Civics Lesson 101: The War on Poverty

[MaggieMae]

I think that has been a problem with both Democrats and Republicans for a long long time now RW. Perhaps that is why most of the stimulus money went to very rich Americans rather than to create jobs for the unemployed and therefore poor.

The conservative approach is to empower the poor to become more prosperous, and prosperity then bubbles up.

Think about that as an alternative for awhile.

Works for me..

ALL of the Stimulus should have gone for job creation. Allocating 40% for tax cuts is just buying votes

Not one dime of the stimulus money went for tax cuts. You don't buy tax cuts.

Had there been no healthcare overhaul, had there been no stimulus package, had there been no truly indefensible appropriations bills passed to reward cronies, and had the government focused on a positive tax and regulation policy to encourage business to resume investing, buying, hiring, and negotiating contracts, we would be well out of the recession right now.

But they didn't do that did they? They continue to think that more and more oppressive government regulation and the government taking and using and manipulating more and more resources won't continue to have horrendous negative effects on the spirits and prosperity of the people.

Once again, creating a long-term program focusing on positive tax reform and regulation takes time, which we did not have. The stimulus bill was aptly named: The tax cuts afforded businesses were intended to jump start the economy--stop the bleeding--and perform the surgery after the infection was gone. Which is what's happening now. It's truly unfortunate that so many businesses COULD HAVE rehired, but chose instead to sit on their profits and invest in overseas ventures which allowed unemployment to skyrocket.

 

[MaggieMae]

Here's an idea for the poor people. Stop smoking cigarettes, stop buying lottery tickets, stop drinking alcohol, Stop having babies, stop making bad decisions. Maybe after a while you won't be so poor?

You left out the rural communities in the country's midsection where way too many people would prefer to live in trailer parks and earn a living making and selling methamphetamine AND smoke AND drink alcohol AND buy lottery tickets AND put their children at risk. But I'll bet they have one of those little "Don't Tread on Me" flags waving.

 

[MaggieMae]

Not one dime of the stimulus money went for tax cuts. You don't buy tax cuts.

Had there been no healthcare overhaul, had there been no stimulus package, had there been no truly indefensible appropriations bills passed to reward cronies, and had the government focused on a positive tax and regulation policy to encourage business to resume investing, buying, hiring, and negotiating contracts, we would be well out of the recession right now.

But they didn't do that did they? They continue to think that more and more oppressive government regulation and the government taking and using and manipulating more and more resources won't continue to have horrendous negative effects on the spirits and prosperity of the people.

Those tax cuts came out of our hide in direct payouts to taxpayers. The tax cuts did not create jobs.

Everything else you posted is just conjecture and Monday Morning Quarterbacking

You're right.

It's not Nancy's fault. She can't fix anything but voting results. Nancy can only create multi demensional, big cost, ineffective, ill aimed, poorly executed, money wasting, confusing, half baked, comprimised delusions based on lies, misdirection and ideological slogans.

Let's pose a problem that needs a solution:

It becomes apparent that a car won't stop quickly enough.

The Nancy Pelosi Multi-Step Comprehensive Initiative to Eliminate the Dangers Posed by a Car That Does Not Stop Quickly Enough and Save the Children:

Re-pave all roads,
put a canopy over the roads to prevent the danger of slick pavement,
post signs to warn that the cars can't stop quickly,
build fences with access points and paint in cross walks,
increase the fines for not stopping,
make not stopping a Hate Crime,
encourage everyone to buy green zero emission cars,
provide tax credits for the purchase of solar panels,
mount a PR campaign against Rush Limbaugh because he can stop his car and finally provide funds for counseling for the driver so he will understand that stopping is just something he will never be able to do.

Overall cost? About a Trillion dollars.

A sane person might examine another option which would be to fix the brakes for about $500.00.

$500 bucks even for me would be difficult. It would be downright impossible for someone earning $40,000 to come up with immediately. So much for THAT analogy.

 

[MaggieMae]

The way to find your way out of poverty is work your way out of poverty. This is not an easy thing to do. If you come from poverty, it is likely that you have nobody to show you how to do this. Outside of mastering a skill or developing a steady, consistant work ethic, you must also understand that the Boss is not automatically your enemy.

A kid who understands team work in a sports sense may not understand that it applies in a workplace, also. If he can be taught to see and communicate with the boss as he would with a coach, he will find greater success than he will if he sees the boss as a cop and communicates with him as he would if he was a criminal.

