Who Votes for Poverty?

     We welcome the new year with hopes and dreams for happiness, safety, financial security, and on and on. Resolutions will solve everything, right? 

     Well, year after year, nothing seems to improve in Detroit, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, St. Louis, El Paso, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Newark. 

     People in poverty in those cities rank from 32.5 percent in Detroit to 24.2 percent in Newark. What do these cities (all over 250,000) have in common? With the exception of Miami, they have voted in Democratic mayors for decades. 

     The most recent Republican mayor was elected in 1961, in Detroit. El Paso has never had a GOP mayor, and Newark elected their last Republican in 1907. Miami, where mayors are officially nonpartisan, is on the upswing. 

     A mayor can't wave a wand and lift everyone into the middle class. But policies - and objectives - make a difference, whether city, state or country. If the poor are content to let the politicians thrive while they live on food stamps, nothing will change. 

           Jimmy