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House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans are looking for ways to combat poverty in America and unveiled their plan to level the playing field for many impoverished Americans.

Titled A Better Way To Fight Poverty, the plan is a part of the GOP’s A Better Way: Our Vision For A Confident American initiative, and encompasses five core principles:

  • 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 frontlines every day.

The plan also looks to expand work requirements, give states and local jurisdictions a greater role, measure the results of federal programs for the poor and crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.

While all of these tenants sound promising, is the GOP’s new plan a rehashing of their old plan to fight poverty and most importantly, will Speaker Ryan’s Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives support the measures being promoted?

Roland Martin, host of NewsOne Now, asked Bishop Shirley Holloway, who attended the GOP’s unveiling of the Better Way To Fight Poverty plan, if Republicans are truly serious about the issue of poverty in America.

She told Martin that Speaker Ryan “came to see me because it’s nothing more embarrassing than spending money that doesn’t work right.”

She continued, “He came to me to find out what works, what will help the neighborhood.”

NewsOne Now panelist Dru Ealons, who previously reviewed the anti-poverty plan, said, “The devil is in the details” as it relates to the inner-workings.

One area Ealons questioned revolves around the 20 hour work requirement for welfare recipients. She said, “When you start looking at that, what does that mean and how are you going to actually implement that, and what does that mean in terms of type of work?”

Another area that concerns Ealons addresses removing money from Head Start programs “that actually help families move forward.” She also questioned the removal of tax credits, how the process would actually work, if the measures proposed in the plan would actually produce favorable results, or if all of this is “just more talk.”

Watch Roland Martin, Bishop Shirley Holloway, Bob Woodson, Dru Ealons, and the rest of the NewsOne Now panel discuss the GOP’s anti-poverty plan in the video clip above.

Watch NewsOne Now” with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.

Subscribe to the “NewsOne Now” Audio Podcast on iTunes.

SEE ALSO:

Paul Ryan: I’ve Evolved On Poverty Issue, Apologize For Callousness

Republicans Unveil Their Plan To Combat Poverty  was originally published on newsone.com