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Post by camillo on Jan 14, 2016 0:15:29 GMT
The American Government has solved two important social conflicts in the past through direct intervention: the issue of slavery and black rights and the issue of women's suffrage. Both African Americans and women were underpriveledged groups that lacked both the financial and political means to elevate their status on their own, just like the poor today. In a capitalist society, the poor simply cannot compete with those who had a more fortunate start in life. Thus the responsibility falls to the government. Just like the USFG passed the 13th 14th and 15th Amendment to abolish slavery and guarantee equal rights to African Americans and ratified the 19th Amendment to allow for women to vote, it should intervene on part of the poor. Capitalism has failed to better poverty in a meaningful way, whereas government intervention has been successful in bettering social equality, so why not financial eqaulity? Limited government control of the economy is an important step in reducing poverty.
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Post by Manuela Velasquez on Jan 14, 2016 2:38:16 GMT
I like these insightful examples from our country's past, and I agree; government intervention helps to solidify radical change. If we want something effective to be done about the poverty in America, governmental action is most likely the best way to get direct and tangible results.
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Post by caralinealbro on Jan 14, 2016 4:21:15 GMT
I agree as well. After further thought, your connections translate fairly well to the issue of poverty. Impoverished people are not inherently unequal to wealthy people, while African-Americans and women were, yet all groups were/are disadvantaged and began at a lower starting point than the wealthy/white/male citizens. Government intervention is key to bring financial equality and towards alleviating poverty. While I do not think that the government should take a major role in fixing financial inequality, yet its presence is required to make significant change and reduce poverty.
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laura
New Member
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Post by laura on Jan 14, 2016 4:24:52 GMT
I agree. I believe the government should be able to take responsibility for the society that was built over time. Using your example of the slaves, they were not freed and then suddenly allowed equal opportunity. They struggled finding jobs and were pushed into communities where they mostly worked in low paying service occupation. This history has followed African Americans and other minorities to this day. The unbalance of power and money from the start has put people in a disadvantage. Because of this the government should be able to place restrictions in favor of the poor so there could be more balance. Capitalism does not favor the poor because it allows a cycle of poverty to continue while the rich get richer.
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Post by caralinealbro on Jan 14, 2016 4:31:19 GMT
Going off of Laura's point, this relates to the issue of white privilege. African-Americans are set back 200 years because of slavery and are currently at a disadvantage not because of their actions, but because of the actions of whites 200 years ago. This is why the government should make reparations to all descendants of slaves. Government interference can help reduce the poverty and crime within the African-American community that has stemmed from our history. While this example might be a bit too far-fetched from the original post, I think it still goes to show that some groups are at a disadvantage and the government should act to end it.
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Post by teresaamor on Jan 14, 2016 4:47:53 GMT
It's true that in the past government intervention has helped underprivileged groups, even though it does not always completely solve the problem at hand. When the Freedmen's Bureau was working to help the freed slaves start new lives, they did provide helpful resources to many, but the Bureau was largely underfunded, possibly due to a lack of sympathy for freedmen in congress and a diversion of attention to other political issues of the time, and so the Bureau was not able to operate to its full potential. Government funding is a useful tool but it needs to have a solid backing in order to be completely successful.
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Post by allanbeilin on Jan 14, 2016 6:24:18 GMT
I just wanted to add that when you have a government that is actively redistributing wealth from the upper classes to the lower classes you encounter a lot of gray area. How much money exactly needs to redistributed? Can you assign a specific monetary value to what it means to be desperately poor/can the so-called poverty-line be applied universally? Is this redistribution systematic and for a long period of time or is it only briefly? How much of the tax money that is taken from the wealthy is actually redistributed to the poor and not spent on government corruption or bureaucracy? All of these questions need to be thoroughly answered before comprehensive redistribution can occur.