I've had the same conversation with a pretty good number of kids who are in the "first real job" trying to bring them to an understanding of how to speak with the supervisor and how to offer themselves to the team in order that they advance in the company.

The problem is not that they are stupid or that they are incapable. The problem is that they have been beat by circmstance so often that they have become afraid to hope. The slightest obstacle fulfils their own prophecy that the game is rigged. My life has taught me that there is always another way if this one doesn't work.

Their lives' experiences have often demonstrated that every way leads to the same dead end.

If you add to that sum of experience limited literacy or a criminal record, you start to understand the "cycle of poverty".

If you have nothing, it takes very little to lose it all. Every problem could spell the end and every conflict could change your life.

Good points. Experiences do affect the development of a child into a responsible adult.

The experiences fostered by the Great Society Programs have been ones of abdication of responsibility, aggrieved victimhood, and dependence upon the government. Given the generations produced, the Great Society has been an EPIC FAIL.

Code writes an excellent analysis on some of the roots of poverty, and of course you must give him kudos because he's someone from your "side," but then of course must get your licks in about the Great Society. You would much rather play the blame game than discuss solutions in an intelligent manner.

 

[MaggieMae]

OK...

Let's end Medicaid, food stamps, public assistance, subsidized housing, earned income credit, progressive income taxation, heat/energy assistance programs, public school, the minimum wage, every needs based program funded by government, and whatever else I'm leaving out.

There, now they're all gone.

Tell us, how long before we then see a substantial reduction in the amount of poverty in this country?

Don't laugh, this is what conservatives are claiming.

Well, suppose you take away half of those entitlements and give them free day care. Then tell them to go out and work or go get their GED? Probably wouldn't work now because of the job situation, but it would have worked ten years ago.

And it did!! I believe there was (is) some provision in the law that gives childcare assistance if a welfare mom is in a job training program. The history of Welfare to Work is consolidated below. The success of it in recent years has become questionable because of the huge disparity in earnings which keeps the poverty level low in spite of people (especially women with children) who have succeeded with the program.

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[MaggieMae]

With no guarantee that the numbers are necessarily accurate, study the following chart:

President Johnson announced his landmark "War on Poverty" at the State of the Union Address in January, 1964.

President Obama will probably mention something akin to poverty at his State of the Union Address 47 years later in January, 2011.

So what do the numbers tell you?

Government is necessary to deal with poverty?

Government does a good job in addressing poverty?

Government makes little or no difference in reducing poverty and could have saved a shipload of the people's money--make that mega trillions--if it had not initiated a 'war on poverty'?

Government actually contributes to poverty?

Or something in between?

Or none of the above?

In framing your conclusions, bear in mind that the above graphic does not include the changing definition of 'poverty' over the years, does not highlight the temporarily 'poor' due to joblessness, etc., and does not illustrate factors such as 12 to 20 million additional undocumented people since 1980 being included in the equation.

That chart, if it proves anything at all, proves that Johnson's War on poverty might have been working until Reagan came into office and started his assault on the working class.

Bear in mind that is not what I say it proves, but it could be interpreted that way if one were foolish enough to try to make such an argument based on only one metric.

How do you account for the fact that the numbers were falling prior to 1965?

And speaking of empty rhetoric, what's that "....until Reagan came into office and started his assault on the working class" dreck?

The 1950's was a period of economic growth and prosperty, to answer your first question.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Welfare is self defeating.

You see your parents get up everyday and go to work. That preps you to get a job later in life.

You see your parents up after you come home from school, sitting around doing nothing. That preps you to do the same.

We have know this for at least 37 of those 47 years. And yet the dems constantly increase spending on something they must know doesn't work. So logically they must be doing it to keep the poor voting for them. And by increasing the debt we devalue the dollar, making more people poor and therefore reliant on the dems.

It's blatant for all that can see.

 

[MaggieMae]

The 'War on Poverty' was called the Office of Economic Opportunity. The core principles were opportunity, responsibility, community and empowerment. The program goals were maximum feasible participation. One of the concepts of empowerment was poor people had a right to one-third of the seats on every local poverty program board, so they had a say in what were the priorities in their community. It was a community based program that focused on education as the keys to the city. Programs such as VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action Program, and Head Start were created to increase opportunity for the poor so they could pull themselves out of poverty with a hand UP, not a hand out.

