Sept 22, 2016: Hillary Clinton’s Plan To Reduce Poverty Exudes Compassion [View all]

There is a prescient quote attributed to many speakers and although they come in various iterations, the meaning is always the same. “The true measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members” is the version most often used and refers solely to a society’s compassion or lack thereof. It is virtually impossible for any American to demonstrate one Republican act or proposal that is compassionate or remotely concerned with America’s weakest members. Of course children are included in that group, but so are the elderly, homeless, the disabled and the working poor in America. As the Republican leader, Donald Trump has cemented his lack of compassion for anyone not named Donald Trump or his wealth cohort, but Hillary Clinton just penned an op-ed about her plan to help lift the poor out of their despair the exudes compassion.

Clinton’s piece in the New York Times, after using a variant of the “measure of a society” quote substituting “its children” for “its weakest,” addressed the progress the nation has made on the economic front and job creation and pointed out there are still too many people in poverty. Clinton said something every American with a conscience and not a conservative would agree with:

“With all of our country’s resources, no child should ever have to grow up in poverty. Yet every single night, all across America, kids go to sleep hungry or without a place to call home. We have to do better. Advocating for children and families has been the cause of my life, starting with my first job as a young attorney at the Children’s Defense Fund, and if I have the honor of serving as president, it will be the driving mission of my administration.”

There are two important points Americans hardly ever hear being addressed; the incredible number of Americans, adults and children alike, who go to bed hungry every night, and those who don’t have a bed to sleep in. Although the economy is growing, a point Clinton used to press her argument that more needs to be done, and due to President Obama’s leadership there were indeed 3.5 million fewer Americans in poverty than the previous year (2014), nearly 40 percent of Americans between 25 and 60 “will experience a year in poverty at some point.” In the richest nation in the history of the Earth, that statistic informs the barbaric measure of American society; there is no excuse.