New Policies to Combat Family Poverty in Current Stimulus Bill

Obama's massive stimulus is having difficulty being passed in the Senate, for many reasons. I only want to point out the ways in which this stimulus includes provisions to help poor families. The Center for American Progress has a list of the provisions passed in the House (link).

There are some points that need to be said: first, policies targeting poverty tend to help youth and single mothers the most. In other words, policies against the poor tend to be policies against children. Second, the reasons for opposing this legislation have include blanket opposition to governmental intervention into the economy in general and opposition to specific aspects of the bill in particular (e.g. provisions for the National Endowment for the Arts). On the other hand, Congress has passed billions for Wall Street and has authorized funding for a war that costs at least ten billion dollars per month. Why can't that same generosity be extended to Americans who need it the most?