The Huffington Post is running a series spotlighting problems that are not being discussed by either political party this election season. As part of this project, Jim Wallis notes that we’re looking at the highest rates of poverty this country has seen in 50 years:
We’ve got a poverty problem in this country, paired with leaders who won’t even say the word “poverty,” let alone solve the problem. We have a political class, on both sides of the aisle, that is so far removed from the hardships of a normal life that they can’t even connect with the middle class, let alone the poor. We’ve got professional politicians who think they’re representing their people, but how can they when they’re forced to raise thousands of dollars per day to get re-elected?
We have a system set up for politicians to move farther and farther away from their constituents and into the hands of the donors, the rich, the powerful. Instead of representing their district, they’re trolling for money and have lost touch with the people who need them the most — the poor and vulnerable. I don’t think all members of Congress came here to overlook the poor, but they were elected into a system that does it for them; in Washington, it’s always campaign crunch time, and the pervasive dominance of money in politics has made it nearly impossible for the stories and hardships of the poor to make headway into the national conversations.
The Bible says a nation is judged by how it treats the poor, the vulnerable, and who Jesus called “the least of these.” Will we continue to ignore the poor? Will we finally gather the political will in this country now that it’s moved to the suburbs and the societal mainstream? Now that it’s next to us? Now that it’s us?
The poor don’t have lobbyists or super PACs to get their voices heard in Washington, and they certainly don’t have a real commitment in the party platforms at the conventions this season. So people of faith and conscience will keep beating the drum about poverty and asking each candidate, every candidate, what their policies will do to the least of these. Doesn’t the highest American poverty rate in 50 years make this a moral issue — and a political issue?
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