Democratic President

[qfnol31]

Not standing up for either, however. I disagree with enough of both.

[Jaime]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Jan 6 2006, 11:02 AM']Here's something interesting:

[url="http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-227.pdf#page=6"]http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-227.pdf#page=6[/url]

Is it really fair to say that Republicans are repsonsible for the increase in the percentage of those people below the poverty line?

Even in the graph you posted, hot stuff, there is a sharp increase at the beginning of 2000.  I don't think that is enough time for a President to make that big of a difference in the percent of poor people in America.
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[/quote]


Zach the graph goes further back than 2003.

Can you deny that there is a corresponding trend in administrations?

[qfnol31]

Possibly.

It went down during the years of Reagan, then went up during his Vice President's Presidency. Reagan and Bush were both Republicans.

It went down a year after Clinton was in office but went up as soon as he was out. Not that this matters too much, but during his Presidency there was a Republican Congress.

Lastly, I do think it is unreasonable, at this time, to look at much between 2001 and 2003.

[Jaime]

[quote]The poverty rate climbed in 2004 to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2003 -- the fourth year in a row that poverty has risen. The increase was borne completely by non-Hispanic whites, the only ethnic group that saw its poverty rate rise. The percentage of whites in poverty rose from 8.2 percent in 2003 to 8.6 percent. African Americans saw no change in their poverty rate, which remained at 24.7 percent. The poverty rate for Hispanics remained at 21.9 percent, while Asian Americans' poverty levels dropped by two percentage points, to 9.8 percent.[/quote]

That's from the Washington post


Is four years fair enough?

[qfnol31]

Four years sounds pretty fair. Where'd you read that at?

[Jaime]

[url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001727.html"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5083001727.html[/url]

[franciscanheart]

i didnt read anything before this (shame on me) but even from a pretty republican standpoint i would have to say that i saw a better economy with our democratic president than i am seeing now. its sad really. bill clinton whooped butt with the economy. props to him on that.

[qfnol31]

In all of my reading, there is an interesting phenomenon.

All of the inclines I've found actually begin under Democrats and peak under Republicans and vice versa. In the graph above (posted by hot stuff) The peak during Reagans years started in Jimmy Carter's Presidency.

The peak under Clinton's years started in Bush's time.

Now that that's said, what about Congress? This is only about Presidents, which I think is misleading. If you look, it has been a while since we've had a straigh color through both offices (right now we do).

During earlier Bush's years we had a Democrat Congress. During Clinton's a Republican.

[franciscanheart]

i seem to remember hearing something quite different from my economics professor... ill have to ask him again about that.

[Norseman82]

1) I think that both parties like to think that they help the poor, they just have different ways of going about it. Democrats in general believe in maintaining the social net of government programs and targeted tax breaks for the poor, Republicans in general believe reducing taxes will spur growth in the private sector and that will help reduce poverty. The main argument is which approach actually works better.

2) I don't know how many of you were alive during the Carter presidency, but the economy really tanked then with inflation and interest rates going through the roof.

3) Not everything is under the president's control:
a) Greenspan and the Federal reserve policies must be factored in
b) During the last 75% of Clinton's presidency Republicans controlled Congress, and only during the first 75% of Reagan's presidency did Republicans control the Senate; they never controlled the House.
c) Two factors drove the "tech boom" of the mid-to-late 1990s. One was the advent of widespread inteernet usage. The other was a once in a 1000-years event: Y2K. The spending on Y2K I'm sure accounted for much of the spending on technology by businesses (trust me, I work in IT and was part of the increased flurry).

[Norseman82]

[quote name='hot stuff' date='Jan 6 2006, 07:49 AM']Here is the graph of the poverty line and population underneath that line from 1959-2002

[img]http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty02/pov02fig1.jpg[/img]

If you correspond it to the time periods that were with a Republican administration and a Republican congress, the amount of people living in poverty has risen
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[/quote]

Actually, reading this graph, the poverty rate rose during the Carter years and went down during the Reagan years (after an initial rise early in his presidency, but keep in mind that it appears to be a continuation of the rise during the Carter years).

[StatingTheObvious]

hot stuff, you falsehod generator, you still have not addressed the fact of changing the standard of poverty.

You have not proven that it is solely the Government that affects poverty. What about the effects of other economies, wars, droughts, national disastors, import/export policies of other governemnts, Global demands for finished products, global demands on raw goods. What about the 9/11 effects on the world economy? What about the tsunami? What about the effects of China's building program that has affected the availablity of concrete and steel world wide? What effect does that have on other's economies and how does that affect the US's economy.

