Page 3 - Poverty Issue News Today

Today we continue our discussion on addiction in america and are joined by hawking county municipal court judge fred moses whose drug court has been extremely successful in the fight against addiction. judge, thank you for joining us today. why is your program working? >> well, first of all, thank you for taking the time to address this important issue. i think the reason its working, number one, its a program and were proud of the people. but the underlying program is some type of trauma, menta...

Thats evidenced by the fact that poverty is higher now than it was when we launched the war on poverty 15 years ago. i think welfare reforms need to be put in place. but there shouldnt be anything controversial about drug testing. 57% of businesses across america drug test employees, college athletes are drug tested. high school athletes are drug tested. so the belief that this attaches a stigma or is a negative tifhing is ludicrous. >> i agree that requiring someone to be drug tested isnt unrea...

Easily what we saw happen in baltimore this week could happen in any urban center across america. >> and in terms of relationships with the police mayor, let me turn to you in oklahoma city. im curious what you make of when you look at the issues that were exposed in baltimore, issues that were exposed in ferguson and you look at the relationship between your own police force and the african-american community in your city, what do you see? >> well we do a lot to try and avoid the type of powder...

Demonstrations and peaceful protests to keep the attention on justice for freddie gray but also i think, attention on the long-standing need there in baltimore for the entire baltimore police department to be reformed and i think and ive said this to you and certainly to the public this very important need to address the joblessness issue, the poverty issue, which has become exacerbated in america since the grey great recession. >> i want you to stand by if you can. were standing by to hear from...

To bring down this terrible poverty problem that i think is absolutely related to the lack of overtime in some of these cases? >> i dont think the poverty issue is related to a lack of overtime. i think the poverty issue is related to stagnant wages and related -- thats just regular time. before you even get to overtime. its related to the ability of employers to actually expand the market in which the formerly employed can get back to work. you still have over 5 million people who are let go in...

My phrase is poverty sucks. if youre poor, your housing sucks. your health care sucks. your relationships unfortunately are probably penalized. number one cause of divorce is money. number one reason they drop out of college is not academics, its money. health issues, number one cause for stress, heart attacks is money. im not saying its everything. but im saying its real close. you can solve the poverty issue, at least radically address it, you can stabilize the other issues. in our neighborhoo...

There. while the little guy gets kicked in the side of the road along the recipients of food stamps. there is no fat in food stamps as i see it. there is no fat in school nutritional programs which is needed by of course, the portion of the population youre talking about. how do we fix this? what would be the correct move? >> the correct move, it seems to me, are two basic issues. number one, as a nation, we have got to defend the social safety net. and understand that we cannot allow a situatio...

>> sean: go ahead. >> we were talking about the 47% and there is another one that is really bothering me. the 47% of children that are associated with this program. right? i dont want to victimize the children, but if you plot the poverty rates and the dependency and food stamps and the obesity rates and graduation rates that are also following this pattern, its just doom -- >> sean: potato chips and crap. >> its a problem. >> sean: i promised matt. im coming back to you, matt and then to david....

>> sean: go ahead. >> we were talking about the 47% and there is another one that is really bothering me. the 47% of children that are associated with this program. right? i dont want to victimize the children, but if you plot the poverty rates and the dependency and food stamps and the obesity rates and graduation rates that are also following this pattern, its just doom -- >> sean: potato chips and crap. >> its a problem. >> sean: i promised matt. im coming back to you, matt and then to david....

>> sean: go ahead. >> we were talking about the 47% and there is another one that is really bothering me. the 47% of children that are associated with this program. right? i dont want to victimize the children, but if you plot the poverty rates and the dependency and food stamps and the obesity rates and graduation rates that are also following this pattern, its just doom -- >> sean: potato chips and crap. >> its a problem. >> sean: i promised matt. im coming back to you, matt and then to david....