December 26, 2007
"Take to Give" Has Got to Go
Unless I allow my cynicism free rein, it continues to astound me that Poverty Institute types can look at the evidence and persist in their conclusions. A recent jobs study from the institute raised the following concerns:
The gap between the haves and have-nots in Rhode Island has widened in recent years and the bulk of new jobs in the years to come will be “low-wage, low-skill service-sector occupations,” such as food service industry workers. ...A major problem facing Rhode Island is the loss of manufacturing jobs. Between 1990 and 2006, 42,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared, the sharpest decline of any state in the nation, the report says. ...
A troubling trend in the report shows that, since 2000, Rhode Island is the only New England state to experience a decline in median wage. ...
Further troubling is the fact that Rhode Island’s unemployment rate, 5.2 percent or 28,000 people, has exceeded the national average and has been higher than in the neighboring states of Massachusetts and Connecticut. ...
During the years 2000 to 2005, the percentage of Rhode Islanders without health insurance jumped from 6.9 percent to 13.3 percent. Today, the report says, there are more than 119,000 state residents under the age of 65 without health insurance.
And yet these are some of the suggestions:
Still, the report says that the state's "changing job market" calls for a need to invest more time and money into its growing immigrant work force.The report says that it’s essential for the state to offer more opportunities for native and foreign-born residents to earn high school diplomas, including education programs that meet at night. ...
"As the report shows, Rhode Island is a relatively low-wage state and an increasing number of workers no longer have access to health insurance on the job," said Kate Brewster, executive director of the Poverty Institute. "Until workers are able to earn sufficient wages to support their families and we come to a consensus on how to get to universal health care, Rhode Island must continue to provide RIte Care and subsidized child care to protect working families from falling further behind."
The state's Brewsterites behave as if industry and government programs operate with total independence. Manufacturing jobs mysteriously "disappeared." Meanwhile, "sufficient wages" will somehow materialize, making RIte Care and subsidies temporary crutches.
A flash for those who will not see: Higher wages, healthcare benefits, and jobs that create incentive for adult education require a thriving business environment, and for Rhode Island to achieve that — and it must come before the rest can be expected — the state has to transform its take-to-give mentality.
You're part of the problem, Kate. With all of the time and money that your institute devotes to studying poverty, why is it that you seem most proficient at creating more of it?
Kate Brewster and her ilk give hope to those of us that are concerned that we couldn't survive life after a lobotomy.
How she looks at the loss of 42,000 manufacturing jobs and gets "Lets train the illegal aliens" is beyond any level of comprehension.
Here's a solution. Make the climate in the state such that welfare queens and illegals don't want to BE here and we pretty much solve the problem.
There are already multiple articles about how illegal aliens are 'self-deporting' themselves back to their home countries because they're afraid of getting caught and forcibly deported. Pass some illegal-unfriendly laws in this state and watch them flock elsewhere.
Welfare queens? They live where the benefits are best and the oversight is least. Sound like anywhere you know? Cut benefits and improve oversight and they go away too.
Posted by: Greg at December 26, 2007 2:55 PMAmen. (Couldn't resist.)
Posted by: Pragmatist at December 26, 2007 4:34 PMGreg says it very succintly and there is no "rocket science" to what he says.
The inability of the Brewsterites (gotta love that invention-how about Jerzykian?) to recognize it shows that unlike the corrupt but "no dummies" GA leadership they are irrelavant and incapable of even debating.
5 days and counting.
the trouble is the brewsterites operate on taxpayer funds-WE pay her freight-this has to stop-why is "civil disobedience"and "sit ins"only for the left?anyone interested in giving brewster a few very bad days?lets "discuss" as lefty jerzyk says it in the condescending manner he has on his rancid blog
Posted by: joe at December 26, 2007 7:35 PMI'll take a vacation day to be a pain in the ass to the General Assembly.
Posted by: Greg at December 26, 2007 7:37 PMokay-here's my idea-find out when she appears at a public venue and show up and be peacefully disruptive-you know-pouring pigs' blood on things,etc like the left is always so proud of-they wouldn't like it-and it isn't even a serious misdemeanor-we could even get steven brown to defend us once he gets the silly string off his suit(or we could be surreptitious and saran wrap the toilet seats at the aclu annual awards dinner :))
Posted by: joe at December 26, 2007 8:28 PMCan we carry signs with such clever quips as "Kate's policies create more poverty by destroying the middle class"?
Posted by: Greg at December 26, 2007 8:34 PMgreg-excuse my attempts at sophomoric humor-you have good points-the brewsters hurt middle class people-the sheldon whitehouses and patrick kennedys never worry aout such pedestrian issues as health insurance premiums and heating bills-i keep my house at 58-60 at night-i have discovered such things as wool blankets-the brewster clients crank up the heat to 80 and don't pay the bill and then try to take it from us-i have watched this hag having her ass kissed by bill rappleye and only mildly challenged by taricani-no wonder their show is on at 6:30 am on sunday-i guess they have an inbred love for leftist crap-it is incredible how the very coddled and comfortable among us are so concerned for the "underprivileged"-yet when a drug dealer is driving a porsche suv and collecting welfare it's a very minor story-keep an eye on jerzyk-he is a termite infesting many different points in our society-he has the destruction of normal society as his aim,but he's smarter than the iww and iso turds-they give it away with the hammer and sickle logos on their broadsides-jerzyk instead infiltrates the democrat party,indoctrinates kids,and has a lot of otherwise halfway decent people fooled just like steven brown and m charles"stinky"bakst
Posted by: joe at December 26, 2007 9:16 PMLet's face it. There is no problem that cannot be solved with ever more misdirected government spending.
... actually, it hasn't worked yet but that's apparently not going to slow Ms. Brewster down.
Posted by: Monique at December 26, 2007 10:01 PMSomeone simply has to explain to me how you can solve the poverty problem when your solution is to raise taxes on the middle class who end up slipping backwards INTO poverty directly because of the added pressures of those additional taxes.
"We're from the Government and we're here to help."
Posted by: Greg at December 26, 2007 10:26 PMMonique,
Your post is premised on (what should be a reasonable) assumption that Ms. Brewster and her ilk care about reducing poverty.
I don't think they do.
People like that view poverty as a reaffirmation of their (communist / socialist) world view that capitalism is inherently bad and exploitive and that poverty is an inevitable byproduct ... and so these poor people are "victims" who will always be with us.
In a perverse way, the greater the number of impoverished people the happier the Kate Brewster types are - for (to them) it the greater the numbers of "underprivileged" the greater the "confirmation" of their world view and the greater the feeding of their (misplaced) self-righteousness that they are performing good deeds and helping to right wrongs.
Posted by: Tom W at December 26, 2007 10:36 PMAmen,Tom W and Monique!!look at the left wing trust fund puppy david segal-he tells us how to live,he pays no taxes,he's lionized in the phoenix(although the article on him actually showed him for what he really is-liberals think we're all idiots and they can talk right past us without it being noticed),m charles"stinky" bakst loves his type of legislator and there are more of his ilk on the hill-handy,ajello,perry,levesque,etc,etc-brewster has her army and we have the Governor as the only man holding down the fort
Posted by: joe at December 27, 2007 9:40 AM