Present conditions are evidence of failure to achieve desirable outcomes. Indicators of social distress are high and have increased on former rates. This applies to unemployment, crime, depression and suicide, child abuse, domestic violence, broken families and homelessness. The gap between rich and poor has been increased. Those who are poorest find it almost impossible to climb out of the poverty trap.
Present policies erode the bonds of trust and respect on which our sense of community is based.
They impoverish our spiritual lives through loss of compassion for others. They endanger the well-being of present and future generations. At least as disturbing as the substance of these policies is their spirit. It is a spirit of meanness and lack of imagination, which blames the poor for their poverty. It ignores the fact that economic policy since 1984 has created high unemployment and therefore results in more beneficiaries.