Posted on 03/22/2015 1:05:12 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Over 50 years ago, with much fanfare, President Lyndon Johnson declared "unconditional war" on poverty in America.
Since that bold proclamation, we have expended over $22 trillion of our national treasure in this so-called "war". Much of that coming out of the paychecks of working people and transferred to "poor" people by way of welfare, food stamps and a large variety of other government programs.
Despite the expenditure of this enormous amount of taxpayer money, the problem of poverty has not gotten better. In fact, it has gotten worse. Even more alarming, the middle class, which was growing rapidly and thriving back in the 1960s, has hit a brick wall. Stagnant wages and ever increasing taxes has forced most middle class families into a "living paycheck to paycheck" scenario.
Where it was once possible for a working class man with a steady job to purchase a home, keep his wife at home to raise the children, and then send those children to a decent college, it is now necessary for most middle class families to have both husband and wife in full-time employment just to make ends meet, while the children are shuttled back and forth to day care or to stay with older relatives. For many in the working class, college for their children is now a pipe dream unless a scholarship or financial aid is involved, as college tuition has been increasing at an exponential rate. Where most colleges charged just a few hundred dollars per semester in 1964, it is not unusual to see $10,000 or more per semester, when books and other costs are factored in, at the better schools.
Back in 1964, the United States had a booming economy and the national debt stood at $312 billion. Today, our national debt stands in excess of $17 trillion, which for the first time exceeds our annual economic output (GDP).
In 1964, the future was bright and we were talking about "going to the moon." These days, there is no passion about space exploration. For all but our older generations, the moon missions of Apollo are nothing but a footnote in history. Many question whether or not they actually happened.
The "war on poverty" has virtually bankrupted America and it has proven to be about as effective as fighting WW2 with BB guns and dropping water balloons on Germany and Japan from hang gliders. Walk through any urban neighborhood and you will see the blight and the hopelessness that exist. Those neighborhood are actually worse than they were in 1964. At least back then, there was a sense of community and hope that things would get better. After all, this was America.
Instead of giving the poor a helping hand, our welfare programs have simply institutionalized poverty by removing any incentive to rise above it.
If one's basic needs are met with an automatic government check, one could easily adapt to that lifestyle and actually prefer that situation to having to get up early in the morning and find a job.
As a result we now have multiple generations of families who have done nothing but collect welfare, food stamps and other benefits. Entire generations of poor men have been emasculated because the government has taken over the role of being the provider for their families. In fact, we have situations where the mothers don't want the fathers involved in raising their children as this might cut into the benefits they "have coming to them" from Uncle Sam. In some cases, the mothers don't even want to know who the fathers were. All the easier to ride the welfare gravy train for the rest of their lives. Is it any wonder that these unwanted men often turn to a life of crime and violence? By the way, going to prison is just another form of welfare for many poor men. Three squares and a cot. Many of these men have so adapted to prison life that they don't even fear it anymore, creating a revolving door in our prison systems.
Granted, it's not always an easy life being on welfare but in their minds, it sure beats having to go to work every day.
The welfare state has created a sense of entitlement with millions of "poor" people and the numbers of people on the dole continue to climb year after year. In fact, it is so easy to get on welfare in America that we have millions of people pouring over our borders to get in on it.
Tell a liberal person that the War on Poverty is a sham, an utter failure, and the likely response will be that you are a racist or that you don't have any compassion. But the failure of this war is apparent as soon as you leave the affluent suburbs (where most of these liberals reside) and enter the gritty urban areas of decay.
Detroit, Ferguson, Newark, Camden, Bridgeport, Oakland, East LA, Atlantic City...just a few of the cities that are almost unlivable due to grinding poverty, high crime and a general feeling of hopelessness. The people that live in these areas are angry. Many of them have no prospects for stable employment. Their education is poor, their work ethic is non existent and they look at their more prosperous neighbors with envy and hate.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the "war on poverty" is an utter failure. We might as well have taken that $22 trillion dollars ($22,000,000,000,000) and shoveled it all into a furnace for the good it did us fighting poverty. And yet the liberal response is always that we need to pony up yet more or our money to solve the poverty problem.
I was motivated to write this piece this afternoon because I took a Sunday morning drive and passed through the "not-so-nice" parts of Southern CT coastal towns of West Haven, Bridgeport and Norwalk. Those neighborhoods were filthy, with garbage in the streets, cracked sidewalks, barren playgrounds with everything still standing vandalized and covered in graffiti. There is no pride in these neighborhoods. Houses are unkempt, windows boarded up in many cases, the sidings and roofs peeling away. Most of the people in the streets were slouching down the street with mean expressions on their faces, wearing hoodies and in general trying to project a tough-guy "don't mess with me" image.
