The Poverty Crisis
There are more poor people in America now than at any time in the last 50 years. More than 15% of Americans live below the poverty line. For a family of four, a $22,000 income places them at the poverty level. 6.5 million jobs were lost in the recession; job loss is the fastest road to poverty. In 2011, 9% of Americans are still out of work. Millions of middle-income jobs have been lost to outsourcing and to new technology. Poverty is about lack of social mobility. It has become increasingly hard for Americans to rise above the -economic status of their birth. The term “doubling up” has come into usage and it describes households in which adult children have returned to live with their parents. The largest and most effective anti-poverty program in the U.S. today is the earned-income tax credit which takes millions of people out of poverty. President Obama continues to pressure the richest Americans to carry a larger share of the load. Wealthy people are not totally against it as part of the solution to the problem.
Facts About Rick Perry
234 prisoners have been executed in Texas during Rick Perry’s tenure as governor.
Rick Perry supports a policy of letting children of illegal immigrants who live in Texas attend college at in-state tuition rates.
Rick Perry is currently a dozen points ahead of his opponents for the presidency according to the latest CNN survey.
He has executive experience and he knows how to win.
Rick Perry calls Social Security a monstrous lie, even using the term Ponzi scheme.
He is the son of tenant farmers who lived a long time without indoor plumbing.
Rick Perry boasts that he is a Texas A&M graduate.
He left the Democratic Party in 1988 and ran successfully as a Republican in a statewide race. He has never lost a race in Texas.
He is the longest serving governor in the history of Texas.
He has repeatedly tapped federal programs, including the 2009 stimulus, to float his state through hard times.
Rick Perry can claim that during his time as governor of Texas he created over one million jobs.
He has criticized the practice of electing U. S. Senators by popular vote.
He believes that we should move our troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and bring them home.
Source: Time Magazine’s Issue of September 26, 2011