Horowitz: A Welcome Discussion - Republican Presidential Candidates Poverty Forum

Horowitz: A Welcome Discussion - Republican Presidential Candidates Poverty Forum

Six Republican Presidential candidates offered their ideas for reducing poverty and expanding opportunity, discussing these issues substantively and civilly at the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity in South Carolina on Saturday.  Moderated by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), the Forum, both in its choice of an important topic that has been missing from the Republican campaign conversation and in promoting an extended and solution-focused conversation, served as a welcome contrast to the trading of barbs and insults and paper thin proposals designed to appeal to people’s fears that have dominated so much of the campaign to date.

All the candidates that participated—Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich and Marco Rubio—acquitted themselves well. Not surprisingly, they all were generally critical of the federal government’s efforts to combat poverty and argued that giving more power to states and empowering the private sector would work better.  But there were plentiful ideas mentioned that could serve as part of a comprehensive bi-partisan expanding opportunity agenda for the next President and Congress, including promoting two parent families, raising the earned income tax credit to reward work as well as removing existing disincentives to work in some aid programs, improving public education, and combating drug addiction.  Certainly, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike can agree with Chris Christie when he said on Saturday that drug addiction is a ‘huge part of the debilitating cycle of poverty.”

Borrowing a phrase recently employed by Ted Cruz, my hope for bi-partisanship on combating poverty, given the current partisan polarization and national policy gridlock may sound like, “I’ve jumped the shark.” But even more welcome than the Forum itself is the work being done by the key people--elected officials and conservative thought-leaders-- that organized the Forum.

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First, combating poverty is a long-time policy focus of Speaker Ryan. In an opinion piece co-authored by Senator Scott and published in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, Ryan highlights the importance of the Forum and offers some of his ideas for expanding opportunity, including raising the earned income tax credit, providing more federal help and partnership with community based non-profits and doing more evidence-based policy evaluation in this area and then using the research to fund what works.

Additionally, a key sponsor of the Forum, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), under the dynamic leadership of Arthur Brooks has made generating ideas and proposals for combating poverty and restoring the American Dream one of its top priorities. Toward that end, together with the liberal Brookings Institution, AEI recently released, “Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream.”( click, here for the plan)Arguing that we must simultaneously address the closely intertwined areas of family, work and education, the plan contains twelve policy recommendations.  Taken together, the recommendations point the way to a comprehensive solution that matches the scale of the problem. Most impressive, however, is that the recommendations reflect a hard-won consensus among liberal, conservative and moderate experts in the subject areas.

While some progress has been made since Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty about 50 years ago, poverty remains a stubborn and intractable problem with one-in-five American children now growing up in an impoverished household.  Making a dent in this problem will be difficult even with the necessary political will and today’s polarized and dysfunctional national political environment makes it even harder. That is why it the Poverty Forum and the work of the people that organized it is so important, providing a solid foundation upon which the next President and Congress can build.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor at University of Rhode Island