Senator Lankford Joins Group to Launch Anti-Poverty Effort

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today joined a group of Senators to announce the launch of the Senate Opportunity Coalition, a new initiative aiming to reduce poverty and ensure every family across America has access to the American Dream. Senators Tim Scott (R-SC), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Lankford have all joined together to fight poverty and ensure opportunity by sharing experiences from their constituents, highlighting the issues facing low-income families, and working towards policy solutions. 

“Poverty is extremely complicated, and can differ greatly in urban, rural and even suburban communities,” said Lankford. “The fact of the matter is that the American Dream is not reaching everyone. For decades, government has been primarily focused on treating the symptoms of poverty. Our policy approach should focus more on actually reducing and eliminating barriers to upward mobility. I’m honored to join this coalition to explore policy solutions that will reduce poverty and provide opportunity for everyone, no matter where they come from or where they currently live. We have to find and remove impediments for people to rise out of poverty, and be able to pick and choose the life that they want for the future, and not feel trapped.”

The Senate Opportunity Coalition also released the first of a series of documents today, during the press conference, entitled Paving the Path to a Brighter Future. Each Senator contributed a story from their home state, showing both the wide variety of issues faced by those seeking opportunity and the Senators’ commitment to finding solutions.

In the document, the Senators wrote, “We are not looking at numbers, but instead meeting with people. Instead of waiting to talk, we are eager to listen. We look to take the lessons learned by those on the ground, grinding out the best living they can, and use those to power a new kind of solution…a brighter, more prosperous future.

“Moving forward, we will continue to share stories like these and bring our individual solutions, already introduced, to the table. From these efforts, we will develop new solutions, refine current ones, and forge the path forward.”

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