Robert Simpson: Speaker of the House rethinks poverty, charity and rhetoric

That the comments were made during the run-up to Easter was probably coincidental, but any time even the hint of gentleness and compassion coincides with a special Christian season, the connection kind of jumps out at you. I’m referring to remarks made by House Speaker Paul Ryan in a recent talk he gave before a group of young interns. The speech has drawn a lot of social media attention, with the usual mix of enthusiastic approval and cynical dismissal.

Ryan, an impressive leader whether you agree with him politically or not, is a conservative who, against today’s political backdrop, seems moderate. In the past he has admitted an admiration for Ayn Rand, a taste that I admit I cannot fathom. And he has frequently used the one-size-fits-all phrase “makers and takers” to describe the supposedly good guys who are productive versus the presumably bad guys who choose to be poor and want help from the makers. In his speech, Ryan said he has been wrong to use that description, that he has listened and learned and changed, and he now realizes that not all the poor are moochers. Some say this is political positioning. I’ll wait and see.

The thing that has long bothered me is why so many people seem to share the same “makers and takers” outlook that Ryan now disclaims. No doubt there are some poor people who are dead-beats and bums. They get a lot of publicity. But there are large numbers of people in this wealthy nation who are struggling and suffering, and their wounds are not necessarily self-inflicted, no matter how comforting it is to the rest of us to claim that they are. Not everyone living in poverty is doing so because they are sorry, lazy, addicted to drugs, or the victim of their own bad choices. Some are there because our system, though highly productive and rewarding in general, can be awfully brutal and inaccessible if you don’t know the right combination to work the lock and climb aboard. Or if, once aboard, you make a misstep and fall off. Or if some of those already aboard adjust the space to make themselves more comfortable, thereby making less room for those not yet on.

A familiar comment attributed to a number of famous people, most often to singer Sophie Tucker, is “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” Well, I can’t claim ever to have been rich, at least by American standards, though surely wealthy in comparison with millions of people around the world. But I have certainly been poor, having been born into a family with virtually none of the nation’s riches. Adequate housing, electricity, indoor plumbing, plenty of good food – all were unknown to us. Poor but proud, the whole family recoiled from the thought of charity. My parents didn’t drink or do drugs. They worked hard, wasted little, and somehow were optimistic that the tide would soon turn. It never did. They had limited formal education, limited opportunities for progress in the area where they lived, and perhaps limited judgment and flexibility, qualities stunted by years of living in poverty.

This is not intended as a sad song about my youth. I had a happy childhood because the family was solid and my parents, poor though they were, valued education and encouraged us. So I grew up with a keen understanding of poverty, an aversion to accepting charity, a lot of optimism, considerable personal pride, and a deep appreciation of an improved standard of living when it came. And a strong awareness that there were a lot of other people around who were similar to me – poor but not deserving of ridicule or disdain because of it.

It’s sad that so many of us resent and even despise the poor among us, blaming them for their own pain and insisting they rely for help only on the generosity of individuals, something that has never come close to meeting the need. Maybe the spirit of Easter and the figure it represents will lead others in the direction Speaker Ryan claims to have taken.

This story was originally published March 26, 2016 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Robert Simpson: Speaker of the House rethinks poverty, charity and rhetoric."