eflatminor
Classical Liberal
- May 24, 2011
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Poverty was at 19% in 1964, and is at 15% now. I don't really want to get into a "new way" to measure poverty. I'm not suggesting entitlement programs are working well now or arent in need of serious reform, but the stark drop off in poverty after 1964 is a testiment to LBJ and the war on poverty.
Yea, the poverty rate did drop between 1964 and 1969, a time when the economy boomed and more importantly, a time period during which entitlements were TINY TINY TINY compared to today. Would LOVE to go back to that level of entitlement spending! Please!
That doesn't change the fact that since entitlement spending REALLY got going around 1970, the poverty rate is up. Best case you can make, it kept things even. MY GOODNESS! Who would invest TRILLIONS of dollars for a return of 'about even'? That's insane.
Then there's the cycle of dependency that breeds so many unproductive lives. It breaks my heart.
LOL - Poverty is up?-----up from what?
Up from down, as AmyNation's chart shows. After LBJ declared war on poverty, the poverty rate dropped-----dropped and has never returned to the levels of pre-war on poverty levels and-----and, please note, the peaks in poverty are during Republican administrations - the valleys are during Democratic administrations.
That chart proves my point. A perfect example of how two people can look at the same data and draw completely opposite conclusions.
The trend was heading DOWN long before the start of the 'great society' in 1964. The entitlements didn't cause the trend to continue down, it was already heading that way. Poverty was heading down because we were transitioning post WII into a modern economy, with its greatly increased division of labor. This is especially true following JKF's tax rate cuts. The economy not only boomed, it transformed. We all got rich by the world standard. It's right there in your own chart!
Worse, when you REALLY started spending on entitlements in 1970, the downward trend stopped. 1969 to now, poverty is UP. Despite the exponential increase in entitlement spending!
You cannot escape the logic. We've FAILED to redistribute our way out of poverty.
I argue we'd have less poverty without the federal meddling. That downward trend before LBJ's progressive dream kicked in would mostly likely have continued heading in that direction. The central planning made it worse.
In order to recreate those halcyon days that you're referencing, we would also have to go back to the same tax rates that contributed to those days, right?
Tell ya what. Let's handle it like you guys always handle tax rate hikes. Instead of higher rates now in return for a promise of a spending "cut" later, you return to 1960s level of entitlement spending now and I promise we'll increase tax rates later. Deal?
Facetiousness aside, the tax rates are a completely different issue to the point at hand. Remember, we're talking about entitlement spending and whether it had a positive effect on poverty. The point remains that entitlement spending in the 60s was NOTHING compared to today. As soon as we started spending heavily, the downward trend stopped...and even got worse. What an expensive lesson!
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