• Mitt Romney holds the opinion that the biggest reason for
the success of Americans is their belief in God and their ability
to capitalize on opportunities. Saying that the American DNA is
laced with opportunity, he blames the welfare programs of the
yesteryears for having created a culture of poverty which he
feels is still lurking and threatening to destroy the American
culture.

• Being opposed to the issue of giving cash hand-outs to
poor workers, Mitt Romney feels that a better way of dealing with
the problem is to bring about growth in the business sector,
create jobs and thus generate more income.

• When the state proposed a project with the intention of
overcoming and preventing homelessness and assigned a huge amount
for the issue, Mitt Romney, the then Governor, vetoed the entire
program and reduced the amount significantly for one program
because he disapproved of it completely. However, both programs
would receive funds which would enable them to carry out their
objectives.

• Mitt Romney has suggested three major policy changes
namely requiring the recipients to go to work immediately,
eliminating firms which invest in inner city enterprise zone from
paying taxes on capital gains and awarding tax credits to
companies which hire poor residents and provide them with stable
employment.

• Mitt Romney has also proposed minimum sentences which
would not only be mandatory on criminals but would also be tough.
This is to ensure the reduction of crime through tough measures
and its ultimate crackdown. 
		

• During his campaign in 2008, Barack Obama voiced a firm
commitment to reduce poverty by announcing that it is through the
conjoined efforts of everyone involved that poverty could be
reduced to half its actual figure during the next ten years. 

• Assigning poverty the status of being a national
priority, Barack Obama has supported the introduction of a new
Federal measure of poverty which is supposed to be more accurate
and helpful in tackling its after-effects on the following
generations. Hence, the modern guidelines of federal poverty are
meant to reflect the costs of living and study the various
sources due to which the American families face economic
pressure.

• In order to translate his statements to reality, Barack
Obama outlined a plan consisting of various proposals in a bid to
fight rural poverty. Some of the salient points of his proposals
were development of telecommunication technology in rural
America, improving the infrastructure by investing in water and
sewer system and building small city airports.

• In his urban poverty program, Obama vowed to create
twenty dream neighborhoods in various cities across the country
based on the lines of the Harlem Children's Zone in New York
City.

• The urban poverty program has also been designed by
Obama to fight concentrated poverty in American cities by
creating more economic opportunities, recruiting more teachers
and making the profession of teaching attractive by augmenting
the salary and providing support services. 

• A noteworthy proposal made by Obama in the direction of
reducing urban poverty was the creation of 'Affordable Housing
Trust Fund' as a result of which 112,000 new affordable units
would be added in the mixed income neighborhood.