Portman calls for bottom-up approach to tackling poverty

From Portman’s speech

Here are some statistics and points of interest outlined in Sen. Rob Portman’s Tuesday morning speech on poverty:

Source: Sen. Rob Portman’s Tuesday’s speech on Constructive Conservatism: A Bottom-Up Approach to Tackling Poverty

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman outlined several anti-poverty measures and called on lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to address the root causes of poverty in America during a major speech Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute.

Portman said poverty endangers the American Dream to create a better life for people’s children and grandchildren. The junior U.S. senator from Cincinnati said that dream for 47 million Americans seems far off because most people think their children will not be better off because the middle class is shrinking, it’s harder to climb out of poverty in recent decades and many Americans are “losing ground and losing hope.”

“We hear a lot about the growing income equality gap these days, but we don’t hear as much about what is driving it,” Portman said. “Yes, the rich are getting richer, but the real problem is that the middle class is shrinking — along with their paychecks — and too few people are rising out of poverty, starting small businesses, getting decent jobs, and living their dreams.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Portman said Washington has strayed from Johnson’s approach and “it’s time to put ourselves back on a path where community institutions and community leadership is our foundation” where government plays only a supporting role. Over the past 50 years, the government has spent $15 trillion on poverty reduction, yet 47 million Americans are still living in poverty.

Portman said there needs to be a bottom-up approach to tackle poverty through “constructive conservatism,” an idea similar to President George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” He is calling for the use of the best research available and utilizing evidenced-based programs, use of best practices that has worked around the country, leveraging short-term federal funds, and requirement of programs measure and report results.

“We know these tools work, but we are not using them in an effective way to help those in the most vulnerable communities,” he said. “We tend to talk about poverty in broad strokes. We rightly focus on the breakdown of the family, of the failure of social institutions, of a growing divide in America.”

While local Republicans support the call to action by Portman, Democrats in Butler and Warren counties viewed Tuesday’s speech a little differently.

Butler County Democratic Party spokesman Dave Spurrier said while it’s “refreshing” to hear Portman talk about combating poverty, it’s “disingenuous” for him to suggest that the War on Poverty failed “when he and his party have fought against every program it instituted.”

”Johnson’s programs were designed to combat not only the symptoms of poverty, like hunger through food stamps and school lunches, or lack of decent health care through Medicare, but also to fight the causes of poverty through better educational opportunities, like Head Start and jobs programs like the Economic Opportunity Act,” Spurrier said. “All of these ideas have been stripped away over the past 30 years by conservatives who eschew any federal program designed to help the poor … while promoting efforts to funnel more corporate giveaways and tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.”

Portman said the cause, not the symptoms, of poverty needs to be addressed, but Spurrier said the senator’s ideas, “while important,” target just that, the symptoms.

“Rather than trying to re-brand the Republican Party as empathetic to the plight of the poor in a cynical effort to win national elections, he should be reaching across the aisle to actually get things done,” he said.

Portman said poverty and drug abuse are often topics people address separately, but they are “intimately tied together” because “you cannot talk about poverty without talking about addiction, and addiction is something that a War on Drugs is never going to solve.” And the kids growing up in difficult situations — poor communities where drug abuse and criminal elements are prevalent — are vulnerable, “particularly when it comes to the horrible crime of sex trafficking. Trafficking is both a result of poverty and a driver of poverty.”

“Every step we take down that path from here, every success we have, we aren’t just saving lives, we are restoring the hopes and the dreams of millions today and millions more yet unborn. And that is something worth fighting for,” Portman said.

The change needed to decrease the number of Americans in poverty “is going to take more than minimum wage increases and unemployment benefit extensions. It will take more than nice speeches and promises of hope and change,” Portman said. Structural reforms will be needed to change the environment the creates jobs and allows businesses to grow. That includes overhauling basic institutions of the country’s economy — including the tax code, trade policies, health care system, energy policy and regulatory framework — and addressing the “broken education system that is failing so many in poor neighborhoods.”

But jobs that will help get some out of poverty won’t help those who are addicted to drugs, are in and out of jail and prison, and high school and college dropouts.

Warren County Democratic Party Chair Bethe Goldenfield said Portman’s speech was all talk, and she feels the senator’s past votes — such as voting against bills for minimum wage fairness and paycheck fairness in April and student loan interest rate modification last July — don’t support his end goal.

“You can understand why people feel hopeless, because they feel the system is stacked against them,” she said. “Everything that the Republicans are doing at the federal level and the state level are putting up obstacles to allow people to get out of poverty.”

While Goldenfield said she supports Portman’s suggestion of using best practices and community-based organizations to help lead the way, “most of them requires some type of government funding, and a lot of these funding mechanisms are cut.”

Goldenfield said she didn’t see any solutions in his speech, just “the same old rhetoric recycled.”

“I think if you invest in people at a young age, and show people they are worth the investment, then you give them hope (to succeed),” Goldenfield said.

Butler County GOP Executive Chairman Todd Hall said Republican initiatives “have not been given an opportunity to work.”

“We must complete the Keystone Pipeline and drill for more of our own oil. States such as Texas, Pennsylvania, and now Ohio, are creating tens of thousands of great paying jobs,” he said. “Republicans must address the family issues that involve drugs, single-parent homes, absentee fathers. Drug addiction is killing our kids and our families. Just sticking our head in the sand is not an option.”

Hall said Republicans need to regain control of the U.S. Senate “to begin to get our economy on the right track. Our ideas of helping companies keep jobs here in the United States will create jobs.”

Warren County GOP Central Committee Chair Jeff Monroe sees Tuesday’s speech as Portman trying to change the culture.

“Sen. Portman is right to stand up for those in need. The risks of poverty are great and too often helping the poor is thought to be a job for someone else. It’s not,” he said. “Conservatives should not abdicate the responsibility to help others. We all have a responsibility to help the poor and, as Portman pointed out, Washington is ill-equipped to fight the battle on its own.”