Bart: I agree with you. Neither Bush or Gore (and for that matter no one else) can eraducate poverty in America. It is a worthwhile goal, but I doubt it will ever be achieved.

I assume you are suggesting that the federal government create some programs in those areas where the most poverty exists. Something like the W.P.A. was in the 1930s? That was a government program that I would not object to being revived myself. It did a lot of good in the state where I lived. It was all based on the participants in the program working, though, and not simply reporting for a welfare check every month having done nothing to earn it. Many parks and useful public areas in Texas might not exist today if that program had not been created by Franklin Roosevelt AND the Democratically controlled congress of the early 1930s. If such a program were created, however, I would prefer to see it funded as a matching funds program with the individual state matching, in some ratio, federal funds, and having the program administered at the state, rather than at the federal level. What we do not need, I believe, is another huge federal bureaucracy created.

DougR