Describing the Poor and Government Assistance

South Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer recently likened government assistance to the poor to feeding stray animals. At a town hall meeting last Thursday, Bauer, who is running for governor in his own right now that Governor Mark Sanford is term-limited, said: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

While some people are screaming that Bauer’s words are immoral, it actually goes deeper than that. Bauer’s words are not just immoral but it shows how much out of touch many people are in regards to the poor and government assistance programs. Bauer said Monday that he regrets his choice of words but that government should expect welfare recipients to try to better themselves. He wants to require them to take drug tests and attend parent-teacher conferences if they have children in school. A child of divorce who benefited from free lunches himself, Bauer insisted he wasn't bad-mouthing people laid off from work in the recession or advocating taking food from children, but rather emphasizing the need to break the cycle of dependency.

Nonetheless, the Bauer’s choices of words were not only poor but in a way he expressed the feelings of a couple of Americans who are on the left and the right. Back in early 2009 when talking to one of my Democratic friends, she told me that she is tired of going to work every day while people with 3 or 4 kids sit at home and collect welfare on the back of my hard work. When I asked her what should be done about this situation, she told me that the government should not be in the business of handouts to those who don’t work or aren’t trying to work. To a degree she is perhaps but at the same time, this is nothing new.

"Do I wish I'd used a different metaphor? Of course I do," the 40-year-old Bauer said. "I didn't intend to offend anyone." However, Bauer still doesn’t understand what being poor really is. As my friend Akindele Akinyemi wrote in his Facebook status a couple of days ago, “The Greek word for poor, as used by Jesus, is poucos, which means non-productivity. To be poor doesn’t mean you don’t have anything; it means you aren’t doing anything. Poverty is cured by hard work. “Lazy hands make a man poor” (Proverbs 10/4). This is why we must continue to educate our children so we can stop the intergenerational problems of illiteracy which leads to poverty.

So when it comes to the poor, Bauer thinks being poor is wanting government assistance but what Bauer doesn’t understand is that not everyone who is on government is looking to be on government assistance forever. Still Bauer is not the first or the last politician who has misspoken when it comes to the poor but it is troubling how so many people don’t understand that there are some people who are poor not financially but mentally and physically because they lack the will to want to do something with their lives that is constructive and positive for their communities and there are people who mentally don’t want to acquire knowledge outside of the comfort zones they currently have.

As another one of my Facebook friends Steven Snead wrote:

“Well, let's not narrowly define "poor" as in lacking wealth, but perhaps a general "lacking". And while there are certainly outliers to any set of data, the fact remains that, to paraphrase another bible verse, "you reap what you sow"

An otherwise able and available wealthy man (or woman) around Detroit who does not do what he can to help lift people out of poverty, specifically in this case, out of illiteracy, might be considered to be "poor"; poor in character, in compassion, in generosity. A laziness of the heart if you will.

However, too often in America we define success in economic terms. And the poor, because they lack financial wealth, are often labeled carte blanche as unsuccessful. Add to that the American trait of consumerism. Look at how wants and needs have evolved over just the last 50 years. No Flat Screen, No cable, no internet, no cell phone, no auto lease, no 3000sq ft. home, no arm loan, no granite counter tops, no gucci, no prada, no stereo systems, no fast food, no frequent eating out.

Think about how our grandparents survived, when in their time, 50 years ago mimium wage was a little under $1 (just under $7 in 2009 dollars). Life was hard, true, but were they less happy than we are now?

I think if anything lazy hands indicate a lack of community, where those with resources (financial, educational, skills) do not feel a duty to train & mentor those without.”

Nonetheless it seems that we as a people always equate poor with finances just like we as a people equate success with monetary gains or with celebrity status but as I tell people success is what you consider success not what everyone else considers success. However when it comes to being poor or understand the poor and government assistance, there are problems in the system true enough. There are some people who are poor and on government assistance who don’t volunteer in their children’s schools if they have some and there are some who are poor who do. Nonetheless creating laws that detect who gets government assistance and what getting government assistance involves is something that politicians have struggled with every since the welfare system of food stamps was created.

Still it is not right for us to assume that when is poor just because they are on government assistance or that being on government assistance means one is not successful. In fact government assistance for some people helps them get a leg up or helps them achieve eventual success during a tough period of their life. Being on welfare does not condemn anyone to being poor and making minimum wage is nothing to be ashamed of because while people argue night and day for a living wage, it still won’t replace that there is a sense of community that we all must have so that we pick each other no matter how much or how little one makes. Being poor is simply a sense of lacking and not wanting, therefore it is not just financially and to understand why some are on government assistance it is perhaps a split between those who don’t want more and those who want more but can’t find anything more so they are doing the best they can with what they have so that their youth can have a better future than them.

Its not easy describing the poor and government assistance but it definitely isn’t easy understanding the poor either. However it is easy to understand that government assistance does help some people who want more and are seeking more but hinders those who don’t want better from seeking better. This is a slippery slope but it is no excuse for Bauer to compare the poor to stray animals because that is so far from the truth. No human being is an animal and should be treated or compared to animals that is truly inhumane and inconsiderate to do any such comparison of the sort.