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Addressing the Orange County New Majority in Newport Beach, California, former Republican Vice Presidential candidate and current Congressman Paul Ryan announced that he was launching a comprehensive program to provide needed help to America’s inner-cities through privately funded and operated programs. Working closely with Robert L. Woodson, Sr., founder and President of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise which currently operates in 35 inner city areas, Mr. Ryan outlined a plan in which he was going to implement the policies that he has been promoting.
“The Republican Party believes in the ability of anyone to raise themselves up, it believes in equality of opportunity not in a guaranteed equality of outcome regardless of effort. We believe that through free market principles everyone in America has the opportunity to succeed. We do not believe that big government is the solution to our problems and we do not believe that big government programs and hand outs can raise people out of poverty,” Ryan explained as he outlined his plan. “We need to reinvigorate those grass-roots connections that have atrophied and do that in a way that helps rebuild communities.”
The plan outlined by Mr. Ryan and Mr. Woodson has previously been successfully implemented on a micro level in Los Angeles, Indianapolis and Trenton, New Jersey. “We need to go out and listen to people and really hear what they need,” continued Ryan. “We have to figure out the best way to help people lift themselves out of poverty and that has to start with listening to them tell us what they really need.”
Robert L. Woodson, Sr.
Recalling the days when Jack Kemp was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Woodson fondly told of the days when Mr. Kemp would visit inner-city neighborhoods. “Many times when Mr. Kemp went into the projects, it was the first time in years that any politician had come in to listen to the people. Time after time folks would express how they didn’t want to be completely dependent on the government, but they couldn’t see a way out. Mr. Kemp listened to them and he was always welcomed back.”
“The Democrats have portrayed Republicans as the greedy party of the rich that only care about the 1% and they have sold that message well even though it is not true. We have used facts and truths to rebut that story, but not successfully enough – many people, especially those in need, view us as not caring about them. We have to change that through actions as well as words,” Mr. Ryan said. “What we do when we go into these communities cannot be about getting votes or winning elections, that would be a program doomed from the start. This truly has to be about giving real hope to people by creating an environment where they can succeed and be a part of a better and safer community.”
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Paul Ryan’s demeanor away from the cameras and media was just as intelligent and yet down to earth as it was in the camera’s eye. I had a quiet moment with him and he has that rare ability to make you feel like you are the only one in the room and that listening to what you have to say is the most important thing in the world to him. I have met a lot of politicians and only Bill Clinton came close to having the same ability to make you feel special. The difference is that with Paul Ryan I had the feeling that I was looking at the real man and not just a man who had developed this special ability.
During the brief few minutes that I had with Mr. Ryan I asked him why the Republicans’ response to the budget impasse and sequester had been so weak. Since I was talking to him before his remarks to the larger audience I expected him to either deflect the question or tell me that he would talk about it during his remarks. Instead, he looked me in the eye and spoke for several moments about how the Party has had to wait for the right time and that time was now. “If we as a party don’t stand strong now and create the kind of budget cuts that are needed then none of us will have done our jobs,” he said to me.
I would consider both Ronald Reagan and Marco Rubio to be the best public speakers that I have personally seen, but I would be hard pressed to name another American politician that I felt was as genuine as Paul Ryan. His program with Mr. Woodson is a daunting one and is sure to test his resolve. “America has fought the was on poverty for the past 50 years and so far we have lost,” Ryan said. If Mr. Ryan is able to pull off just a small part of what he plans to try to do, we will all be better off regardless of what happens in future elections.
HotAir
I agree. I teach in the OC Juvenile Hall schools as a substitute teacher. (I am also on the Costa Mesa City Council). We need armies of committed people to go into our inner cities and intervene in the lives of thousands destined for poverty and crime. This is where criminals are bred and why prisons are full. One exciting project in Santa Ana focuses on the crime/drug/gang ridden streets of Cedar and Evergreen. In the last year the residents have helped to “take back” their neighborhood with the help of volunteers, the City of Santa Ana and Lives Worth Saving-Gang Intervention. Costa Mesa has several model after school programs: SOY (Save our Youth), MIKA, and THINK Together. All reach out in many ways to at-risk kids AND their families. But there are waiting lists for these kids. More sites are needed in Costa Mesa at our schools or in apartment buildings. (THINK on Shalimar started here) Do we still have a gang problem in Costa Mesa? Not to the degree that we had 10-15 years ago. Volunteers and non profits have intervened in the lives of thousands. Mr. Ryan is correct. We have to roll up our sleeves and do the hard things and not look the other way thinking the problems in the inner cities will disappear. We are the solution! It’s very rewarding work and will help us all consider options for the immigration issue as well.
Great post Wendy. I truly hope we have more like it.
