Especially since so many of these are service jobs dependent on a high rate of consumer consumption. We're about to find out. If the recession is relatively long and deep, as many as one-half of those who left welfare for work could lose their jobs. It's not a moment too early to start preparing for this eventuality. What makes Edelman's book so wise and relevant is that he wastes not a line on meaningless Big Government vs. No Government or Church vs. State arguments.
Private action is as much a part of the answer as public policy.
Yet compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government. What's also missing is the recognition that faith-based initiatives on poverty cannot be pursued in isolation from the rest of Bush's agenda. The divide that starts with the poverty line has been increasingly ending at the jailhouse wall. Religious leaders will find it's tough to be your brother's keeper when the warden holds the keys. To breach the gulf between the two Americas that Bush spoke about, it will take national leadership of the kind Edelman so fondly remembers.