Ending Poverty
Is There a Government Solution?
By Daniel Muniz

Liberals contend that the origin of poverty has a number of root causes and structural disadvantages such as a lack of jobs and job training, underfunded educational programs, lack of child care, etc. So in order to eradicate poverty in this country, these root causes have to be addressed and prevented. And if prevented (more and better government programs), then the outcome, which is poverty, can be eliminated.

In the view of many poverty warriors, basically every root cause is usually something that the government can step in and solve by throwing a lot of money at it.

Ever since the rise of big government, the biggest problem that lots of Americans have had with such an approach is that more money does not necessarily reduce poverty especially when someone exercises poor judgment and makes bad decisions. Many poverty warriors do not want to take into account that there are so many cultural factors that lead to poverty such as dropping out of high school, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, criminal activity, absent fathers, lack of work ethic, broken families, etc.

All the money in the world won’t solve those kinds of problems because they involve personal responsibility.

Some of the bad decisions that people make can ruin their lives and many of them have ramifications that last a lifetime. However, Liberals are often terrified of holding poor people personally accountable for their actions. Below is a remark from former Senator John Edwards that perfectly reflects the mentality of too many Liberals:

"In poor inner-city areas . . . the last thing they want to hear is an affluent white politician telling them what they are supposed to do."

So in other words, go ahead and keep making your bad decisions and keep exercising your poor judgment. We won’t hold that against you because even though it is your fault, we aren’t going to blame you for it.

As someone who grew up poor and in the barrio, I have a problem with that kind of mentality.

In the impoverished neighborhood I lived in, I saw plenty of outrageous behavior that led to bad decisions and poor judgment. And no government program is going to stop someone from ruining their lives. I understand the good intentions of poverty warriors but their biggest flaw is their unwavering belief that the government will solve everybody’s problems. That is not going to happen unless people can start making better decisions.

I am truly grateful that my parents exercised good judgment. The first thing they did was to acquire more skills in order to become more marketable and to help increase their earning capacity. They also had a very strong work ethic which helped them become successful in their jobs. Living in a small rural community where there was a lack of jobs, we moved to a city that had a plethora of opportunity.

But most importantly, my parents also avoided making bad decisions and exercising poor judgment.

They were law abiding citizens who never had trouble with the law and they exercised that morality on their children. They didn’t allow us to skip out of school or to flunk tests and they were strict with us during our adolescence. And it paid off because all three of their children who were born in the barrio not only graduated high school but they all graduated college and have professional careers.

Crime, drug use, dropping out of school, and a host of other bad choices are not the recipe of financial success.

Yet, local community leaders and activists are reluctant to even voice these kinds of concerns to impoverished neighborhoods. And as former Senator John Edwards alluded to, they don’t want to hear it. Somehow, it is the government’s fault that people are poor; therefore the government has to find a solution for it. However, I am so happy that my parents never subscribed to that line of thinking. My folks worked hard, played by rules, and they made sure that their children followed suit.

Of course it wasn’t easy to escape poverty but it wasn’t impossible either.

My parents woke up poor every morning and then they decided that they didn’t want to live a life in poverty. And that’s where the good decisions and the sound judgment came into play. They developed a long term exit strategy and worked years at it and they never gave up regardless of how difficult times were.

But the most important thing was that they didn’t wait around for the government to knock on their door and show them a way out of the barrio. They decided to take advantage of the opportunities already available and find a way out themselves.

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