Rep. Paul Ryan, now seen as the likely next House speaker, talks a good game of helping the poor, but, like his mentor Jack Kemp, does little to actually help them, conservative columnist
Ann Coulter writes in her latest column.
"For all Kemp's claims to being black America's truest friend, he didn't actually help any minorities. His famed 'enterprise zones' were a renowned flop," Coulter writes of the 1996 vice presidential candidate. "The principal result of Kemp's enterprise zones was to double HUD's budget."
Ryan, following his own vice presidential debate in 2012, embarked on a poverty tour, which Coulter maintains did more to paint himself as a savior than to alleviate any poverty.
Big corporations and Wall Street get tax cuts, cheap labor and "moral self-righteousness," she says, while they drive down Hispanic wages "by endlessly dumping low-wage workers on the country."
Republicans should focus on what is effective in fighting poverty, she said. "Don't pay people not to work."
The 1996 Welfare Reform Act cut welfare caseloads by 65 percent, she noted.
What isn't effective, she writes: "Self-flattering politicians jabbering about how much they care about poverty, then creating behemoth government programs that give corporations tax breaks for pretending to help the poor."
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