Posted on 09/17/2014 6:00:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Census Bureau's annual report on poverty, released Tuesday, is noteworthy because this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's launch of the War on Poverty.
Liberals claim that the war has failed because we didn't spend enough money. Their answer is to spend more. But the facts show otherwise.
Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson's War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that's three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion.
(These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare or unemployment insurance.)
Over 100 million people, about a third of the U.S. population, received aid from at least one welfare program at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient in 2013. If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.
But the Census will almost certainly proclaim that around 14% of Americans are still poor. The present poverty rate is almost exactly the same as it was in 1967, a few years after the War on Poverty started.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
“Failed” is assuming that the stated goals are the actual goals.
It was a success.....in creating a self regenerating voting block for the Democratic party.
That’s my point - instead of pointing out the failure,
point out the success of the real leftist agenda.
Sheeperals freak the freak out when you point out that they support an intentional malevolent policy,
because their whole motivation for supporting these policies is the feeling of self-righteousness they get.
America suffers from spiritual, not material, poverty. The poor I see all live materially better today than my blue-collar, working-class childhood in the 1970’s
The creation of a dependency class is no different than the institution of slavery. Whereas the return on the investment in a slave had been a function of labor, today the return is cultural chaos in the form of vandalism, prostitution, criminal activity, drug culture, abortion, broken or nonexistent families, higher than normal medical needs, poverty, insistent dependency and entitlment, and more. All of these conditions are brought on by the government programs that provide resources for their persistence.
It is absolutely vital to recognize that government programs are run by bureaucracies. It is the first law of bureaucracy to sustain and grow itself. Thus the welfare industry has as its fundamental principle continuous increase in the need for services.
The only way to end poverty is to end the institutions that are dependent for their existence upon poverty.
Today’s slaves are engaged in unproductive work intended to increase the need for more slavery.
This country could have cut the poverty rate in half if only we stopped importing the poor,uneducated parasites from the third world.
We’ll never get this social spending under control until we lock down our borders and have a tight immigration policy that only takes in people who have something to offer this society.
I’m fed up with the parasites.especially when we have our own elderly and Veterans that we need to care for.
Were men in 1930s souplines shooting eachother for $500 Nike shoes?
Economic systems, by their very nature, ensures that there will be "haves" and "have-nots" in whatever form of currency they choose. Whether it's capitalism or pure communism (which is impossible), someone will have less than others.
Any attempt to equalize all in any economic system will fail and waste all efforts and currency thrown at it.
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