Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Monday, October 3, 2011
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
New “Economics 101” Video from CF&P
Exposes Failure of the War on Poverty,
Calls for Free Markets for Upward Mobility
(Washington, D.C., Monday, October 3, 2011) The latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), narrated by Hadley Heath of the Independent Women’s Forum, calls for restoring economic freedom to reduce poverty. Entitled, “Free Markets, Not Redistribution, Is Best Way to Reduce Poverty,” the video puts poverty in perspective and shows how government redistribution programs perpetuate rather than alleviate the problem.
The video does show some good news. Today’s poor are often much better off than the middle or upper-middle classes of prior generations. Poor people today have access to consumer goods that used to be considered luxuries, and the average poor household in the U.S. has more living space than the average European of any class.
But the mini-documentary also shows that poverty was steadily falling until the so-called War on Poverty began. The government’s solution has been to throw money at the issue, but it has not worked. The poverty rate has been stagnant for decades.
Links to the video: YouTube | Dailymotion | Blip.TV
“Poverty is typically used as an excuse for expanding government and redistributing wealth,” said CF&P Foundation President Andrew Quinlan, “but freedom and prosperity go hand in hand.” He concluded, “We need more economic freedom – which means less government interference – so that the less fortunate have an opportunity to climb the economic ladder.”
“The safety net has become a hammock,” added Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. “Rather than reducing poverty, government programs have gone overboard and are now encouraging it.” He concluded, “The government needs to return to its core duties and the federal government should get out of the business of income redistribution.”
Executive Summary
The so-called War on Poverty has failed. Making government bigger and creating more federal redistribution programs has been bad news for taxpayers. But the welfare state also has been a disaster for the less fortunate, creating a flypaper effect that makes it difficult for people to lead independent and self-reliant lives. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video shows how the poverty rate was falling after World War II – but then stagnated once the federal government got involved.
This new video is part of CF&P’s Economics 101 video series, which is designed to explain free market concepts, with particular emphasis on reaching students and young people. This is the fourteenth video in the series.
The other Econ 101 videos: Seven Reasons Why Tax Increases Are the Wrong Approach; Tax Competition: A Powerful Force to Restrain Big Government; Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government; Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way Around; Indexing the Capital Gains Tax to Protect Taxpayers from Inflation; Repealing Obamacare and Restoring a Free Market in Healthcare; The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws; Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities; Cost of the Internal Revenue Code; Lessons Learned From Sweden; Government Monopolies; Moral Hazard; and Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes.
Web Page for Economics 101 Videos:
http://freedomandprosperity.org/videos/economics-101-series/
CF&P Foundation has also released more than four-dozen mini-documentaries since 2007. These videos include Tax Competition Primer, VAT-Hidden Tax, Global Flat Tax Revolution, Cutting the U.S. Corporate Income Tax, Promoting Prosperity, Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Obama’s Deferral Proposal, Case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy, President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on Tax Havens, Six Reasons Why the Capital Gains Tax Should Be Abolished, a three part series on the Benefits of Tax Havens and another three-part series on the Laffer Curve.
Link: http://freedomandprosperity.org/videos/economic-lessons-series/
Weblinks:
Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3weEy7pykPQ
Dailymotion
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlg198_free-markets-not-redistribution-is-best-way-to-reduce-poverty_news
Blip.tv
http://blip.tv/economics/free-markets-not-redistribution-is-best-way-to-reduce-poverty-5608657
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-218-4615, dmitchell@cato.org
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