Of the big Katrina memes, disaster preparedness, deficit growth and a re-awakening to the cruel realities of poverty rank highest. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) is one of the latest to blast President Bush over "indifference" to black poverty, as the Chicago Tribune reports here (free reg. req.). Obama's politicized grandstanding makes for a snappy read,. But Washington Post Writers Group columnist, and economist Robert Samuelson writes that with all the heightened, post-Katrina handwringing over poverty, we risk overlooking the crucial role of the individual, the family, and our porous southern border.

The horrifying images - mostly of blacks stranded on rooftops or abandoned at the Superdome - are forcing Americans to face the "enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention," said a Newsweek cover story. It's unclear whether most Americans are as oblivious to the problems of poverty, class and race as this presumes. But it is clear that the leap from Katrina to broad generalizations about poverty involves considerable simplification.

...One myth is that we haven't made any progress....Poverty among blacks - though still appallingly high - has declined sharply. In 2004, it was 24.7 percent, down from 33.1 percent in 1993, though up from 22.5 percent in 2000.

....(But) We have uncontrolled entry of poor, unskilled workers across our Southern border. Although many succeed, many don't; and many poor Latino immigrants have children, who are also poor. In 2004, 25 percent of the poverty population was Hispanic, up from 12 percent in 1980. Over this period, Hispanics represented about three-quarters of the increase in the poverty population.

A second myth is that the political process has abandoned the poor. Not so. Welfare reform was not punitive; it aimed mainly to counteract a self-defeating dependency....Still, there are limits to what can be done. One way to curb poverty would be tougher immigration policies that kept out the new poor. There's no consensus to do that. What about spending more on the poor? Perhaps some programs could be usefully expanded, but any big increase would collide with spending on the elderly.

Beyond these political obstacles, much poverty involves personal behavior that government can't easily alter. In a report, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, along with Sara McLanahan and Elisabeth Donahue, both of Princeton, note the following: the share of children living with a single parent is 27 percent, up from 12 percent in 1970, the teen birth rate still "exceeds that of other industrialized nations" and "one of every three children - and seven of every 10 black children - are born outside marriage." This alone ensures that, even if we make added progress, poverty will repeatedly be rediscovered.

Samuelson and columnist Star Parker are among the few telling it like it is about poverty in the aftermath of Katrina's stark imagery.

TECHNORATI TAGS: KATRINA, POVERTY, ROBERT SAMUELSON

TO COMMENT: The regular "comment" feature is not in operation. E-mail comments to address under "Contact" on main page masthead, and I'll add them, here.

Tom Rekdal: Robert Samuelson's comments on poverty are sound enough, but they are notes for another day now. The impact of images of black people struggling for their lives on rooftops, while incompetent officials from the city to the federal level flounder, is politically overwhelming.

And thus the spectacle of a "conservative" administration attempting to rescue its failing reputation with a $200 billion bailout, followed by the Secretary of the Treasury, a former Senate Majority Leader, and all the predictable Gang of Fourteen, calling for a "postponement" of any further tax relief. The only really successful achievement of the Bush administration, the only one to actually generate more tax revenues, and the only one that might permanently alter economic well being for the better, including that of the poor, will now be washed away in a floodtide of demagoguery to demonstrate our collective "compassion."

The legacy of the Bush presidency begins to look more and more like a mobile park in Biloxi.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at September 22, 2005 01:27 PM