Impoverishment

Jesse:
I think I vowed a while ago to try to talk a little more about poverty issues. That, obviously, didn't work out so well. But now here I am! This post from Ezra Klein makes a good point; the poor are outrageously underrepresented in Washington. He attributes this to the fact that they don't have money to throw around, or influence. I'd add that they basically have an entire party which is entirely opposed to their interests (hint: Republicans). Name another group which actually has an American political party which is opposed to them (other than immigrants. Or blacks. Or natives). You can't, can you?

What I'd like to add is that I think we still have some of the same problems here, but it's not for the same reason. We have a party at the federal level, and another at the provincial levels (in most provinces), which like nothing better than to talk about poverty. I'm going to posit that the reason the NDP hasn't been particularly effective is because of a real inability to come up with a change of angles. Pitching the same anti-poverty measures election after election after election really isn't getting it done. It isn't forcing the mainstream parties to take notice.

It's time for either the NDP, or the Liberals, to take some serious, new steps toward proposing something real and new about poverty.