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Post by natashaauer on Jan 14, 2016 9:00:58 GMT
I agree that the government does need to play a role in reducing poverty as I don't think there is any other organization at this point that has such a large connection to/ such a large influence on U.S citizens. Big changes can occur - as seen with Women's rights and African-American rights-, but they need a support force to keep them valid and ensured which is why the government is the best means of maintaining an end to poverty. I also think that there are people out there like Donald Trump, Oprah, Bill Gates, etc who do not need all the money they have to support their lifestyle. However, I also think that it would be difficult to decide how to approach financial redistribution. All of Allan's questions bring up a valid point: there are a number of setbacks that could cause problems when redistributing wealth. How do we decide how much to take from the rich/how much do we decide to give to the poor? How do we decide how much to give? could a lot of money be lost through inefficiency or corruption? These are all questions to consider when deciding how to finance the eradication of poverty.
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Post by alissamcnerney on Jan 14, 2016 9:40:02 GMT
I agree that some amount of government intervention is necessary to reduce poverty, and the success of women's and african american's social reform movements in our nation's history prove that government action can have a great impact on improving equality of those unfairly deemed by society as inferior. In both of these reform movements government action tremendously helped people being discriminated, but this did not suddenly make the problem disappear. Sexism and racism were and are still present after government reform was made, just like how poverty will still be present even if reforms are put in place by the government.
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Post by katedenend on Jan 14, 2016 16:52:51 GMT
I agree that the government must play some part in equalizing and aiding the impoverished, but wealth redistribution many not be the best approach. Giving the poor money is different from giving Women and African American's the rights they deserve, especially because wealth redistribution does come at the cost of the wealthy and not all of the poor necessarily deserve the money as much as others or compared to the rich who earned it. Yes, the wealthy are so rich that they do not need all their money, but it is still important to consider that they are losing their earned money. Also, like Natasha stated, how will lines be drawn? How will much money will be taken from the rich and given to the poor? It is difficult to say.
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Post by flashgordan on Jan 14, 2016 19:51:52 GMT
I think there needs to be a distinction between the government enforcing social change and economic change. Though the government played a role in enforcing the increase in social equality for African-Americans and women, this does not necessarily translate to economic equality among the impoverished. As others have brought up, this idea is emphasized in the fact that there is still economic inequality for people of color and women. For example: women only make 79 cents for every dollar earned by men. Furthermore, according to a study done by the Pew Research Center in 2011, the median income for white families was $67,175, while the median income for black families was $40,007. Since 1960, this gap has actually gotten worse. This begs the question: does government intervention really help economic issues?
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Post by nicholasscopazzi on Jan 15, 2016 2:01:31 GMT
Although the government played a critical part in African American and Women's rights, both cases had key figures that dedicated their lives to the cause. MLK for example was one person who is organized the March on Washington and was the final push for African Americans gaining equal rights in America. Only people that have experienced the same struggles as the people that they are trying to help can succeed in their cause. The government is good for raising funds for a cause and passing laws to benefit society. It is through the work of individual people to help other individuals, not a government that blindly hands out money with no guidance as to how it will help.
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Post by andrew y8s on Jan 15, 2016 3:32:19 GMT
I think that just about all the ways we have to measure inequality are economically; it is hard to tell exactly how comfortable people are feeling. Thus, in the measurable ways at least, i think that simply giving money to the poor would serve to benefit much of society. I think that in this sense economic and social reform go together, if the poor people have more money they will be freer to live their lives in the way they want to, as opposed to being forced to spend all their time working at a minimum wage job. By giving money to the poor, we can give them the opportunity to push for more social reform.
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Post by jennifergormish on Jan 15, 2016 3:36:45 GMT
Nicholas, I think it is definitely a good point that the government may not be reliable to place its funds in the most helpful places, but I would not consider the government blind or without guidance. Additionally, if it is the responsibility of people who have experienced the same struggles to succeed in escaping those situations, when that argument is applied to the issue of poverty you are essentially saying that poor people need to be the ones to help poor people out of poverty, which is not a plausible solution.
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Post by carolinefenyo on Jan 15, 2016 4:49:04 GMT
I agree that government intervention on the issue of poverty would be a step in the right direction, and I like the examples you used to illustrate the evidence of this intervention. If we dedicate legislative time to the issue that sadly, many Americans face, laws and policies may change which would help reduce the numbers of those living in poverty.
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