Obama pressed to appoint
poverty czar
By Jesse Byrnes -
The White House is being
pressed to appoint a poverty czar in the wake of President Obama’s recent
remarks on income inequality.
Those advocating for the White
House to place a stronger emphasis on tackling poverty in the United States are
also eyeing support among 2016 presidential hopefuls.
Proponents hope appointing
someone to fill the role, which was proposed a number of years ago before
Barack Obama was first elected president but has so far failed to take root,
could come to fruition in the near future.
Long advocated by the family of
Martin Luther King Jr., the interagency poverty chief could be much like those
appointed to handle issues such as climate change, AIDS, the auto industry or,
more recently, Ebola.
“As my father often said, ‘The
time is always right to do what is right,’ ” Martin Luther King III, the son of
the civil rights leader, said in a statement shared with The Hill on Monday.
“There is no more important
time to appoint a poverty czar than now,” King said.
King, along with others, pushed
the idea during the 2008 presidential race. At the time, around of the 40th
anniversary of his father’s assassination, he called on those running for
president to commit to establishing the position.
Hillary Clinton, then a senator
from New York, announced during her White House campaign that as president she
would create the senior spot, adding, “No more excuses, no more whining, but
instead a concerted effort.”
“Hillary did it, Obama refused,”
a person familiar with conversations surrounding the pledge told The Hill.
Since Obama took office, he has
appointed a record number of czars, but none for poverty, the source noted,
adding the president “seems unwilling to do anything with audacity.”
The White House pushed back on
that assertion.
“President Obama’s deep and
firm commitment to tackling the complex issue of poverty has been evident
through the policies he has championed consistently over the past six years,” a
White House official said.
The official pointed to
policies implemented by Obama and his aides on economic security, education and
healthcare, which “helped keep between 3.9 million and 5.7 million Americans
per year out of poverty during the recovery.”
In addition to Clinton, whose
campaign did not return a request for comment for this report, advocates for a
poverty czar are turning to GOP hopefuls for support.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush,
Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), among others, have all spoken
on the issue of poverty in favorable terms.
Others don’t put much stock in
the need for creating the post.
“The only job that is
guaranteed from appointing a ‘poverty czar’ is the position of poverty czar,”
said Deana Bass, a spokeswoman for Ben Carson, a former neurosurgeon and Tea
Party activist running to become the GOP presidential nominee.
More than 45 million Americans
lived below the poverty line last year, the third consecutive year around that
level, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Obama discussed at length the
topic of poverty during a panel discussion at Georgetown University last week,
in which he acknowledged “class segregation” forcing negative views of the rich
and poor, the latter being painted as “sponges, leaches.”
“I think we can all stipulate
that the best antipoverty program is a job,” Obama said, adding that a job
“confers not just income, but structure and dignity and a sense of connection
to community.”
“I think it is a mistake for us
to suggest that somehow every effort we make has failed and we are powerless to
address poverty. That’s just not true,” Obama said.
“Just in absolute terms, the
poverty rate when you take into account tax and transfer programs, has been
reduced about 40 percent since 1967,” he said.
Robert Doar, who studies
poverty at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed that greater attention
should be given to the topic, pointing out a steady rise in the poverty rate
since 2000 amid a fall in median household incomes.
“Hopefully the [czar] would be
willing to consider ideas which have shown to reduce poverty, such as work
requirements for people receiving assistance, work supports that make work pay,
and a greater emphasis on the need for two active and involved parents in every
child’s life,” Doar wrote in an email, referring to a potential poverty czar.
Obama similarly maintained
during a speech in Camden, N.J., on Monday that focused on police relations
that intact households, jobs and investments in minority areas are integral to
communities not being “isolated and segregated.”
“There is more work to do and
the president remains steadfast in his efforts to expand opportunity for
low-income Americans and their children,” the White House official told The
Hill.
Such a position could also have
some support in Congress.
“Appointing a senior level
official solely devoted to addressing and ending poverty in America is major
and exciting step forward and gives me hope that ending poverty is becoming a
national priority,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in a statement to The
Hill.
Lee, who chairs a House
leadership task force focused on poverty and works with another within the
Congressional Black Caucus, indicated she supported developing a “coordinated
national strategy to build pathways into the middle class” for the poor.
“When the auto industry needed
a bail-out we had an auto czar. When just one person in America contracted
Ebola, we got an Ebola czar,” former Rep. Andrew Young (D-Ga.), who served as
the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and has urged the creation of the
position, said in a statement.
“It is time for the tens of
millions of Americans who struggle to afford housing and basic necessities to
know that the president has empowered a senior official to be wholly devoted to
implementing solutions to poverty.”
“Near yonder copse, where once
the garden smil’d,
And still where many a garden
flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs
the place disclose,
The village Preacher’s modest
mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country
dear,
And passing rich with forty
pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his
godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor
wish’d to change, his place;
Unpractis’d he to fawn, or seek
for power,
By doctrines fashion’d to the
varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had
learn’d to prize,
More skill’d to raise the
wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the
vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but
reliev’d their pain;
The long-remember’d beggar was
his guest,
Whose beard descending swept
his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no
longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had
his claims allow’d;
The broken soldier, kindly bade
to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talked the
night away;
[3]
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales
of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and
showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the
good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in
their woe;
Careless their merits or their
faults to scan,
He pity gave ere charity
began.”
— The Village Preacher - Olivier Goldsmith
