Nothing To Hold Up The Hair

(link) "The Washington Post has a good piece about John Edwards' plans to combat poverty. Edwards has made his program to "end poverty in 30 years" in this country his signature domestic issue. The Post story, by Alec MacGillis, provides insight into both Edwards and the issue.

The centerpiece of the Edwards plan is to do away with public housing projects and replace them with one million rental vouchers through which to disperse the poor into better neighborhoods, closer to good schools and jobs. However, as the Post explains, a major federal experiment started during the Clinton administration shows that dispersing poor families in this fashion does not improve earnings or school performance. When this inconvenient truth was brought to Edwards' attention during his November 2005 symposium on poverty, he apparently had no answer."