At best, one can say there may be a conincidental relationship, but you have not come close to providing a single fact that a measurable increase or decrease in poverty levels are caused by or occur despit any governmental policy, whether it's a Republican administration or Democratic administration.

[Jaime]

I knew 9/11 would come into the picture.

You're the one who is solely focusing on Bush. You want to do that? Great!!

How about job creation during the administrations? Do a little research on that and see how well Bush has done. How about deficit spending?

How are those for indicators?


You are still unsuccessfully trying to convolute things by calling me a liar.


The question still remains, how does the poor fare under different administrations.

You at best (and showing no proof other than your own opinions) say that the administration has no control over economic factors.

[StatingTheObvious]

I never mentioned Bush. I am only challenging your conclusions using recent history that the younger people may be aware of. Would it have been more appropo for me to mention the Viet Nam war or the Oil Embargo during Carter's administration or the fall of the Shah of Iran? To be fair, those things had a tremendous effect on whichever administration was in power at the time.

You still have not provided anything that establishes the Census graph as having a consistent measure of poverty.
You have not provided anything that establishes a cause and effect relationship with specific administration policies and specific changes in the poverty rates.

IF you were intellectually honest, you would read up on the Census website, using the link provided by myself, and read how a number of organizations would like to specifically address these issues and draw sound scientific conclusions from available data.

You are treating your conjecture and coincidence as fact. I am challenging your assumptions and 'conclusions'. Nothing more.

[Jaime]

[quote]You have not proven that it is solely the Government that affects poverty. What about the effects of other economies, wars, droughts, national disastors, import/export policies of other governemnts, Global demands for finished products, global demands on raw goods. What about the 9/11 effects on the world economy? What about the tsunami? What about the effects of China's building program that has affected the availablity of concrete and steel world wide? What effect does that have on other's economies and how does that affect the US's economy.
[/quote]

Yeah I don't have a clue how I read "Bush" in that

[StatingTheObvious]

[quote name='hot stuff' date='Jan 6 2006, 12:41 PM']Yeah I don't have a clue how I read "Bush" in that
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[/quote]get off you inflated ego, stop thinking i'm out to get YOU, and get real with your bias. why bring do you saim i'm bringing up "bush" just because i was using current world events that had an affect on current golobal economies? the point, idjut, is thay people also have to consider other factors when evaluating the effects of an administration's policies.

[Jaime]

[quote name='StatingTheObvious' date='Jan 6 2006, 12:48 PM']get off you inflated ego, stop thinking i'm out to get YOU, and get real with your bias.  why bring do you saim i'm bringing up "bush" just because i was using current world events that had an affect on current golobal economies?  the point, idjut, is thay people also have to consider other factors when evaluating the effects of an administration's policies.
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[/quote]

Please... you're a troll.

I'm not demonstrating a bias.

Everything Norseman said is correct. the Carter years sucked. Having a democratic administration is no guarantee

However (and yet one more time) the question on the board is how do the poor fare under administrations


Show me a better measurement than the US Census.

But you can't. You're preference is to rant.

[mp15]

[quote name='hot stuff' date='Jan 6 2006, 10:57 AM']Please... you're a troll.

I'm not demonstrating a bias. 

Everything Norseman said is correct.  the Carter years sucked.  Having a democratic administration is no guarantee

However (and yet one more time) the question on the board is how do the poor fare under administrations
Show me a better measurement than the US Census. 

But you can't.  You're preference is to rant.
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[/quote]

Which he has a right to do if he so choses. Get off your intellectual high horse.

[StatingTheObvious]

It's not me who has made assumptions and conclusions based on the data from a Census shart. It's you. I'm challenging you to defend your conclusion from the data you provided. It's you who claim to have proven something with the chart. If your conclusions are true, you should be able to defend them, whether I'm troll-like or not. My poor physical appearance and other shortcomings have no bearing on the false conclusions you espouse.

[God the Father]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' date='Jan 6 2006, 02:38 AM']PURE EVIL
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Pure evil is not for ingestion. If accidentally swallowed, induce vomiting and call a poison control center immediately. If contact with skin is made, wash affected area thoroughly with soap and water, and expose affected area to air. If contact with eyes is made, flush with water for fifteen minutes, and contact a poison control center. If inhaled, call a poison control center, enter a well ventilated area, breathe in slowly through the mouth and out sharply through the nose. Keep out of reach of children.

I agree with the rest of Lounge Daddy's post for the most part, it isn't the government's job to look after the poor, really. It is mostly the duty of better off citizens to take it upon themselves.