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Jordan
at Policy Summit: Let’s Encourage Work
Ken
McIntyre
February
10, 2014
Legislation
to hold increases in total welfare spending to inflation and to
require able-bodied adults on food stamps to get a job or seek one
will refocus attention on the dignity of work, Representative Jim
Jordan (R-OH) said today. When government policies “disincentivize
work,” Jordan said, “we are robbing people of skills, lessons,
and principles.”
Administration
officials and other defenders of Obamacare stepped over the line in
recent days by embracing “this idea that somehow it’s good when
people don’t work,” Jordan said in remarks at the all-day
Conservative Policy Summit convened at Heritage by its political
action arm, Heritage Action for America.
“Hard
work doesn’t guarantee success, but it sure goes a long way,”
Jordan said, quoting a high school coach and chemistry teacher who
echoed his father on the value of discipline
“The
problem in this town is that we do things the convenient way,”
Jordan said at the policy summit, which is streaming from Heritage
Action’s website until its conclusion at 6 p.m.
Jordan,
who will again sponsor reform legislation, also joined in a panel
discussion, moderated by Heritage Action CAO Tim Chapman, featuring
Jennifer A. Marshall, Heritage’s director of domestic policy
studies, and anti-poverty activist Robert Woodson, head of the Center
for Neighborhood Enterprise.
Although
we now spend $1 trillion a year in 80 means-tested welfare programs –
and have spent $20 trillion in the 50 years since President Johnson
launched the War on Poverty in 1964 – government has failed to
provide incentives that “will bring out the successes” possible
amid the poorest of neighborhoods, Marshall said.
Johnson
intended to strike at and root out the causes of poverty, not just
the symptoms. “The job is not done,” Marshall said. “We have
not done justice to the poor in the United States.”
Woodson
talked about strategies to deploy more successful residents of
lower-income communities – folks from “the same cultural and
geographic zip codes” — to encourage and show others how to
improve their lives.
“We
spend too much time tasking about the deficits of poor people; we
need to inspire them to talk about the victories possible,” Woodson
said. “We need to isolate what’s being done right by 30 percent
and nurture it in the other 70 percent.”
This
story was produced by The Foundry’s news team. Nothing here should
be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage
Foundation.
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