Paul Ryan to Meet With Congressional Black Caucus

You’ve got to give Rep. Paul Ryan credit. Some politicians would ignore the Congressional Black Caucus’s attempts to demonize anyone who diverges from victimology rhetoric, but he agreed to meet with them today to discuss his ideas for reducing poverty among blacks.

The civil rights industry, which includes the NAACP, the Urban League, and La Raza, are paid millions of dollars a year to tell low-income Americans to demand an even bigger government than our presently bloated one. That’s the solution to poverty? Listen to Rep. Ryan’s interview with Star Parker on the “path to prosperity”:

Low-income Americans must turn to capitalism, not the government, if they hope to have an economically viable future for their families and future generations. Big Government enslaves and impoverishes the country.

But when people like Rep. Ryan espouse these basic and hard-to-hear truths, they’re branded racists–the same old, tired refrain intended to shut down the discussion. FOX News contributor and columnist Juan Williams addresses the problem in the Wall Street Journal:

For more than a year, Mr. Ryan has been working closely with Robert Woodson, the head of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, to find solutions to generational poverty among inner-city families—many of them black and Hispanic. But because Mr. Ryan is white—and worse, a Republican, he is a “racist” for pointing out how many approaches to poverty alleviation aren’t working.
…
[New Orleans] Mayor Landrieu pointed to Mr. Ryan’s discussion of inner-city poverty as a vivid illustration of the need for white political leaders of goodwill to be given more leeway in discussing problems in black America—without risking knee-jerk charges of racism—if the nation is serious about solving those problems. Improving the schools that regularly fail black and Hispanic children is another example of a situation where anyone committed to reform faces racial name-calling.

A pessimist would say Mayor Landrieu’s sentiment falls on deaf ears. An optimist would say that blacks who vote for Big Government Democrats will open their minds to solutions outside cradle-to-grave dependency. A realist would say that rising out of generational poverty and liberal voting patterns will require a different way of thinking. In other words, it won’t be quick or easy.