Losing Our Way Summary

Summary

Losing Our Way by Bob Herbert is another entry into the long list of evidence of our national decline. Herbert offers evidence of this decline using examples of the decay of our infrastructure, lack of jobs, and other issues. In the book, Herbert details the amount of money spent on wars on foreign lands as well as the amount of service member lives taken and the lives in the country’s that we invaded that were lost.

Herbert goes into various political and socioeconomic issues that the United States has had, including lack of funding for infrastructure, corporations funneling money into politicians in hopes that they will support the corporation’s bottom line. What’s really interesting is that Herbert also tells the accounts of two people: a woman driving across the Mississippi that collapsed and young man wounded in the war in Afghanistan. He tells these stories to bring light to the issues that may seem small at first but lead to heavy consequences. The book is a call to action, just as he says “Change depends on us”.

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Takeaways

The three main takeaways that I got from this book was that there are many issues currently in the country; these issues lead to very serious effects. Finally, we have a choice; we can choose to deal with these choices that the government has made for our lives or we can join causes to change them.

Advocacy

I am a philanthropist by nature. I volunteer for multiple initiatives relating to both political and social issues. With that being said, this book further confirmed my want to help people and to participate in the initiatives that I care so much for. I had already known about the various social issues plaguing the nation, but reading the book just reaffirmed it.

Recommendations

Based on my studies, a framework for strengthening the social welfare safety net for the poor would include several steps. Social welfare, child protection, education, justice, health systems, and economic factors are all part of this framework. Firstly, there needs to be a sort of tally that is taken in order to see the glaring issues before the framework is put in place. This assessment may find things such as human resource gaps, recruitment issues, hiring issues, or things like coordination and communicative issues and will help to increase dialogue and coordination. Activities to develop the social welfare net would include: aligning in-service training and pre-service education to the assessments made at the beginning, and improving teaching methods.

The framework would then move on to ensuring that the various forms of safety nets for the poor including unconditional cash transfers, public works programs, social pensions, and school feeding programs. A higher level of coverage and high benefit levels are shown to have a higher reduction in poverty and income inequality. Using this framework would hopefully strengthen the social safety net for the poor

Advocacy Strategies

“How did things go so wrong? How is it that so many millions were finding it so difficult to get ahead, to emerge from the terrible, demoralizing rut of joblessness and underemployment? In a country as rich as the United States, why were so many being left behind?

“The biggest factor by far was the toxic alliance forged by government and America’s megacorporations and giant banks. That alliance of elites, fueled by endless greed and a near-pathological quest for power, reshaped the rules and regulations of the economy and the society at large to heavily favor the interest of those who were already well-to-do. In the process they trampled the best interests of ordinary Americans.” - Losing Our Way

Programs by themselves will not improve the lives of children in poverty. In order to change the future of welfare, there must be systemic changes to the state and federal policies. A model I would follow would be the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s framework of State and Federal Policy Reform. The AECF has an administration of essential safety-net programs created to pull families out of poverty and create refundable tax credits for low-income families. One of these initiatives is the well-known Earned Income Tax Credit.

Policymakers are equipped with the most accurate information and state budgets, taxes, and federal budget issues are heavily invested in. State-level advocates are given data, resources, and technical assistance for their causes, and support is given to research projects on the benefits of leave insurance, and demographic information on low-income families. Processes like these assist to bring the advocacy to the state and federal level.

Part II

Dear Representative Kay Granger,

I am very fortunate to have been provided with an excellent education that prepared mefor the future. I currently have a child entering elementary school. Recently after reading the book Loosing Our Way by Bob Herbert, I have become very concerned about legislative impact on poverty. As a parent yourself, I am sure that you share many of these concerns.

Research has shown that when social welfare has better safety nets for the poor, they have a better rates of success. For example, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has an administration of essential safety-net programs created to pull families out of poverty and create refundable tax credits for low-income families. One of these initiatives is the well-known Earned Income Tax Credit.

I ask that you support further state and federal initiatives such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. In supporting bills such as these, we can ensure that the poor children in our nation have an adequate safety net. This is a very small price to invest in the futures of our nations children. All children should have the opportunity to achieve and develop skills necessary for the future. I believe that in supporting this bill you will impact the lives of many children. Sincerely, Julia Dillon58

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