POOR PEOPLE EXCLUDED FROM HEARING ON POVERTY

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By Miriam Raftery

May 2, 2014 (San Diego's East County) - Republican Paul Ryan plans to hold a Congressional committee hearing next week on poverty – but he has refused to let any poor people testify.

The hearing is called “A progress report on the War on Poverty: Lessons from the front lines.” It will feature three experts—however none of them are poor people struggling to make ends meet.

Ryan and his committee have refused to allow members of a group called Witness to Hunger speak.  The organization’s advocacy program shares stories – stories of low income Americans.

It seems that the Republican leadership of the Committee doesn’t wants its members to actually hear from anyone who is actually poor and may be able to give first-hand accounts of what life is like when you don’t have enough money to live on.

The committee also faces accusations that it has written testimony submitted in the past just disappear.  At least two people claim to have submitted documentation that mysteriously vanished, ThinkProgress reported.

Tianna Gaines Turner is one of the people who was refused the right to testify. She has six children, and often runs out of money—and food-at the end of the month.  “If you want to really understand,” she has said, “you need to speak to the people themselves firsthand. We’re real people, not just numbers.”

 


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