Poverty Soaring During Obama Administration

What?!? This can't possibly be. Poverty is soaring while the Democrats have near complete control of our federal government? But, but, but...aren't their policies so compassionate, so brotherly to the less well-off and shouldn't they be making us a more egalitarian state???

"The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat's presidency — are to be released in the coming week, and demographers expect grim findings.

It's unfortunate timing for Obama and his party just seven weeks before important elections when control of Congress is at stake. The anticipated poverty rate increase — from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent — would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power.

"The most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy and making sure there are enough jobs out there," Obama said Friday at a White House news conference. He stressed his commitment to helping the poor achieve middle-class status and said, "If we can grow the economy faster and create more jobs, then everybody is swept up into that virtuous cycle."

Of course, none of this should be any surprise to anyone who believes that stealing money from one group of people and giving to members of another group is no way to alleviates the latter's long-term issues.

Democrats have long advocated this approach, using the tax code as their personal blunt weapon, in order to justify taking from productive members of society and giving to those who are less industrious, less thrifty or prone to making poor personal decisions, and who are poorer as a result.

Democrats should heed the lesson and begin to focus their time and energy on ways to significantly lessen the federal government's drag and influence on the overall economy, which would almost instantly result in a recovery in jobs that would astound even the most fervent free-marketers and completely reverse the lapse into recession that we have experienced over the past couple of years.

Areas they should focus on are reducing the length of time that unemployment can be claimed, eliminating the federal minimum wage rate, relaxing drilling rules in the US and slashing corporate, personal and capital gains tax rates (and making commensurate cuts in federal spending at all departments and levels).