Poverty and Government Policy

Collins outlines the episode that gave rise to the book's title, which is good, because many Americans have probably forgotten it and the story would be quite unbelievable if it weren't true. The episode happened in 1981, when David Stockman, then-President Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, suggested that ketchup should be counted as a vegetable. The reason for this suggestion was that a number of schoolchildren across the country - then as well as now - get part or all of their school lunches (as well as in some cases breakfasts) paid for by the federal government, the impetus behind the program was that children who were hungry or malnourished couldn't concentrate and learn in school - and grades aside, a nation should not let its children go hungry. The free

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people has little real costs in our system, since the poor are largely disenfranchised. The poor tend not to vote, they don't make campaign contributions, they are a largely element of the polity. When politicians make cuts to welfare, they are almost entirely immune from any political backlash. Those who are directly affected are too disempowered by the system already to do much of anything and those who are enfranchised - who do vote, who do contribute - are in general in favor of welfare cuts. This has allowed such cuts (or "reforms" as they are generally advertised) to be made both by Republicans like Reagan and Democrats like Clinton, who oversaw what would be some of the most devastating cuts in services to the poor that the nation has seen since the idea that the federal government must exist as a safety net was developed during the New Deal. The strength of Collins's book (in addition to the passion that has obviously prompted her to write about this topic) is her ability to blend social and cultural criticism. She examines the ways in which the social structures of the United States tend to combine to keep those who begin in poverty in that same state for the rest of their lives (for example, the fact that schools are f
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Approximate Word count = 1269
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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