I'm going to take a cue from Harry Reid:
The War on Poverty was launched during the time of Lyndon B Johnson with the 'Great Society' legislation in the 1960s (specifically the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964) that had 2 features: 1) Medicare which is going to bankrupt the country soon, and 2) Welfare which was supposed to be a nuke in the war (it was - just not in the way it was intended). We have supposedly been fighting that war ever since. It's now been 46 years. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at the war. How's it going? It's gotten WORSE in the 46 years of the war. Here's a relevant graphic of poverty rates:
Note from the graphic that poverty was rapidly declining, and that the decline started to turn upwards precisely in 1964. No such rapid decline has been seen since. And it's gotten really bad as news broke this last week of record poverty. From the AP via Yahoo! News: Census: 1 in 7 Americans lives in poverty
It's time for the federal government - one that has no constitutional right to set up entitlement programs anyway under Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution - to admit that not only has the War on Poverty been lost, but that they have been fighting on the wrong side of the war the whole time, giving ammunition to growing poverty rather than solving it.
The War on Poverty was launched during the time of Lyndon B Johnson with the 'Great Society' legislation in the 1960s (specifically the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964) that had 2 features: 1) Medicare which is going to bankrupt the country soon, and 2) Welfare which was supposed to be a nuke in the war (it was - just not in the way it was intended). We have supposedly been fighting that war ever since. It's now been 46 years. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at the war. How's it going? It's gotten WORSE in the 46 years of the war. Here's a relevant graphic of poverty rates:
The ranks of the working-age poor climbed to the highest level since the 1960s as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year, leaving one in seven Americans in poverty.Only Obama could hail the numbers as good news:
The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama's first year in office.
The poverty rate increased from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.
"Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families — and especially those most in need — millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year," Obama said.It is an unprovable statement of course. By the way, guess which demographic was hardest hit by poverty increases. If you said black people, give yourself a gold star on the forehead. 25.8% of blacks now live below the poverty line. As I have said many times in this blog, welfare replaced the father of the black family with the government, breaking apart families and heralding in an age of illegitimacy in the black community which plagues it to this day. Take Detroit for example where most black babies (>70%) are born to a single mother with no father in sight. Nolan Finley had this in the Detroit News this morning: The three I's of Detroit's decline
Detroit used to make cars. Now it makes poor people. The city pumps out poverty on a three-shift, seven-day cycle.One thing I would change in Finley's piece is putting illegitimacy up to the top, and combining it with welfare programs that encourage the practice. Ignorance and incompetence follow.
The raw materials in this factory are ignorance, illegitimacy and isolation.
...Illegitimacy is a direct by-product of ignorance. More than 70 percent of the city's babies are born to unwed mothers, and more than half to teen-agers. There's no greater predictor of poverty. Most Detroit babies are added to the welfare rolls before they leave the delivery room.
...Poverty will wear a "Made in Detroit" label as long as the city wallows in ignorance and illegitimacy and isolates itself from those who might help.
It's time for the federal government - one that has no constitutional right to set up entitlement programs anyway under Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution - to admit that not only has the War on Poverty been lost, but that they have been fighting on the wrong side of the war the whole time, giving ammunition to growing poverty rather than solving it.
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