John MacPherson: Need action, not stats, to combat poverty

Regarding Gene Nichol’s July 12 Point of View “Being horrified by racial violence is the easy part”: Allow me to put a different spin on the headline: Citing statistics and endless complaining are the easy part. As to Nichol’s statistics, nothing new here, unfortunately. I won’t dispute his statistics, only the reasons for the “subjugation.”

Nichol claims it is a “direct, unbroken lineage to slavery.” I suggest he read a few of the books by Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Their research shows blacks’ circumstances were improving at a faster rate than whites until politicians decided to “help,” turning the social safety net into a hammock. Let’s say, since about 1965.

So, if things started to turn back downhill shortly after that, it is reasonable to assume it will take at least that long to unscrew everything. The Poverty Research Fund, like the sham Poverty Center before it, gathers a lot of data already available but actually does nothing.

This story was originally published July 20, 2015 at 5:49 PM with the headline "John MacPherson: Need action, not stats, to combat poverty."