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Amid GOP Assault on Safety Net, Trump's HUD Secretary Ben Carson Says Poverty Mostly a 'State of Mind'

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  johnrussell  •  7 years ago  •  11 comments

Amid GOP Assault on Safety Net, Trump's HUD Secretary Ben Carson Says Poverty Mostly a 'State of Mind'

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Amid GOP Assault on Safety Net, Trump's HUD Secretary Says Poverty Mostly a 'State of Mind'






https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/24/amid-gop-assault-safety-net-trumps-hud-secretary-says-poverty-mostly-state-mind

Republicans want to slash the nation's social safety net, but that's apparently okay by some top Republicans because the source of poverty is really just in the minds of the nation's poor.

Offering the latest evidence that the individual President Donald Trump chose to lead one of the nation's largest anti-poverty programs has little but contempt for the low-income people he was appointed to serve, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson says that being poor, really, is mostly a "state of mind."

According  to clips from an interview that will air on SiriusXM radio on Wednesday evening, Carson has done a lot of thinking about what makes poverty tick.

"I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind. You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street and I guarantee in a little while they'll be right back up there," he said during the interview with radio host Armstrong Williams, who the  Washington Post   reports  is a longtime friend of the secretary.

"And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they'll work their way right back down to the bottom," he said.

At least based on the available clips, Carson did not mention pervasive wage stagnation, dismal jobs opportunities, the lack of affordable healthcare and quality education opportunities as other possible sources of inter-generational poverty. When it comes to public policy impacts on poverty, the Trump budget released this week would slash the HUD budget by $6 billion and takes a chainsaw to other safety-net programs like food assistance, early education programs, and Medicaid.

Many reacting to Carson's latest comments were not impressed:

 



Carson calls poverty ‘a state of mind’. Wow! Out of touch with reality!  http:// thehill.com/homenews/admin istration/334998-carson-poverty-a-state-of-mind#.WSXyrTT8YaY.twitter 




Are Republicans leaders for real? Ignorant, clueless, just a couple adjectives to describe your lack of empathy...  http:// fb.me/5W1LTJIXb  




The ideology that promotes the idea that poverty is a state of mind, is pretty much the worst.  http:// thehill.com/homenews/admin istration/334998-carson-poverty-a-state-of-mind#.WSXyFYd8GP8.twitter 


It's not the first time Carson has made controversial statements about the poor.

Earlier this month, Carson  took heat for suggesting that public housing  for low-income families or homeless shelters should not be too "comfortable"—suggesting that poor people and those otherwise vulnerable would somehow take advantage if that was the case.












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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
link   seeder  JohnRussell    7 years ago

Capitalism creates poverty . To get rid of poverty you would have to get rid of our economic system , or alleviate it through government programs. 

Imagine a society where everyone makes at least 40,000 dollars a year. Then the people making 40,000 dollars a year would be the poor. 

 
 
 
Dean Moriarty
Professor Quiet
link   Dean Moriarty    7 years ago

Carson hits a homer and he knows he came from the ghetto. This is the type of black community leadership we were missing under Obama. He is an inspiration for millions of poor black youth. 

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   Kavika   replied to  Dean Moriarty   7 years ago

''Carson hits a homer and he knows he came from the ghetto''

Except that he didn't, nor did he live in public housing.

 
 
 
sixpick
Professor Quiet
link   sixpick  replied to  Kavika   7 years ago

We didn't say he lived in government housing and neither did he.  His mother was too concerned about his safety to live in government housing.  She worked her tail off and didn't tell him he was black and was suppose to be poor the rest of his life.  She motivated him.  I wish I could say that about many other parents who live in poverty today, but I can't.  They are happy to waste their time and their children's lives doing just as little as they have to do.  And then they have the people who don't motivate them, but make them out to live as victims for the rest of their lives killing their future.

Ben Carson: My mom kept us out of public housing to avoid 'danger'

NEW HAVEN — Ben Carson, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said his mother made sure that her family didn't live in public housing in Boston because it was dangerous.

"Despite what you may have heard from people, she wanted to make sure that we didn't live in public housing, because there was a lot danger there, and she wanted to shield us from that danger," Carson said during a speech at Yale University on Thursday night.

 

Several days ago, Carson's close friend and adviser, Armstrong Williams, falsely stated to The New York Times that Carson had lived in public housing. He recanted, leading to a correction .

More

 
 
 
Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom
Professor Guide
link   Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom  replied to  Kavika   7 years ago

Except that he didn't, nor did he live in public housing.

Oopsies.

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
link   Randy  replied to  Sister Mary Agnes Ample Bottom   7 years ago

Well, he lives in a house, so that must qualify him for the Housing part. I believe he lives in an Urban area. Now if he would just Develop he might be able to do the job. However he seems to be stuck on stupid. Someone nudge him and maybe he'll move or change his batteries or something.

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
link   Randy    7 years ago

Carson is an idiot savant. He is good, great even, at one thing and one thing only, neurosurgery. As for everything else, he doesn't have a mind to have a state of.

 
 
 
sixpick
Professor Quiet
link   sixpick  replied to  Randy   7 years ago

he doesn't have a mind to have a state of.

A state of what?

 
 
 
sixpick
Professor Quiet
link   sixpick    7 years ago

https://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/richpoor.png

I'm just wondering who on this site lives in poverty and if they don't, what do they attribute to their success and don't tell me you didn't do it.  If a person listens to these naysayers and believes them they will remain in poverty their entire lives.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
link   seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  sixpick   7 years ago

Six, the problem with saying that anyone can overcome poverty is that it is taken as meaning that EVERYONE can  overcome poverty, which is not true. The US poverty rate hasnt been below 10% ever, except for possibly during WW2 when 12 million men were in the service and everyone else was making war materials. For the most part, over the past 65 years the poverty rate has been at least 10% and usually quite a bit higher. 

There is ALWAYS a need for poverty programs, because poverty is a feature of our economic system. It is not a "state of mind". 

 
 
 
sixpick
Professor Quiet
link   sixpick  replied to  JohnRussell   7 years ago

http://www.meoso.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/socialism-if-we-cant-all-be-rich-lets-be-equally-poor.jpg

Kind of like your statement about everyone making $40,000 a year and everyone is poor.  I know there is always going to be poverty.  Capitalism isn't the reason there is poverty.  A classless society is poverty because it takes the will to be better than the next person out of a person's life, because it is futile and hopeless. 

With Capitalism most anyone can be what they want to be if they only apply themselves.  Those who do not have the ability to do this are the ones we have to take care of and see they can live a happy life.  Riches don't bring happiness.  I know many people from my past who were not rich and could be considered poor, but they were still happy with their lives.

What other system of government can take a poor person and allow him to have the opportunity to become one of the richest or at least wealthy enough to live a happy life than a country based on Capitalism?  

You said it yourself, if you pay everyone the same, then they are all poor.  Yours is the idea of "From each according to his ability and to each according to his need".  In Austria when Hitler came to power everyone was paid the same whether you were a doctor or a street sweeper. 

Promise a young person the pay of a street sweeper and see how far that desire to help others carries them through college knowing they will be making the same as a street sweeper.

 
 

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