he wanted to raise minimum wage, and while I don't think that he's going to pick Edwards to help him do that job, I have full faith in Obama that he will get the job done, hopefully by the date he has set.
~Kimiya Bahmanyar
You also have to remember that many presidents can PROMISE a lot in order to get votes, but whether or not they will enact them (pressuring congress) is all questionable. No president can ever do everything that he promises, as you have to remember that he is trying to get elected.
An example of such ideas could also be seen in George W. Bush's 2000 election where he was able to get the Armenian vote by promising to pressure Turkey into recognizing the Armenian genocide instead of ignoring it. However, once he got elected, he promptly turned the other way and never fulfilled his promise to the people who voted for him.
Well he first would need to fix the economy before anything can be done with poverty. I dont feel like he can fix the economy and then 2 years later except to raise the mim wage to $9.50 that quick. Its going to take a lot of time for the change he promised to make. I feel as if he did make too many promises, just like Raj said, not all will be done because they are mostly after the vote for election. But lets hope things change for the better.
Yea, I agree. POverty's is the way to go, especailly where we're headed. tHEY SHOULD'nt PUT THIS OFf, PUTTING it off will onlY MAke it worse. tHEY SHOULD Face the failing ECONOmy...
actually, i thINk obaBma has a plan IN place already. he HAS a pLAn TO MAKE jobS for MANY PEOPLE, But he nEED TO ACT FAST.
i WAS WATCHING the neWS YESTERDAY AND theY WERE REPORTInG On tHE TOLL THE ECONomY TOok on THE TEACHERS. sOME TEACHERS RESORTED TO ADVERTISING on THEIR TESTS ANd THRE IS A CERTAIN webSITE WHERE TEACHERS ASKS FOR CERTAIN TOOLS THEY Need for thIR CLASSROoms( SuCH AS colored penCILS OR CALCULATORS) AND parentS CAN bE DONations. THIS is what it has come DOWN to...
There is so much that Barack Obama needs to do but I think poverty has to do obviously with the job cuts and how so many people have been layed off. If Obama starts there and creates more jobs for people then the poverty percentage will go down but as previously stated he is already investing one billion dollars over five years in jobs and career pathway programs so im sure one step at a time will make a big difference overall. People want answers but really it is just hard to say what exactly Obama will do when this ecomomy is so unpredicatble and when there are so many other problems to deal with as well.
I do not think that minimum wage will be able to be raised to 9.50 and hour by 2011. As much as i would love to see that happen, with the economy in the state it is chances are businesses would find use the raise of minimum wage as an excuse for a lack of growth and fight it tooth and nail. The current minimum wage is at $6.55 and even getting it there was a legislative battle. A jump to $9.50 seems almost improbable.
Poverty is a weird issue in that its one of the parts of economy that is generally unavoidable, and every major attempt to completely get rid of it has for the most part failed. Even reducing poverty is often extremely hard, and with the economic woes we are going through, it isn't likely going to be any easier now. While a lot of people are worried about poverty right now, we need to realize that poverty doesn't happen overnight. Its a long and slow process for a middle class family to sink into poverty short of a natural disaster. While we do have a large population of people considered to be living in poverty, that number is nowhere near the number of people who are living in mostly content conditions. It's defiantly a concern to worry about, like the environment, but it's more of a long term problem.
That being said, I personally don't think it's an issue Obama will be really worried about right now, or something he would be able to handle on his own. As for raising the minimum wage, short answer is it's not gonna happen. Businesses hate that kind of regulation, and the last thing we need is for them to lay off more workers in order to pay existing ones more.
Raising the minimum wage is a terrible idea. That just makes it so every person whose labor is not worth $9.50/hr gets fired. Any person who would be willing to work for less than $9.50/hr is screwed.
This is simple supply and demand. A price floor creates excess supply and not enough demand for labor.
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