At a January 23 stop on the Bold & Fresh Tour with Glenn Beck in Westbury, NY, Bill O'Reilly compared the South Side of Chicago to Haiti—albeit Haiti systematically, not directly after earthquake.
O'Reilly, speaking about President Obama and his commitment to government programs, criticized Obama's plan to help a recovering Haiti through the U.S. government. While his argument doesn't hold, it is interesting in that he thinks the South Side has similar infrastructure problems to the half-island nation in the Caribbean.
Transcript:
O'REILLY: I'm seeing a guy who's very, very committed to the government. To government, the government's going to solve the problems, and I'm going I don't know how that's possible. If you've ever been to the South Side of Chicago, I mean, it's a disaster, all right? It's like Haiti, it's like — I've been to Haiti a couple of times. I support some charities there, but Haiti just never gets better, no matter how much money you put in there because they don't have a system. And I said the government can't do it but, Obama really believes the government can do it.
"Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty," according to the CIA Factbook. The 2000 Census placed 16.6 percent of Chicagoans below the poverty line (data for the South Side alone was not available), compared to a national average of 9.2 percent.
