The limits of policies?

Another very interesting, yet hugely flawed and biased, article by NYT David Brooks
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/opinion/04brooks.html?th&emc=th
For my comparative politics friends: trying to unveil this article methodological mistakes can be good preparation for exams!!
For instance, the author seems to be comparing... apples with oranges. It compares Sweden immigrants in the US with those living in Sweden in terms of poverty. Because there's the same rate of Sweds living below the poverty line US and in Sweden the author concludes that the countries' different approaches to social policy doesn't matter. However, he mistakenly overlooks the fact that in Sweden the general poverty rate is 6%, whereas there are 15.2% living in poverty in the US, at least according to the Human Development Report 2009 (http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2009/
So, do you really think public policies are not very relevant??