When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can’t adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families.

When the Census Bureau defines “poverty,” though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans — one in seven — as “poor.”

Census officials continue to grossly exaggerate the numbers of the poor, creating a false picture in the public mind of widespread material deprivation, writes Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector in a new paper.

“Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden eating in soup kitchens,” Rector says. “The actual living conditions of America’s poor are far different from these images.”

Congress is tying itself in knots figuring out how to cut spending and bring down a $14 trillion national debt. Lawmakers might well take a much closer look at the nearly a trillion dollars spent each year on welfare even though

The nomination by President Barack Obama of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should not come to the Senate floor for a vote on Thursday, according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose spokesperson said the senator would “seek to filibuster the nomination.”

McCain is a leading member of the “Gang of 14,” which in a 2005 Senate deal preserved the filibuster in judicial nomination debates.

Goodwin Liu, among other controversial positions, has written that the Constitution grants the right to government-funded health insurance, child care, public transportation and job training.

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Total annual cost of illegals on taxpayers exceeds $1 billion LA County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich has announced that a new report shows illegal aliens and their families in Los Angeles County collected over $35 million in welfare

Over the past three weeks, 45 families and 31 individuals -- approximately 200 people -- entered Canada at the Detroit River crossings and applied in Windsor for shelter and social assistance after filing refugee claims with the Canada Border Services Age

ARKANSAS -- A report showed an estimated 32,700 illegal Hispanic immigrants received services from the state Department of Health out of an estimated 945,000 clients; about 3.5 percent of all clients served.

It will only take a moment. If Congress passes the current immigration bill being debated in the Senate, President Bush will sign the legislation, and in so doing, offer immediate amnesty to over 12 million illegal immigrants who currently reside in our c