This is a key point that isn't broadly understood. There are many out there who believe the War on Poverty refers to some kind of cash assistance program, which they envision to be some kind of souped-up version of AFDC.

The reality is that it refers to a series of programs aimed at providing or achieving education, job training, and individual empowerment. I suppose it would help if every time one is tempted to use the phrase "War on Poverty" he instead substitutes in some of the actual programs ("Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Work-Study Program, Adult Basic Education, Rural Loan Program, Employment and Investment Incentives, Work Experience Program, VISTA, the Community Action Program etc").

And you're right to point out the max feas provision of the Community Action Program. The interpretation of that phrase during the implementation of the War on Poverty is a long and complicated story but it does underscore the point that the importance of individual empowerment (not cash transfers), along with skills acquisition (via educational opportunities and job training/experience ventures) was the bedrock philosophical principle underlying the "war." Exactly the sort of attitude many have taken already in this thread.

Yet, after 50 years and trillions upon trillions of dollars of expropriation and redistribution, you schmucks still mewl that poverty, hunger, homelessness and "income equity" are worse than ever.

Like that's supposed to be evidence of success?

It isn't successful. That's part of the argument. But with all those trillions, what part did private enterprise try to play to reduce the dependence?

 

[MaggieMae]

Only took 13 posts for someone to cower behind the sainted chiiiillllldrrreeennnnnn!

Of course YOU were never one yourself. Actually, most of the time you don't act like a well-rounded adult either, so you float somewhere in between.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that rhetorical coward leftists like you can't make your point with reason, so y'all cower behind the elderly, infirm, the pooooor and the chiiilllldrreeennnnn.

I think I've made my points intellectually and with common sense. You, on the other hand, harbor such hatred of anyone left of the far right that you still cannot write a decent post without resorting to childish insults.

 

[MaggieMae]

Poverty breeds poverty. It takes money to make money. Lack of opportunity which results from poverty, leads to a lack of opportunity, like education, which leads to low-paying jobs, which again leads to lack of opportunity, perpetuating the cycle.

Education is the answer. Making sure that even students in crumbling schools with inadequate teachers have the opportunity to learn the same things that more affluent students are afforded. We can't continue to keep passing along failing students just because it's convenient or because quotas need to be met. Only then will the cycle begin to end. It's going to take a serious effort by both the government and local communities comprised of private enterprises stepping up to the plate.

College is mostly just another scam these days, subsidized by the Government in many cases. More people are college educated today than they were 20-30-70 years ago and the question remains… If education was the answer, why are people still claiming it’s all we need to “fix” problems…

Education is like a magic word, as if someone is educated that makes them “better than” or in some way smarter. Fact is most education has been used as a tool to do less challenging work for more pay, that is one of the reasons this recession is so bad.

Employers realized they simply don’t need to pay someone 40$ an hour that someone off the street could do for 10.

I'm not talking about college education. Frankly, I agree that college can often be a big fat waste of time, considering how much it costs. I'm talking about primary, basic education (K-12), read'n, 'right'n, 'rithmetic, with gradual doses of basic science, geography, history, and civics so that every child has a well-rounded overview to advance his/her education or basic knowledge in order to enter the workforce.

 

[MaggieMae]

The poor will always be with us.

The idea is, like Franklin said, not to enable the poor to be comfortable and complacent in their poverty.

Sure, he said that when several generations of the family unit all lived under the same roof, and they took care of their own. He said that when "poor houses" or locking up the crazies were last resorts. But this is the 21st Century.

Granted, there are many who work the system to their advantage when they're fully capable of being on their own, but I still believe those are in the minority. I repeat: Most illiterate people who have never known anything BUT illiteracy and resulting ignorance about parenting, money, work ethics, etc., aren't going to turn around their lives if you just cut them off from life sustaining subsidies when that's all they've ever known unless there are visible options.

Oh, so families looking after their own is now so passe, that we need to punt them to Big Daddy Big Gubmint?

Talk about heartless.

You are one pathetic contortionist, my friend. Beyond comprehension skills. I neither said, nor implied, any such thing.

 

[MaggieMae]

It may not be reduced, but the working people will no longer be enabling and subsidizing it. How is poverty reduced by someone spending their entire lives on the dole at the poverty level?

Jeeesh.

That's just it: It isn't reduced. If all subsidizes were eliminated, people would be wandering the streets in droves panhandling or stealing; they would be flooding emergency rooms because they're hungry and sick. Crime would exponentially rise.

