Today President Obama will roll out a budget that highlights one of the single largest threats to our country and to our state. That threat is poverty. Hardworking folks throughout New Jersey and the nation are struggling in the face of a difficult economy, which has been compounded by a Republican Congress that has insisted upon cutting vital programs. That is why today, we must renew our commitment both as a country and as elected officials to fighting back against poverty.
President Obama’s budget includes a variety of new spending measures that will create new opportunities for working and middle class families and individuals across the country. It will expand access to vital pre-school programs to give children a head start, it will broaden the earned income tax credit that puts precious dollars back in the pockets of hardworking Americans and expanded training programs for the unemployed, while asking the very wealthy to simply pay their fair share.
I’m an engineer by training so I look at problems from a scientific perspective. I examine the facts until they bear out a conclusion. If you look at the facts when it comes to the struggling working and middle class, it is clear that pulling the rug out from under these folks by cutting vital programs is not the answer. In order to be competitive in the next century, we have to invest in those who make up the backbone of our nation. Poverty is afundamental threat to this. We cannot just sit back and wait for wealth to trickle down, because it doesn’t and never will. I call on my colleagues and Congress to renew our commitment to the War on Poverty. Today we can take the first step by supporting the President’s call to expand these vital programs.