Anyone heard this mentioned in the campaign?

Tim, Kurt and others supporting Obama - I'd like to know how you see this proposed program and whether you were aware of it. I may be off base in my thinking but I see this as a total turnaround. For the past 8 years we've seen big corps reaping benefits, being awarded huge money contracts and basically allowed to profit any way they can think of.

Now will we spend the next few years focusing on giving inner city poor the attention and tax dollars?

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issue...nFactSheet.pdf

This is the plan on Obama's site for an urban agenda that includes creating a White House Office on Urban Policy. He considers it so important that the Urban Office will report directly to the President - yet he has reportedly not mentioned it in any televised speech.

I saw a reference to it in a news magazine side note. The question asked was why this plan has not been mentioned in Obama's speeches or debates yet used widely in stumping in poor urban areas.

This urban plan is a far left agenda to me. It does nothing for the middle class that BO keeps talking about - it is strictly aimed at poor inner city neighborhoods. That's fine for a community activist/organizer - and some of the ideas make sense on a national level.

However, several items are nothing more than expanded welfare that will cost billions of dollars. There is also a "child care credit" listed that would repay 50% of money spent on child care - and that seems to be mentioned only in relation to the urban poor.

Also included are expanded health care credits and subsidies for the urban poor to use - but why would that be necessary as Obama says he will add a national health plan.

Why only metropolitan regions? The definition of metropolitan is "a large urban area", "major city".

And isn't this how the sub-prime mess started in the first place - giving loans to people who couldn't pay them back?

So he'd subsidize use of public transportation in low income inner cities - and the rest of us will just eat our inflated gas prices.

"Joe the Plumber" may be the buzzword - but Bob, the welfare recipient, seems to be doing quite well.

I'll admit I'm negative on this topic and that is a direct result of Hurricane Katrina. I've watched middle class people struggling to survive when their homes were lost, insurance wouldn't pay and many resources were limited to the "poor".

I've also seen many people who had nothing before Katrina manage to prosper because they knew the ins and outs of applying for every little bit of government money they could get. In one case here, a woman received a check from FEMA to buy furniture - but she bought a car instead. She then asked for more money for furniture and when she started shouting "discrimination" she got another check. According to this woman - "they need to understand I can't get a job because I have children".

FEMA is still paying the housing costs for many on the coast - in katrina cottages and in motels (for those in motels, meals are paid, too). Some of these are people who simply have no way to get back on their feet due to age or illness after losing everything. Yet the majority had nothing before Katrina, aren't working now and complain loudly whenever FEMA mentions removing the support.

The poor will always be part of our society and we do have obligations to them. The problem facing us now is the downward spiral of the middle class - the rich get richer, the poor get subsidies and the middle class is ignored.

I'm not against social programs but when a candidate's background is exclusively working with the poor showing them how to "get" from the government and as a lawyer defending civil rights of the poor - I have a hard time believing he understands how the rest of us live.

There are already subsidies that provide money for housing payments, utility payments, job training, food stamps. There is a program that pays part of an hourly wage in exchange for employers giving a higher wage to a "poor" person and I can't list how many people I know who get full medical care for themselves and their children through Medicaid because the income they list is below a certain number. Quite a few of them work jobs where they are paid in (unreported) cash and any illness or accident leads them to apply for SSI (disability) payments. I know I sound jaded - but I've just seen too much of it in the past few years.

The statement "95% will benefit from tax reduction" that Obama touts includes those who don't pay taxes (about 60% is the number I've seen mentioned) who will receive a check from the government from money that WE pay in taxes. That is the conclusion of every economist who has looked at his plan - and the major drawback to it. It's part of the "redistribution of wealth" that Obama talked about this week.

I'm not saying McCain's plans are any better - but this one seems to be a major expansion of social programs, placed high in priorities of the candidate, and is not affordable.

kay