Saturday, December 29, 2007

What can the Government do to help people get out of Poverty?

Tom,

Sorry, you have me on a roll now talking about what the Government can do to help people get out of poverty.

 
 

#1. I think the school teachers should be paid more to motivate them to teach our children that they can be whatever they want to be as long as they get a good education.

 
 

(a) I think the kids should be taught at a young age to be thinking about what they would like to be when they grow up and what they need to do to make that dream become a reality.

 
 

(b) The Teachers and parents should give the children the tools to prepare them to grow up and be the best that they can be. There are so many kids that even when they graduate from high school don't even know what to do when they get out of school.

 
 

(c) If the kids have a good education and know what is right, what is wrong and learn how to be financially successful in life, when they grow up maybe many will not be in poverty as we see it today. Believe me, from my own life I would have done things a little differently.

 
 

(d) I think the Government should pay for more classes on Building High Self-Esteem for kids. There are so many kids with low self-esteem. Having low self-esteem can and does cause kids to over eat, experiment with Drugs and Alcohol, get into Gangs to make them feel that they are bigger than they are, have kids out of wedlock,etc. etc.

 
 

 Even when kids live in poverty today they should be taught that they can get out of it with a good education. Also, they should be able to ask their counselor at school or parent what they can do to help make their lives better. I see families from generation to generation doing the same things time after time. I see families depending on Welfare hand outs because it seems to be easier than trying to learn a skill to make a living for themselves. I don't have a lot of money myself but I have found a skill that I can do that hopefully will help me to get into a better situation. If I would have done it years ago my own life would be in a different place right now.

 
 

I think kids and people should be motivated more to believe in themselves that they can make life better. If you think more positively in life your life will be better in the long run.

 
 

(e) I think the Government should pay to have the Physical Education Classes, Art, Music, Choir classes back into the schools. When the schools had classes like these in the past we had less Obesity in kids, less Crimes and less kids wanting to join Gangs, less teenage pregnancies,etc.  These types of classes helped the kids relate to who they are and helped in what they really wanted to be as adults.

 
 

#2 I think the Government should think of some way to have better Healthcare and make it affordable for everyone.

 
 

 (a) I think our elderly people should be able to have Free or what they can afford medicines that they need to live.

(b) I think our elderly people should be able to still live in their own homes if they can not afford to pay the property taxes. I think it is sad when people have to sell their homes just because they can not afford to pay the taxes.

 
 

#3 I think the Government should pay to provide help to the homeless people to get and keep jobs so they would not have to be homeless anymore. With so many jobs being transferred overseas there is a wonder why we don't have even more homeless people in the United States. I guess if I were to loose my own job today I would be homeless unless someone wanted to hire an over 50 year old woman. Most new jobs employers want younger people and young ones just out of College these days.

 
 

#4 I think the Government should do something to control too much outsourcing with Jobs. We need to keep jobs in the USA. If we keep outsourcing so much we will all eventually be homeless or in the food lines like back in the depression days. We don't want our Country to go backwards do we? We need a President in office to push us forward to a better place in this world.

 
 

Thanks for listening,

Ann Pritchard, Author

1 comment:

Tom Cleland said...

Thanks for the dialog, Ann! For the record, here are my preceding remarks...

Ann,

The Phil books talk about making good choices.

I've seen Bill Cosby on Oprah talking about his book, "Come on People!" and I have read Elaine Brown's book, "The Condemnation of Little B." Both Cosby and Brown would agree that if both parents are addicted to drugs, the child's chances are not good. As I see it, people who say that "problems like this need to be solved by the family" are not being realistic. To me it seems obvious that some sort of intervention is needed.

My friend works with American Indian families. Rather than separating the parents from their children, she prefers to send the whole family to treatment, and has had good results. One parent is now helping others in similar situations.

Clinton may have "ended welfare as we know it" but still 1 out of 4 African Americans has not yet struggled above the poverty line. As I understand it, we had 400 years of white affirmative action followed by 100 years of white terror, and never much help from the government. She pointed out that a lot of families were torn apart, and there were a number of generations where the chain of family tradition was broken.

While family is important, I think government is, too.

Tom