The increasing, persistent lies about poverty that blame the victims.

[SarahM32]

18. Very true. But that's just for starters. Economic fairness, equity and justice will end hunger.

The people of the world, through the U.N. should make it a priority to feed hungry and starving people in countries where there is drought and famine, and where tyrannical military regimes and essentially committing genocide and ethnic cleansing by starving out certain people.

But even in industrialized "rich" countries like the U.S., food insecurity and hunger is rampant, which is why so many soup kitchens and food banks are necessary. But they are insufficient to fill the growing need, and many poor people who are fortunate enough to get food stamps usually sell them in order to pay rent.

In America, the growing poverty, hunger and homelessness is a clear indicator of how the U.S. government FAILS to "promote the general welfare" and "ensure justice."

John Adams wrote: “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men. Therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require.”

In a letter to James Madison in 1785, Thomas Jefferson suggested that taxes could be used to reduce "the enormous inequality" between rich and poor. He wrote that one way of "silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." And Madison then said using laws to "reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity (referring to the middle) and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort."

In Thomas Jefferson's writings he showed he felt strongly about providing the average citizen with equal opportunity. He even wanted to establish publicly funded higher education so that all citizens, regardless of their personal or family wealth, could fulfill their highest potential. Of course, he was unable to do that (as is painfully evident now since higher education is rapidly becoming out of reach for the majority), but Jefferson tried to make public education complete because believed in equal opportunity for all.

(Quoted from The American Economy.)
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