Issue Position: Poverty

Issue Position

Our administration would tackle Third World poverty with vigor. In tandem, we'd work to reduce, exponentially, inner city and rural poverty in America.

At Habitat for Humanity headquarters in Americus, Georgia, we looked at models of quality small homes intended to get scores of people off the streets and out of sprawling slums worldwide. And like Jimmy Carter, hammer in hand I would tout that program at every turn.

During a talk in Picayune, Mississippi, I said that "according to UN figures, 24,000 people starve to death every day in the world! This is an absolute social justice travesty, given the resources America (and the rest of the First World ) squander."

At a seminar in Wilmington, Ohio, I learned America wastes (spoilage, simply throwing away, etc) 33% of its food. Then we spend billions of dollars on non-nutritional junk food every year and even more billions being over-nourished (33% obesity rate in America ) while so many others, again starve, or are extremely malnourished.

As president, I would push to make the "Eating is a Moral Act Campaign" (already existing) much more high profile to educate people about these dynamics, I said during a talk to a Political Science Class at Baldwin Wallace College.

I told the LA Times ( Orange County edition) in California that "we should make war on poverty and social injustice." And in our travels, we looked at the poverty first hand on tours of the South's Black Belt region, in inner cities across America, on the dusty streets of a slum in Juarez, Mexico, on multiple Native American Reservations, in Appalachia...

And there are multiple programs I would point to to carry on this war against poverty in these places.

In Waconia, Minnesota, I interviewed Paul Turek, a representative for Caribou Coffee. That company has taken Fair Trade a step beyond by helping some of their grower villages in Latin America start Health Clinics.

In Fisher's Indiana , we learned about new nationwide Economy of Sharing businesses that give the first third of their profits, off the top, to the Third World.

On the Southside of Chicago, in a gang war zone, we researched The Port Ministries, which provides a tiered system of help (homeless shelter, transitional living facility, mentor programs, education programs) to help people get on their feet.

In Durango, Colorado, we learned about a church that has adopted a village in Uganda, where Moms and Dads are dying of AIDs and little children sleep on burlap bags on dirt floors.

And we looked at so much more in the way of social justice programs nationwide.

What's more, every chance I could as president I would point to these projects (as we do now in our travels) and ask the American people, almost across the board, to sacrifice much more so the poor can have at least the basics in adequate nutrition, housing and healthcare.

That there is so much potentially relievable human suffering in the world that isn't being relieved, is unconscionable.

Source