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But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects - that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. - some of the previous supporters reconsidered.

Before they got vengeful, conservatives had some useful points to make about welfare. Government 'help' is too often guilt-assuaging gesture. It creates layers of wasteful bureaucracy. Too much help of the wrong sort creates a culture of dependency that swamps our ability to provide.

Too often, I believe, liberals deny that poverty is linked to bad choices.

I'm a conservative, but with a focus on average people. For instance, I support Social Security and Medicare.

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.

The reason why I'm a conservative is because conservative policies work and they improve opportunities. They are the avenue for climbing the economic dream.

Ending poverty calls for humility, honesty, freedom from ideology and refusal to accept cruel simplicities about anyone's human potential. It requires listening to the wisdom and cutting the nonsense from both the Right and the Left.

We don't need flowery words about inequality to tell us that, and we don't need a party that has led while poverty and hunger rose to record levels to give us lectures about suffering.

Dependency arguments often come from elites - either aid agencies or governments - and say something about attitudes to poor people.

Everybody in politics claims to want to get everybody out of poverty. What's the opposite? Wealth. And what is often criticized by the left? Wealth.