Did you know that 46% of all poor households own their own homes? Or that 75% of them own a car, while 30% of them own two cars? That 78% have a VCR or DVD player and 62% have cable or satellite TV…25% have a big-screen TV.

Did you know that it’s your tax dollars that bought it all?

Presidential candidate John Edwards claimed that the 37 million poor Americans among us currently “struggle with incredible poverty” and that they number “one in eight of us” and “do not have enough money for the food, shelter, and clothing they need.” In addition they are forced to live in “terrible” circumstances.

That is a bunch of bullshit.

It is a lie. Yes America, politicians lie right to your face. I have never cursed in a post, until now, but I am so angry with how politicians abuse and manipulate us.

We have been conditioned over time to associate the word “poor” with scenes from television showing children in Africa with bloated stomachs, drinking from mud puddles and too weak to swat flies away.

Politicians abuse our emotional response to the word “poor” to justify increasing our taxes and redistributing more of our hard-earned dollars to the “poor” to buy their votes. In addition, as you can read in my prior post here, billions of tax dollars are lost to fraud whether it be prisoners collecting the homebuyer tax credit or welfare recipients gambling at casinos.

The truth about the poor in America is frighteningly more disturbing…

“The typical American defined as “poor” by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.”

• 46% of all poor housholds own their own home. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three bedroom house with 1.5 baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
• 76% of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Only 6% of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
• Nearly 75% of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
• 97% of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
• 25% have a large-screen TV.
• 78% have a VCR or DVD player; 62% have cable or satellite TV reception.
• 73% own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
• 27% have cellphones.
• 25% have a personal computer.
• 18% have internet access.

The biggest health risk to the “poor?” Obesity. I don’t recall any of those children in Africa suffering from too much food.

There are poor in America. They do deserve our help, but they are a fraction of a fraction of what politicians who want more of your money to buy more votes lead us all to believe. It would cost only tens of millions of dollars at most, not hundreds of billions of dollars.

I am certain, that if the government returned to us our hundreds of billions in taxes that are wasted on the “poor” and the “fraudulent,” in a nation that donates millions to tsunami, earthquake and hurricane victims around the world, we would easily provide enough aid from our own pockets to take care of the truly needy in our own backyards.

Until then, there is an entire segment of the population in the United States that lives for free, and lives quite comfortably, on the backs of hard working Americans.

To read more, please visit this article at The Heritage Foundation.

Categories: Government Failures

Tags: entitlement programs, Heritage Foundation, John Edwards, poor, poor in america, poverty, poverty in america, social programs, social services, welfare