Quad City Times - Paul Offers 'Different Ideas' To Battle Poverty

News Article

Waterloo City Councilman-elect Jerome Amos is tired of all the statistics that highlight all the negatives in the community, particularly the jarring figure of 24 percent unemployment among African-Americans.

So, when Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul made a Saturday morning visit to Hairport in Waterloo, Amos had one particular concern he hoped to get addressed.

"That's what I'm talking about providing is opportunities for those individuals that don't normally have any," Amos told Paul in a packed barber shop. "We have to start doing that. We have to start giving our young people hope."

Paul responded to Amos' concerns by pitching a federal solution -- one he has introduced as Kentucky's U.S. senator -- similar to enterprise zones that he calls economic freedom zones, where the tax rate would be reduced to 5 percent in economically depressed areas.

He said the way things had been done where people "send your money to Washington and beg to get some of it back" hasn't worked.

"What I've been trying to do in my campaign is go around and say, "I do care,' and I do have different ideas that we haven't tried in the past, and guess what, some of the old ideas haven't worked, so why don't we try some new ones?" Paul said to Amos.

He said the role of the government in addressing poverty is often for government to get out of the way of people's aspirations.

"There's also, I think, a discussion that the country needs to have about what is the best way to alleviate poverty and high unemployment, particularly in minority areas, and I don't think we've really had this discussion at all in our country," Paul said in a separate interview. "For 50-60 years, we've had a war on poverty, and I think poverty is winning."

Throughout the stop, Paul earned nods and words of agreement from the about two dozen people at the barber shop for his "different ideas," on everything from reducing student debt to addressing criminal justice reform to the role of faith in government.

Paul earned praise for discussing the racial disparity in the criminal justice system and trying to address it legislatively. Paul has introduced or cosponsored 21 bills just this year on crime and law enforcement, and another six on civil rights, liberty and minority issues, according to congress.gov.

Source