Ken Blackwell's Urban Agenda

From the tribune-chronicle

‘‘To reduce poverty in America, there has to be some systemic changes, but there also has to be changes in personal decisions,’’ he said.

‘‘I understood since I was 10 years old that the flip side of poverty is wealth. And if you in fact want to radically reduce poverty, you have to have a strategy about how you create wealth in our community,’’ he said.

To do that will require knocking down barriers that stop people from starting businesses and creating jobs, changes in the system require lowering taxes, stopping the abuse of lawsuits and cutting government red tape.

Blackwell’s market-based plan also involves ‘‘moral discipline and personal decisions’’ — building strong traditional families and abstinence programs for teens.

Saying out-of-wedlock births have doubled for blacks and whites since the war on poverty began 40 years ago, he said, ‘‘You don’t have to be a rocket scientists to know you’re more likely to break out of the cycle of poverty if you’re in a two-income family.