Greed said:
he wont catch hell from the rich because he wont raise taxes to pay for it. he'll borrow money again to pay for this.
don't think that's a given. the coffers are not unlimited. he's not regan as much as he might like to be. the conservatives are fine with deficit spending to get out of a recession. that's basic economics. to increase the deficit for psuedo-socialistic spending isn't going to go down without some mud-slinging.
but you may be right in that he might avoid raising taxes. he can always cut the other progams rich folks hate like Section 8, Hope VI and others.
Greed said:
and bush isnt even attempting to address racism. i bet the official story will be he is addressing poverty and by PAST racism the face of poverty in america is blacks. see, you have to think like a politician.
no disagreement. that's a likely offical party position.
Greed said:
and in all fairness(which will be frowned upon here), he has addressed poverty issues in the past. american dream downpayment initiative where poor people who can prove they can pay at least the monthly mortgage can get up to $10k in federal money for the downpayment and property rehabilitation.
business loans through the small business administration is at an all time high in money set aside for minorities, and been so for a few years.
downpayment assistance and other program to encourage homeownership go back as far as FDR when the post-depression FHA was set up. nothing special happening in the Bush administration. but in all fairness, he could have done a lot worse.
Greed said:
the travesty in my opinion is our "leaders" not using their loud public voice to promote these programs to the masses. why? i dont know for sure but i could guess. it might make you not hate bush.
many of these programs don't need to be publicly promoted. although, you'll get no argument from me if you're trying to make a point that our "leaders" are asleep at the wheel. mandatory inclusion of minority businesses are common places in many of the areas i mentioned above in the arenas of public finance, construction, and real estate development. they're usually inflexible city/state/federal regulations so anybody who gets into those industries (white, black or other) has to deal with them whether they like it or not. a public service annoucement won't make that any better or worse.
Greed said:
and to another degree the money for faith based intiatives that goes to churches that do community work that secular non-profits also do but have no obstacles getting federal assistance.
again, you give Bush too much credit. these types of programs are old news. he's just maintaining the status quo. in Bush's case, he does it to pander to the christian conservatives, but he's not going out of his way to do anything spectacular. in fact, many of these programs in particular are in significant peril at the moment because Bush made too many promises about balancing the budget. since he doesn't have to worry about re-election anymore, there's serious consideration of throwing many of these faith-based initiatives under the bus to get some extra money back.
Greed said:
in my opinion we dont need a federal national plan. enough programs are already in place and voluntary. however, more programs wont be created because we take part in the current ones at such a low rate. its easy for opponents to promote that we dont care and like where we are right now.
i don't think the low participation rates your referring to apply to a lot of the programs he talked about tonight. there are plenty of programs that mandate participation from local, small and disadvantaged (read minority owned and woman owned) businesses in place right now that are wildly successful. i've seen it with my own eyes. it works and many black owned businesses take advantage.
if you extrapolate the successes that some cities have had with these types of programs out to the entire nation, the effect could be significant. imagine the mayor of Omaha Nebraska having to deal with a requirement to include a black owned business every time his city wants to do a bond issuance. i seriously doubt that there are any black owned i-bank shops anywhere near that area (although i admit my ignorance here....i don't know shit about Omaha), so he would have to beat the bushes (pun intended) to find a firm from somewhere in the country to help him get business done. then add on top of that a rule that says the business must not only be black owned, but local. now all the sudden, this lilly white mayor finds himself in a position where he has to encourage the creation of a homegrown black owned investment bank in Omaha.
apply that hypothetical situation to every major city in this country and you see the potential impact very quickly. might be hopeless optimism on my part, but i'd bet some of my hard earned money that it would do a whole lot of good.
