Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 27, 1993 TAG: 9303270200
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By the standards of history, Miller said, the poor of the United States live quite well, better than the kings of other lands. The poor get more to eat and they are "relatively affluent" compared with other countries, he added.
But Steinbruck said new statistics are frightening. "Many homeless are invisible, they're refugees or people who are hanging on by their fingernails, one paycheck away" from trouble.
They spoke at an honors program conference on perspectives on American poverty, supported by the school's Henry Fowler Lecture Series.
Miller, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, said data shows that 38 percent of the U.S. poor own homes and 62 percent own cars.
He is chairman of the Tax Foundation and Citizens for a Sound Economy in Washington and he teaches economics at George Mason University in Northern Virginia.
The number of poor people declined when Reagan took office, Miller claimed, and the number of homeless reported by advocates "is not borne out by data."
As budget director, he said, he opposed taxing the poor because that was "immoral."
Steinbruck, a longtime advocate for the homeless, said he didn't want to get in "a spitting contest" but "we have seen a tidal wave of homelessness" because of a lack of affordable housing. "You can't have housing if you work for Wendy's," he said.
Poverty, said Steinbruck, is "one hellish experience. . . . The sheer threat of not knowing what the day will bring." He is a founder of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, a youth service group.
In a direct reference to his fellow speaker, Steinbruck said, "those in past administrations who look snidely at the poor will answer to God for it."
The hardest work in the world is to be homeless, to get through one day or night, the minister said.
Steinbruck, whose Luther Place Church has a homeless shelter in sight of the White House, said the poor in Washington "are a national embarrassment . . . the excluded who sleep on the steam grates and the sidewalks.
Miller said the claim that President Reagan reduced spending for human services to increase defense spending "is baloney." Spending for human services rose by $300 billion while defense expenditures increased by $160 billion under Reagan, he said.
For those who say the 1980s were a decade of greed, Miller said, charitable contributions "rose enormously."
He said it is not true that the rich don't pay their fair share of taxes. The quarter of taxpayers with the highest incomes pay 76 percent of the nation's taxes and the quarter with the lowest incomes pay less than 1 percent, Miller said.
The minimum wage leads to higher unemployment, he said. Miller spoke for drastic improvements in public education and family structure.
Steinbruck said he pleads for government to be a major player in working for the homeless "and not dismiss it as some have done." He said $35 billion for low-income housing has been cut from the federal budget.
by CNB