Tavis Smiley: We need a govt program to eradicate poverty

I didn’t get very far in this video before I had to stop and say, “huh?” Tavis Smiley says the government needs to make poverty a priority and create a national plan to eradicate poverty, like other countries have done. Wait, other countries have eradicated poverty?

But then, he’s asked to define poverty, and that you have to hear (via Townhall):

I was all prepared to write a paragraph on why people assume it’s the government’s job to ‘eradicate’ poverty. It’s a great point, because I think that if you know someone who is poor, the first words out of your mouth to them aren’t “hey maybe the government can raise you out of poverty”. That’s a ridiculous notion to most of us. The government only keeps you in poverty, and perhaps from dying of starvation. But when has the government ever been the source for raising people into the middle class?

No, it’s up to the individual to better themselves because they are the only one who really controls their destiny, which is unlimited in America. They can go to school, get special training, and rise on their own.

But you have these Marxist/socialist types who insist that it’s the government’s job to eradicate poverty. It’s insanity on every level. The best thing the government can do is create an environment that maximizes economic growth where there are jobs a plenty, and that will go much, much farther to reducing poverty.

But then Smiley says there is a poverty of hope, truth, affirmation, and that those are just as important as economic poverty? Dude, Smiley is insane. I’m not even sure of how to respond to that, other than to get Smiley a one way ticket to the utopia that we all know and love as N. Korea. Let him live there for a while and see if that changes his perspective a little.


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