When Rep. Barbara Lee D-Calif went off on Rep. Paul Ryan R-Wis for his remarks that We have got a tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work" the wrong part what she had to say got all the attention.
The big buzz that Congressional Black Caucus member Lee generated was her accusation that Ryans remarks were a thinly veiled racial attack."
But the part of her remarks I found most interesting was …Mr. Ryan should step up and produce some legitimate proposals on how to tackle poverty and racial discrimination in America."
Paul Ryan has been one of the most creative and courageous policy thinkers in Washington in recent years.
Ryan sat down with me for an interview shortly before he ran for Vice President in 2012 (the interview is on my organizations website www.urbancure.org). His thoughtfulness and compassion came through loud and clear and he zeroed in on the core of a problem I have been talking and writing about for more than 20 years government programs that not only do not solve problems but make problems worse.
I stepped into this whole business of public policy from my own experience with welfare. I saw that the welfare program which operated in this country from the 1960s until it was reformed in 1996 that required women to not work not save and not get married in order to qualify for their welfare checks was a most efficient mechanism to destroy family and perpetuate poverty.
So it should come as no surprise that single parent black households tripled as a percentage of all black households from the 1960s to today.
Where Barbara Lee is right is that this is not about race. What it is about is liberalism.
The racial aspect comes into play in that black political leaders like Congresswoman Lee overwhelmingly embrace liberalism progressivism welfare statism whatever you want to call it that has failed and caused untold damage in the very communities they claim to want to help. And they refuse to ever learn. Their answer to every problem despite prior experience is more government more taxpayers dollars.
When real reformers like Paul Ryan come along they get branded racist.
In a column I wrote a couple years ago I pointed out that the 41 member Congressional Black Caucus were uniformly Democrats had a 100 reelection rates and the average poverty rate in these Congressional Black Caucus districts was 20.3 and the average child poverty rate 28.8 - both well above national averages.
Economist Walter Williams has pointed out that in Americas top 10 poorest cities with populations more than 250000 …for decades all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations. Some of them such as Detroit (now the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nations history) Buffalo Newark and Philadelphia havent elected a Republican mayor for more than half a century. Whats more is that in some cases for decades the mayors of six of these high-poverty cities have been black Americans."
Again the point is not that the mayors of these cities are black. It is that they are liberals. And black politicians like Congresswoman Barbara Lee overwhelmingly are liberals and they remain liberals despite a long and consistent track record of failure.
When welfare was reformed liberals like Barbara Lee fought it.
It is pure self-absorption for any interest group to think it is all about them. America is in real trouble today and were all in this together.
Ms. Lee talks about code words." Her code word is racist" which means someone like Paul Ryan who wants to make Americans of all backgrounds better off by giving them more freedom more choice more responsibility and less government.
Star Parker is founder and president of CURE the Center for Urban Renewal and Education a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sams Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves Americas Poor and What We Can do About It.
When Rep. Barbara Lee D-Calif went off on Rep. Paul Ryan R-Wis for his remarks that We have got a tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work" the wrong part what she had to say got all the attention.
The big buzz that Congressional Black Caucus member Lee generated was her accusation that Ryans remarks were a thinly veiled racial attack."
But the part of her remarks I found most interesting was …Mr. Ryan should step up and produce some legitimate proposals on how to tackle poverty and racial discrimination in America."
Paul Ryan has been one of the most creative and courageous policy thinkers in Washington in recent years.
Ryan sat down with me for an interview shortly before he ran for Vice President in 2012 (the interview is on my organizations website www.urbancure.org). His thoughtfulness and compassion came through loud and clear and he zeroed in on the core of a problem I have been talking and writing about for more than 20 years government programs that not only do not solve problems but make problems worse.
I stepped into this whole business of public policy from my own experience with welfare. I saw that the welfare program which operated in this country from the 1960s until it was reformed in 1996 that required women to not work not save and not get married in order to qualify for their welfare checks was a most efficient mechanism to destroy family and perpetuate poverty.
So it should come as no surprise that single parent black households tripled as a percentage of all black households from the 1960s to today.
Where Barbara Lee is right is that this is not about race. What it is about is liberalism.
The racial aspect comes into play in that black political leaders like Congresswoman Lee overwhelmingly embrace liberalism progressivism welfare statism whatever you want to call it that has failed and caused untold damage in the very communities they claim to want to help. And they refuse to ever learn. Their answer to every problem despite prior experience is more government more taxpayers dollars.
When real reformers like Paul Ryan come along they get branded racist.
In a column I wrote a couple years ago I pointed out that the 41 member Congressional Black Caucus were uniformly Democrats had a 100 reelection rates and the average poverty rate in these Congressional Black Caucus districts was 20.3 and the average child poverty rate 28.8 - both well above national averages.
Economist Walter Williams has pointed out that in Americas top 10 poorest cities with populations more than 250000 …for decades all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations. Some of them such as Detroit (now the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nations history) Buffalo Newark and Philadelphia havent elected a Republican mayor for more than half a century. Whats more is that in some cases for decades the mayors of six of these high-poverty cities have been black Americans."
Again the point is not that the mayors of these cities are black. It is that they are liberals. And black politicians like Congresswoman Barbara Lee overwhelmingly are liberals and they remain liberals despite a long and consistent track record of failure.
When welfare was reformed liberals like Barbara Lee fought it.
It is pure self-absorption for any interest group to think it is all about them. America is in real trouble today and were all in this together.
Ms. Lee talks about code words." Her code word is racist" which means someone like Paul Ryan who wants to make Americans of all backgrounds better off by giving them more freedom more choice more responsibility and less government.
Star Parker is founder and president of CURE the Center for Urban Renewal and Education a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sams Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves Americas Poor and What We Can do About It.
