There's an old adage: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” It's a maxim that many Republicans in the House might agree with, from both a moral and policy perspective. The GOP professes to recognize that teaching communities to “fish” drives out poverty and improves livelihoods.
How strongly do GOP leaders believe this “bootstrap out of poverty” approach? Speaker Ryan recently noted the “need to get to the root causes of poverty to fight the cycle of poverty.” And, in a similar way, a recent House report maintains that “one-size-fits-all, top-down government programs” “limit” people's ability to get ahead, preferring “public-private partnerships” to “bring out the best of what each sector has to offer.”
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