Look...Up in the sky....

It's a bird....

It's a plane....

No, it's.....

Feel better asshole?

 

[MaggieMae]

So we have made little to no difference in poverty......

I wonder why?????

No matter what you truly believe to be true; here is a little fact and history lesson.

Roughly 2000 years ago some wrote down that a man said "the poor will always be with you." or words to that effect.

Who ever said it or wrote it seems to have been right. The poor are still here 2000 years later.

I have seen significant impact on poverty in my lifetime. Yes, we still have people we label poor, but they are not the same poor that were around in the 60s. Poor back then meant no running water, no electricity, no central heat. People still struggle today, but the definition of what makes one poor has changed

Good point, look at all those poor people on welfare with cell phones, flat screen TV's, Ipods, new cars, PS3, GameBox, Wii, etc etc etc........

I blame that on the marketing of those items. Let's just say that those people who can't afford such toys don't buy them. How long before they or their kids would start to steal them instead because they are exposed to their more affluent peers for whom there seems to be no limit on the "stuff" they have? Also, I might add that flat screen tvs, cell phones and computers have come way down in price as competition (marketing) is fierce. One more thing: As the more affluent get bored with their toys (because they can readily afford them), they move on to the next level: A TV, a computer in every room in the house and three cars instead of two. It's all relevant. Show me an American (ANY American, rich or poor) who still doesn't live beyond their means, and those persons or person would be a rare breed.

 

[MaggieMae]

It may not be reduced, but the working people will no longer be enabling and subsidizing it. How is poverty reduced by someone spending their entire lives on the dole at the poverty level?

Jeeesh.

That's just it: It isn't reduced. If all subsidizes were eliminated, people would be wandering the streets in droves panhandling or stealing; they would be flooding emergency rooms because they're hungry and sick. Crime would exponentially rise.

This isn't something that must be addressed because it could happen. Poverty on that level is HERE, in huge numbers, and the answer to ending the cycle is not simply to shut off the spigot. You'll be tripping over dead bodies.

Yes, I just am left wondering how America made it before Government paid people to be poor...

It's already been discussed. Pay attention.

 

[snjmom]

The war on poverty has worked. It has just worked for a demographic that just doesn't count.

100 years ago, most people living in the U.S. were male, under 23 years old, lived in the country and rented their homes. Almost half of all the people in the U.S. lived in households with five or more other people.

Today, most people in the U.S. are female, 35 years old or older and live in metropolitan areas where they own their home. Most people in the U.S. now either live alone or in a households with no more than one or two other people.

It has first and foremost benefited the vilified single parent. I'll grant there will always be completely horrible people on welfare but the percentage is probably equal to the percentage of soldiers that murder. And I don't see anyone advocating we get rid of our military.

 

[Oddball]

The war on poverty has worked. It has just worked for a demographic that just doesn't count.

Yeah...The bureaucrats.

 

[MaggieMae]

Well I for one don't mind bringing the children into the mix.

What child benefits most?

The one who knows Mom didn't marry Dad and Dad never comes around but he still enjoys designer jeans, sneakers, and an Xbox?

The one who knows Mom didn't finish highschool and can't write a coherent sentence but they still have a car that runs, a good television set, and cell phones?

The one who sees Mom getting tats and smoking cigarettes and playing the lottery with full security that the government check will be there the first of each month?

or

The child who has a Mom and Dad at home and watches them budget their money to see what they can afford in the way of clothes, conveniences, luxuries?

The child who is encouraged to get a diploma like Mom and Dad and to get decent grades in school and learn responsibility through reasonable chores and maybe an afterschool job?

The child who sees Mom and Dad getting up every morning, getting cleaned up, getting appropriately dressed, and going to work to bring home a paycheck?

. . . . ..

Which of these children is less likely to wind up in poverty?

Which situation should we be promoting for children?

Those who can't answer those questions in a reasonable manner I think really don't belong in the debate.

So you define the problems and suggest what should be done (which really isn't new), but don't offer any suggestions on how to get there. THAT is the problem. Everyone (EVERYONE!!!!) knows what it is, but it is now so gigantic, it will take a helluva lot more than speeches (and money) to solve the problem.
If the demand is that the government get out of the business of education, then the private sector needs to get on board BIG TIME. Which they most certainly have not done. A few charter schools here and there financed by philanthropists, etc., where kids need to attend a lottery drawing in order to have a chance to attend one just doesn't cut it.