Good for you Wendy! The kids at Juvenile Hall all need more people who care about them. But I think that a few people who mean well will not ever be enough. You say there are waiting lists for the after school programs. There should not be, and that takes money. WHo is funding the after school programs that you have now? Most are funded by the government. But the government does not have enough money to fund them adequately.
I have spent a lot of time working with kids in juvenile hall in a different county. Most have experienced nothing but academic failure for years before their first arrest. Those who are in custody read at the third grade level, on average. WHen they get nothing but F’s, they do not believe that society has a place for them. They begin cutting school, because to them there is no point to it. All the after school programs in the world won’t make a difference at that point. They have to be saved in grade school, and kept busy every year after that. It will take a lot of work, and money, to turn it around.
Roger, I agree that with these kids that feel disenfranchised we need to go something to let them taste success, but I disagree that the answer is more taxpayer dollars. We have thrown wads of money at our public schools and yet everyone agrees that for a lot of kids the schools are a failure. Roger, what do we do about cultures that do not praise or value education as much as other cultures putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage? Is it the government’s role to spend money to fix the behavior if the culture will not support the success of the government program?
It is nice of Mr. Ryan to answer your question. BUt I submit that his answer was a non-answer. He and Mr, Romney proposed giving even greater tax cuts to the rich, and said they would be paid for by eliminating tax loopholes. They might be right that an approach like that would work in theory. But our tax loopholes/deductions are almost as sacred as Social Security, and would be politically impossible to eliminate. Their plan had no chance of ever becoming reality.
The same can be said for his plan for budget cuts. Politically, too many things are sacred to be cut. You will notice he gave no specifics as to what should be cut, and by how much. He did not, and I predict he never will. Anyone can be in favor of budget cuts and be popular for saying so, as long as they don’t have to say who will feel the pain of the cuts.
The fact of the matter is that we tax less than other modern countries, and even with our bloated military and high health care costs, we still spend LESS than the other countries do. Our problem is not that we spend too much. We tax too little. If Mr. Ryan were honest about that, I would respect him.
Roger, your repeated comparisons to the spending habits of failing European economies actually make my point. We have a spending problem and the answer to every problem is not to throw money at it. There are no “sacred” entitlements and should not be any. Everything that the government gives is the result of taking it from someone else. Unfortunately, President Obama has proved himself to be more corrupt than most as there is a directe correlation between the availability of tax loopholes and donations to the President’s campaign – Solyndra and 23 of the top 25 “alternative” energy companies were Obama donors. Hollywood receives $1,200,000,000 in tax breaks in the U.S. The problem is that Washington is elected through corruption and neither party is willing to let that go.
The Northern European countries are doing just fine. They are not failing. In 1998, Sweden’s national debt as a percent of GDP was close to 70%. It is now down to 38%. It is rated as one of the best countries in the world for business by Forbes Magazine. It is also rated near the top in quality of life. Yet its spending as a percent of GDP is 50% higher than ours.
Roger, Sweden is a completely homogeneous country without the immigration or other melting pot issues facing the U.S. Comparisons between the U.S. and Sweden are difficult at best. In addition, they literally tell you where you can live, what you can eat and have all sorts of other government controls that would simply be unacceptable in the United States.
I have seen non profits with wonderful plans and ideas turn into “business for the government grant” where the kids are paid to attend ineffective and disorganized programs that for many, just “waste their time”. The pay is designed to keep attendance levels high enough to qualify for the money. The executives for these non profits are very well compensated pillars of the community for the perceived “wonderful” work they do. Some I know personally publicly denounce the idea of government handouts and government programs yet they massage their programs to qualify for government money at the expense of the kids they are “helping”. How will this be handled?
A very reasonable question Daniel. The problem with many/most of the government funded programs is that they are very susceptible to “gaming” which doesn’t help anyone. I also don’t believe that the gaming is limited to qualifying for government money but also sometimes extends to creating good numbers to entice private donors. Just like everything else, you have to be very careful where you put your money. As to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Woodson’s plan, we will have to see it created and implemented before we will be able to know how genuine it is. I will say that I was very impressed with their sincerity of purpose.
Roger, whether you are a liberal or not, don’t stoop to using the lies about the tax rates. Paul Ryan advocated for extending the tax rates as they were for everyone across the board. Hence, the “rich” would not be getting a tax cut, but instead the same tax rates they have been getting for over a decade. As for closing tax loopholes not working, you better let Obama and the Democrats know they will never work because they have been as forceful, or more so, than Republicans in insisting on them. As for your typical left-leaning comment that we have to tax more, that has been proven time and again by simple math that it is impossible to fix the Democratic spending spree with tax increases on the “rich.” Liberals will never admit it, because it would threaten the programs they advocate to buy off voters with government handouts, but no real tenable argument can be made that we have a taxing problem, rather than a spending problem.