I think about the $22 trillion dollars we flushed down the toilet this past 50 years to address this problem and instead, the problem has only gotten worse. Our national treasure has been squandered and our once striving middle class has been squeezed time and time again with higher taxes in order to keep these miserable people in welfare checks and food stamps - and the taxman comes for more year after year after year. The only reward these middle class people ever seem to get is to be called selfish and racist because they don't give enough to "help the poor."
When will it end? How much more money do we have to sling at this problem until we realize that government welfare is not the solution? When will we realize that gainful employment and a solid family structure is the ticket out of poverty? When will we stop rewarding women for having children out of wedlock and start holding fathers accountable for supporting their children as well? When will we make it once again an embarrassment to be on public assistance, a scandal to be pregnant and unmarried, and make our prisons a place you do not want to be. When will our working people be respected once again and held up as role models for others? When will we as a society restore dignity to all working people, whether they are a doctor, a plumber, a store clerk or a janitor?
Ronald Reagan once spoke of a time where if we allowed the welfare state to continue to grow, we would eventually have more people riding in the wagon than pulling it.
I believe that time has finally come to America. And if we don't do something to reverse this trend of doling out yet more welfare benefits by taking even more tax bites out of the people who actually work hard to keep this country running, we are in for some very ugly times.
“The War on Poverty” was never about ending poverty. It was about securing an undefeatable democrat majority. What was it LBJ said. Something about ‘someone’ voting for them for 200 years???
There isn’t one social program the federal government hasn’t unconstitutionally launched that hasn’t been a miserable failure. No matter. It’s never the government’s fault.
They only need more money to make their unconstitutional programs work (and BTW, to enlarge their bureaucracies).
Poverty isn't a problem in this country anymore ... it's an industry, and a huge portion of our GDP involves businesses and institutions that are built on some aspect of "fixing poverty."
All the war on poverty accomplished was to destroy family values and impoverish the entire nation. 16+ trillion dollars spent, 18 trillion dollars in the hole.
We were also the only true superpower in the world. The Soviets were a military challenge, but not an economic challenge to the US. Germany and Japan were still in the process of rebuilding.
In other words, there was not much serious competition for the United States in 1964. We were IT!
Just like the ‘affordable’ care act.
Excellent essay! Thanks for writing the truth.
The Scottish Jurist and Historian Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler published a collection of lectures in 1801. He advanced a theory of democracy based on historical observation:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesses from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
“The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”
‘nuff said.
We were also the only true superpower in the world. The Soviets were a military challenge, but not an economic challenge to the US. Germany and Japan were still in the process of rebuilding.
In other words, there was not much serious competition for the United States in 1964. We were IT!
LBJ didn’t mince words. When he launched the horrendous “War on Poverty,” he predicted, “The n*****s will be voting Democrat for two hundred years.” And they were stupid enough to do just that for the past 50, with no sign that they have caught on that this is destroying them.
Nowadays, waiting in line for free stuff is the equivalent of “working” to the gibsmedat crowd.
Well written article, thank you.
Taxes and regulations are very definitely big deals, the root of this problem, the way the handout agencies are fed.
But corporate perfidy is the other foot. Offshoring jobs and importing workers have nothing to do with profits. Corporations are given tax break rewards for those policies because they cost so much money to implement.
No, they are about only one thing - gutting the American worker. Taking away skilled jobs by the millions. It’s economic and social sabotage, straight out.
Always was about control. Look what's happening now. The poor are getting too demanding and too expensive. So the powers that be are bringing in a whole new poor underclass.
What's going to happen when the poor black underclass (augmented by African refugees) get into open violent warfare with the poor Hispanic underclass?
I do believe it will happen. And I further believe its purpose is to create poorer people who expect less.
For the 22 trillion the US government spent on the ‘war on poverty’, we could have sent men to Mars.
A certain group, THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED is a drag on the US, economically and culturally.
Time to separate...
Every time it’s tried, socialism fails. It’s inconsistent with human nature.
Actually, we declared war on Poverty and Poverty is winning
Give a man a fish and the next day he says, “I need another fish.”
Teach a man to fish, and the next day he’s catching his own dinner.
I’m tired of giving up my pie so someone on the other side can have more.
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