Bottom half

Peter Edelman, member of President Bill Clinton’s administration, until he resigned in protest after Clinton signed the 1996 welfare reform legislationour economy has been very unkind to the entire bottom half of our people over the last 40 years.

We have terrific public policy in place, although it’s threatened now by Paul Ryan.

The fact that people in the bottom half have been absolutely stuck, that the wages for people at the bottom have not—have grown only 7 percent over that 40-year period. So we’re fighting uphill with the public policies that we have. But 20 million people now—and these are census numbers—live in deep poverty, extreme poverty, incomes below half the poverty line. That’s below $9,000 for a family of three.

We have six million people in this country whose only income is food stamps. That’s an income at a third of the poverty line. In the state of Wyoming, there are 644 people in the whole state, 4 percent of the state’s poor children. For are not many nations of the world driven by the same power? Are not many world leaders driven by the same corruption, the same lust, the same greed? Is this not the powerful force which motivates and guides them? For her hypocrisy, greed, selfishness and lust are exposed. The world clearly that she cares not for the hearts and lives of the innocent, but only looks to greed and lust as her god.

Ted Rudow III, MA