A Call to Service: on Welfare & Poverty

Ok for government to partner with non-profits & for-profits

In every area of government, we should demand demonstrable results, because we claim that the public sector can get results. But we should never confuse government as an organizer of public resources with government as an owner-operator of public enterprises. Some areas, like public schools and the police, are properly the province of the public sector. We can't strengthen education by weakening public education. But there are countless areas- child care, after-school programs, environmental protection-where government can and should work through community organizations, nonprofit, and even for-profit private enterprises or public-private partnerships.

Expand EITC as anti-poverty measure

The congressional Republicans and some in the Bush administration are waging war to discourage poor working families from receiving the EITC with the claim that they are fighting fraud. Just last year the IRS announced plan to make millions of EITC recipients pre-qualify for their benefit through separate procedure before claiming the credit on their tax forms. An administration that purports to compassionate toward the poor and passionate about lowering taxes and reducing bureaucracy is apparently trying to intimidate working families out of benefiting from tax credits by imposing new layer of bureaucracy.