Hillary Clinton to Create "Poverty Czar"

On Friday, Hillary Clinton called for the creation of a "poverty czar" -- "a cabinet level position that will be solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it in America."

OK, terrific. 

Of course, the odds that a "poverty czar" would actually solve the problem of poverty in America or anywhere else are exactly nil. 

Poverty is a moving target anyway.  It's all in how you define it.  The poorest person in America is wealthier by far than the pharaohs of ancient Egypt.  "Poverty" in America usually includes a car, one or two color TV's, air conditioning, a microwave, a VCR or DVD player, free education, and free medical care.

But then, solving poverty would not be the purpose of a Poverty Czar anyway.  The purposes would be: (a) to get Hillary Clinton elected and (b) to pretend to care while doing nothing but perpetuating the problem.

But let's look at the term "poverty czar" itself, shall we?  I don't know whether the term "czar" is Hillary Clinton's invention or NBC News's shorthand for any new cabinet-level position, but it's really inappropriate, don't you think?  A "czar" is not exactly an egalitarian concept.

Isn't the existence of "czars" exactly the opposite of what we are aiming for if we actually want to eliminate poverty?  For every "czar" there must be a lot of peons.

Calling someone a "Poverty Czar" just doesn't work.  It's like appointing a Starvation Fat Guy or a Peace Jihadist.

~ ~ ~

Here's my own crazy idea for eliminating poverty in America:  Why not appoint hundreds of thousands of individual low-level volunteer "czars" and have them each distribute sizable checks to poor people every month in exchange for voluntary service to this great nation of ours?

We could call the low-level "czars" "employers," and the voluntary service positions could be called "jobs."

It's just crazy enough that it might work!