The United States is one of the wealthiest nations in the world today, yet many Americans remain trapped in cycles of poverty and homelessness. That problem is both an economic and a political one, as many on the Right insist that the government should not be protecting or providing for America’s poor in the first place.

Straight Arrow News contributor Adrienne Lawrence argues that the problem is really more political than economic, as she notes that, in purely financial terms, the United States is more than able to provide for every poor American. A key obstacle, Lawrence states, is getting the rich to pay their fair share in taxes — and that requires Democratic governments, not the Republican governments which many poor Americans continue to vote for.

When the year started, the U.S. poverty rate was coming off its largest one-year increase in history. 12.4% of the population was now living below the poverty line. That’s 38 million Americans entering this year without the ability to afford to meet their basic needs, despite many of them working one or more jobs and paying their fair share of taxes.

This is unjust. It’s also an easy fix, one that we all should be pursuing at all costs. It’s simple: Tax the rich. But in order for that basic concept to come to fruition, Americans, particularly those on the Right, must get their heads right as it concerns poverty.

Foremost, fixing poverty is possible. In research for his new book “Poverty by America,” Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond found that if the top 1% of Americans paid the taxes they owed, it would raise $175 billion each year. Using those tax dollars toward low-income Americans would be significant enough to ensure their basic needs are met and more.

Such a proposal should not offend the senses. Yet a number of people still take issue with using government aid to uplift the poor. That brings me to my next point. Poverty is not a personal failure; it is a societal one…