House Republicans Offer ‘a Better Way’

While Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton was sporting a $12,000 Armani jacket while discussing “income inequality,” Republicans in the House of Representatives were unveiling “A Better Way.”

Tuesday, the House GOP conference unveiled the first plank of its policy agenda to tackle some of the country’s biggest challenges. The initiative is aimed at “lifting people out of poverty and onto the ladder of opportunity.”

The program proposes:

• Reward work. A good job is the surest way out of poverty. If you are capable, we will expect you to work or prepare for work.
• Tailor benefits to people’s needs. Instead of the same failed one-size-fits-all approach, we will match poverty-fighting programs with your needs so that it’s easier to keep a job and start a family.
• Improve skills and schools. To help protect the next generation from poverty, we will make sure that poor kids have more opportunities to succeed at every stage, from childhood through college.
• Plan and save for the future. To help you stay on the path from dependence to independence, we will make it easier for you and your family to plan for the future and be retirement-ready.
• Demand results. We will open up the system to accountability and collaboration with local communities, backing ideas that work on the front lines every day.

The Republicans picked an important location to unveil the plan. House of Help City Of Hope is a poverty-fighting organization founded by Bishop Shirley Holloway, one of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s guests at the State of the Union Address earlier this year, who left her job at the U.S. Postal Service to start the faith-based residential treatment program.

Holloway’s motto is “We don’t see the problem; we see the person.”

In a press release, the House Republicans explained their bold new agenda:

These ideas were developed by the Task Force on Poverty, Opportunity and Upward Mobility, which includes: Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA), Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), and Ways & Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) …

A Better Way is a bold policy agenda to address some of the country’s biggest challenges. It takes our timeless principles—liberty, free enterprise, consent of the governed—and applies them to the problems of our time. Developed with input from around the country, it starts the debate now on what we can achieve in 2017 and beyond. It is our vision for a Confident America, at home and abroad. Now we are taking these ideas to the people, so you have a clear choice about the direction of the country.

To learn more about the House GOP agenda, click here.