The problem is not that we are not educating kids. The problem is that we are not educating kids in doing things that they absolutely must understand in order to find moderate success in life.

I could have used a course in how to balance a check book. An idea of what happens when I flush a toilet would have been nice. How to replace a light switch. How to take a job interview. How to tie a Windsor Knot. Why holding any job makes a guy more attractive when applying for a different job.

What are the correct words to recite when you meet a person who can hire you? What is the essential thing a supervisor must know about you after you have been hired? Why a person must be ashamed of accdepting cash from the public dole and why it is a source of pride to pay your own way.

How do you develop and maintain a credit rating. Why is debt bad? Why is a savings account good? How much must you save from every check in order to prosper? Why does a stock gain value? What's the point in buying a home? What is compound interest?

These are things that should be taught in public schools in every grade from K-12. Every year. It should be like the ABC's and, on that, everybody should be able to read and write. Vandals and trouble makers must be taken aside and kept from wrecking the education of others.

The educational system is paid for by the public and should prepare our children to earn money and pay taxes. If there are those who choose to be dilinquents, quarentine them like anyone who would otherwise introduce destructive disease to the population. The Kiddie Big House.

Feel good, touchy feely, worthless and time wasting personality building is a waste of time and does not enhance test scores as our failing test scores amply demonstrate. If we provide something that is worth learning, the kids will learn it.

Rather than conditioning them to accept that being gay is the best thing that they can do, why not teach them that they are capable of earning a living and that earning money gives them the freedom to do what they want to do?

I was agreeing with everything until I got to the gay part. Like HUH? If you were going to use that kind of analogy, it should have been that kids should be taught that not everybody is a winner deserving of a trophy which seems to be the norm in households and on the school playing fields these days. Losers may cry a little, but they will only learn compassion by winning some/losing some.

 

[MaggieMae]

Of course YOU were never one yourself. Actually, most of the time you don't act like a well-rounded adult either, so you float somewhere in between.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that rhetorical coward leftists like you can't make your point with reason, so y'all cower behind the elderly, infirm, the pooooor and the chiiilllldrreeennnnn.

You just prove my points. You folks on the right NEVER measure in human capital, unless it effects one of your three priorities...ME, MYSELF or I.

Then you ostracize liberals who DO measure in human capital, because YOU certainly couldn't be wrong, heartless, self centered or narcissistic. So your only explanation is it HAS to be that liberals are just lying about their empathy...then you don't have to face the fact you are a scum bag.


"Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They approve of social security benefits-so much so that they took them away from almost a million people. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them. They believe in international trade--so much so that they crippled our reciprocal trade program, and killed our International Wheat Agreement. They favor the admission of displaced persons--but only within shameful racial and religious limitations.They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They say TVA is wonderful--but we ought never to try it again. They condemn "cruelly high prices"--but fight to the death every effort to bring them down. They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."
President Harry S. Truman

Give 'em hell, Harry!!

 

[MaggieMae]

You forgot..... Stop paying the rent, stop heating your home, stop getting sick, stop dreaming about educating your kids

Sorry Leftwinger - Actions have consequences. If you spend your life smoking cigarettes, getting high, drinking alcohol, and buying lottery tickets - you're life may not be so great. If you can't afford to pay your bills - Move in with family or friends, share expenses with other people that make bad decisions like you, eat less food. The best education you can give your kids is by example. Stop being a loser.

I agree with Zander in principle, but I also know that he can't quantify the numbers that make "bad decisions." Wherever assistance is granted (it's not a right), accountability must be given by the recipient. Documented works project activities should be part of the program, as the recipients move toward becoming taxpayers.

One of the reasons for that is that "wefare" workers generally are underpaid and overworked themselves, being assigned caseloads that don't allow for time to followup on the activities of the recipients. If more people would become rats and blow the whistle on individuals they KNOW are abusing the system, that would help.

 

[snjmom]

The war on poverty has worked. It has just worked for a demographic that just doesn't count.

Yeah...The bureaucrats.

Wrong again. Single mothers have seen their poverty rate cut in half by these programs. As previously noted, the majority of cash benefit recipients are out in 2-3 yrs, long enough to get an associates and potty train their children so they can be accepted in pre-schools. The generational recipients almost overwhelmingly have disability issues involved.