When Did Being Poor Become Fashionable?

I just read in my local newspaper this morning that poverty is "on track to post a record gain". That's right. They think that last year 45 million people were classified as poor, or in poverty, which I assume means about the same thing. I mean if you're poor, you are in poverty, if you're in poverty, you're poor. Is that a record we should be proud of? Our government isn't much help here. It almost looks like that's their goal. To make as many people poor as they can. The Democrats want to spend more and more money that we don't have and the Republicans want to give as much away in the form of tax cuts to the rich as they can. All the time ignoring the fact that we're in a recession and people are hurting. It's pretty obvious they aren't talking with each other. Is it a good idea to make less and spend more. Maybe their goal is to make America poor. If the country is poor, we'll all wind up poor. Except for the very rich who were on the inside track all along. In fact, maybe that's who came up with the ideas of over-spending and over giving-away as a pair in the first place. The Republicans had a chance and blew it, the Democrats are having a chance but are too timid to take their chance. Now the Republicans want their chance back, but they want to do the same things that didn't work the last time. When do the citizens get a chance to run the government? I mean, we could hardly do worse then the crew that's in there now. I'm for going to Washington to do one thing, do it well, do it in one term and then get out. Make room for the next guy's problems and solutions.