Fifty years ago, LBJ’s speech writer, Richard Goodwin, was asked to strip naked and swim with a naked Lyndon Johnson.
Press secretary Bill Moyers, the only LBJ senior staffer who survived the administration with his reputation intact, also had to jump in. He still regales us with his opinions on PBS — the last Wise Man of that era to do so. His war on personal poverty was highly successful.
While swimming with Johnson, Goodwin gave him a tip. Start something called “the war on poverty.” Johnson loved the phrase. He used it, along with “the Great Society.”
That society was not great. That war was lost.
Johnson lost the war in Vietnam. So did Nixon. Finally, Ford pulled out the troops.
No one in power in Washington suggests that the war on poverty has been lost, and that we should pull out the troops.
AN UPDATE AT HALF CENTURY
Here is an article on poverty. Drudge posted it, so it got coverage.
The Census has been tracking these data since 1959, when the percentage of children under 18 living in poverty was 26.9%. In 1964, when then-President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the War on Poverty, the percentage of children living in poverty was 22.7%. Since then until now, the percentage has decreased by only 6.2%.”In 2012, over one in five children (21.3%) in the United States, some 15.4 million, were poor — both their poverty rate and estimated number poor were statistically unchanged from 2011,” said the CRS report. “The lowest recorded rate of child poverty was in 1969, when 13.8% of children were counted as poor.”
So, after 50 years of welfare spending, the poverty rate has not changed. A variation of 6% is basically statistical noise.
(For the rest of my article, click the link.)
Part of the problem is that poverty is a relative condition, not an absolute. Especially in gunverment statistics, it is a moving target. Yeshua, when He was on earth, told His disciples "The poor you always have with you." Until, God forbid, the gunverment succeeds in destroying all wealth, there will always be some who have more than others.
BTW, Shane is a troll. The Republicans are perfectly willing to let the Democrats have their social welfare programs, as long as the Democrats allow the Republicans to have their corporate welfare programs – esp. the Military-Industrial Complex.
"Yeshua, when He was on earth, told His disciples "The poor you always have with you." "
If morons like Shane would just allow the market to work poverty could be eradicated over time.
Sure, but look at all the spoiled, entitled, silly American Blacks the liberals put on the Democrap Plantation in those 50 years.
Did Shane's potty mouth get his comment deleted once again?
No, I just speak the truth and Gary gets mad and deletes my comments. No swearing necessary. Anything that goes to the contrary to what he talks about gets deleted. Censorship at its finest.
Here’s my original comment that apparently now “needs moderation” :
Despite the best efforts of Democrats, Republicans have managed to ensure poverty is here to stay for decades to come. Money is God to Reps, and the more of it in their hands and the less in the hands of others, the better.
BECAUSE of the best efforts of Democrats, with the assent of Republicans, the poor find themselves in this mess the gunverment has created – Uncle Sam's Plantation, in the words of Starr Parker.
Yes, money is the god of many "R"s – but also of just as many 'D"s.
When you do the numbers it becomes evident that the Cost of the War on Poverty is approximately the same as the nation debt? +- $ 16 trillion spent and zero return.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/the-gr…
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/the-ne…
Tell me did they work and is it time to end all welfare and let States create their own economy – ie: COMPETITION.
Many people don’t realize Johnson was a Johnson and a very sexual deviate. He is said to walk naked in front of his daughters.
The man was mentally ill like nearly all political leaders. Yet people vote them in, cheer them on, support their agendas!
So they must be like ’em.
I should of said Demoncrap presidents as strangely Republicans presidents are do not seem to practice sexual immorality like Demoncrap presidents. The one exception seems to be Jimmy Carter.
REMEMBER – CATER DID IT IN HIS MIND AS HE TOLD PLAYBOY IN A INTERVIEW??> HE HE HE
Don’t we all? HeHeHe….
AH, yes! Crazy, senile Bill Moyers, PBS is where old, washed up libtards go to die–just not quickly enough.
Watta mean Washington lost the war on porvery!! They nevre had a handle on it to begin with . Washington a court full of jesters!!!!
The reason the war on poverty can't be won is that it is more like the war on terror than the war on terror itself is.
Providing income supplements to people who don't have enough to live on would eventually break the poverty cycle, except for the fact that people who otherwise by hard work could succeed, will opt for the low stress life, and swell the ranks of the "poor."
We were told that the war on terror was ridiculous because it produced more terrorists. Let's continue with that line of thinking.
An alcoholic leftwinger told me that the reason that Republicans don't cheat on their wives is that no one will sleep with them.
Ha, ha, no bold liberal woman would let a Right Wing politician get his hands on her industrial communist body.