Poverty is an issue everywhere in the world. Most places have “slums,” “ghettos,” “red light districts,” or “projects.” They’re just named differently but they all mean the same thing. It’s a decrepit region with poor people living there. While most countries have these regions, some countries handle the issue better than others.
The United States is arguably the “best country in the world” and yet it has faults. One of them is in the oval office however there’s another more substantial one, poverty. The U.S. accounts for about 4.4% of the world population with 318,558,162 people living in it based off the 2016 census. Out of those 318,558,162 people, 44,197,521 live in poverty. That is 13.9 percent of the U.S. population. So why so many? The answer is our government. The government is no longer FOR the people. The government was created in order to give the people voices. To represent our ideals. However, that is no longer the case. Power corrupts and humans are prime examples of that. Our officials do not have our interests at heart and that is evident with the new tax bill that republicans brought to fruition with their greedy little hands(Yes, that is a quip to the president). This tax bill serves the rich and only the rich. The huge corporations with pockets as deep as The Mariana Trench. They didn’t even pay the 35% tax rate. Instead they opted out paying about 21% or even nothing. They found loopholes. One example is Google. A major tech giant with loads of money and yet they found a way to LEGALLY avoid taxes. They simply move it to other countries with lax tax laws like Ireland, Cayman Islands, and Jersey just to name a few. Apple uses Ireland and Jersey to avoid taxes as well however with the new tax bill, they can bring their money back to the States now that the taxes on them have let up. All while the taxes on the people skyrocket. This will also induce our national debt to go up by trillions. The poor will not be able to keep up with these taxes and will end up crippling our economy.
The government helps us right now with Food Stamps, Medicaid, Housing Assistance and much more however Trump wants to cut back on those programs. This cannot happen because the people rely on these services in order to survive. An important piece of information is that “Medicaid receipt in childhood improves adult economic and health outcomes”. Females who have medicaid increased their earnings through age 28. Probably because they weren’t stressed from bills and had money to financially stabilize themselves. Another benefit from assistance programs would be “Higher high school graduation rates, college attendance, and lower involvement with criminal justice”. With more money to help them, they get motivated and a door opens up to success because they pursue higher forms of education. They also have less run ins with the law and that is beneficial to the U.S. because the U.S. has the highest number of incarcerations and that causes taxpayers lots of money. The reason for this is that the annual average taxpayer cost for incarcerating an inmate is $31,286 with New York being $60,000 per prison inmate. This trend of wasting taxpayers money is even more evident when you learn that about two thirds of people who are incarcerated are only in for non-violent or minimal offenses. We, as people, cannot allow Trump to go through with reducing the financial aid budget. This is only detrimental to our success as a community and as individuals. We cannot continue to go through with this blatant disregard for poor people. The people need to realize that they are power incarnate and have the power to change the world. Changing the government is but a small task in comparison. Just like Ghandi said, “Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt”. I strongly believe the only way to change our poverty issue is to impeach the president and remove the people in congress or senate that do not value our ideals. That do not look out for the citizens of this great country. Out with the old and in with the new because the old and rich will run our country into the ground.
