Social Policy Review

        To end poverty, America needs a domestic Marshall Plan. The original plan , implemented in 1948, invested billions of dollars to rebuild European nations devastated in World War II. Some of those nations did not deserve our country's massive expenditure to rebuild their lands. They had slaughtered entire communities and brutally killed American soldiers to impose false racial superiority and gain world domination. Nonetheless, Americans helped rebuild their shattered nations. This was a truly wise, generous and remarkable act. While billions of dollars were sent to Europe, America’s impoverished continued to struggle within an unjust society. Soldiers who had served with distinction in segregated units were denied access to jobs and wealth when they returned from the war.    A new Marshall Plan would mobilize resources from all levels of government — federal, state and local — each level doing what it can to end poverty within its sp...

    Death Penalty's War on the Poor   There are many reasons why the death penalty should be abolished. Consider the following information from the Innocence Project: 1) Executions are carried out at staggering cost to taxpayers. It costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 2011 study found that California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978 and that death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. California currently spends $184 million on the death penalty each year and is on track to spend $1 billion in the next five years. 2) There is no credible evidence that capital punishment deters crime. Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime more than long prison sentences. Moreover, states without the death penalty have much lower murder...

Right-wing politicians in the past two years have attempted punitive action against protesters, i.e., the George Floyd riots, and more directly “movements” to the left, that destabilize elite control. The brutal increase in anti-protest bills at state levels were introduced, 81 in 34 states. New laws, such as those in Oklahoma and Iowa, granted immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets. A Minnesota bill would prohibit those convicted of unlawful protesting from receiving student loans, unemployment benefits, or housing assistance. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed sweeping legislation that toughened existing laws regulating public disorder and creating a harsh new level of infractions – a bill he has called “the strongest anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.” This, nevertheless, reveals that the ruling elite fear mass politics, violent or nonviolent, since mobilization around issues of social justice weake...