NEIL CAVUTO HOST): Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson getting a heap of criticism of those remarks, that poverty is a “state of mind.” Fox Business Network star Charles Payne said “he said nothing wrong.” Charles has his own book on his own upbringing and knows of this subject quite well. So, Charles, what do you think of what he was saying?
CHARLES PAYNE: I think he was being totally honest, Neil, and he didn't say poverty in and of itself was a state of mind. He said “a part of poverty is a state of mind.” And I think that part that he's talking about, that he's alluding to, is the acceptance that you, the person in mirror, can't change your own life, that somehow you are in a predicament that only government can help. Government can give you housing, food and other things like that. But that's it. That's where the line is drawn.
Your fortunes, your life depends on a check, a bimonthly check coming and occasional other programs out there. I think that's the mental state that he's talking about, because when you believe first and foremost that you can do a lot better, that's the first step in actually making a major change.
CAVUTO: But anything that hints that you can't work your way out of this, or you can't somehow take direction in your life and move from this, even when it came to the push for welfare to work under Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, it's said to be a very callous solution. How do you counter that? And the way you grow up -- as you did, to break free of that?
PAYNE: It's -- I see it more tough love, and I think it's best probably exhibited in the animal kingdom, when eagles build their nests in such a way that as they take away the comfort and only thorns are left, the birds eventually fly on their own. Listen, we're a society, a Christian-Judeo society.
We believe in helping each other, but ultimately, are you really helping someone when they are born on welfare, and they die on welfare, and they never have a chance to tap into innate god-given gifts?
