LBJ's "War on Poverty" has been a dismal failure

[ilia25]

I never said anything about attending college or getting a degree. I never went to college. Instead, I used my worth ethic to secure a job in a field that I liked. Then I educated myself as much as possible about the job and developed my skills in performing the job. I worked at that job for 20 years, and then I went out on my own and started my own business in that same field. I owned that company for 18 years and used it to support my family and better myself and improve my lifestyle. I sold my company last year and made enough money from it to support me and my family in my retirement years.
If I can do it, so can you and everyone else. You don't need a college education to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make your life better. All it takes is a little hard work and a lot of determination.

No, you are wrong -- we can't all become business owners. Only some of us can.

It's like a race -- yes, you can beat others by working harder, but there is not enough room on the podium to accommodate every participant. No matter how hard every participant tries, only very few of them end up as winners.

Then why be content to remain one who can't? The economy is not a 'zero-sum' game. Just because one person makes a lot that doesn't mean that someone else has to make less.

In does in practice. The richest elite incomes grow so fast, they actually pocket all newly created wealth. That's why the middle class incomes are stagnating, and the poor actually see their real incomes falling.

What you can accomplish, and earn, is up to you and not someone else.

Of course not! If that someone else is more talented and/or working harder than you, he will take your job, or put you out of business. There is room for only so many successful entrepreneurs, CEOs or expensive lawyers. The rest will work low paying jobs no matter what.

 

[ilia25]

I never said anything about attending college or getting a degree. I never went to college. Instead, I used my worth ethic to secure a job in a field that I liked. Then I educated myself as much as possible about the job and developed my skills in performing the job. I worked at that job for 20 years, and then I went out on my own and started my own business in that same field. I owned that company for 18 years and used it to support my family and better myself and improve my lifestyle. I sold my company last year and made enough money from it to support me and my family in my retirement years.
If I can do it, so can you and everyone else. You don't need a college education to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make your life better. All it takes is a little hard work and a lot of determination.

No, you are wrong -- we can't all become business owners. Only some of us can.

It's like a race -- yes, you can beat others by working harder, but there is not enough room on the podium to accommodate every participant. No matter how hard every participant tries, only very few of them end up as winners.

I wanted to come back and address this post with another thought. Yes, there will always be winners and losers in life. Not everyone can be a CEO, or a business owner or a supervisor of computer programmers. Every person can, however, do as much as their education, talents and determination will allow them. Otoh, no matter how much technology is improved upon in our lives, and no matter how much easier those improvements make our lives, there will always be a need for basic laborers. There will always be a need for cashiers, for food workers, for cab drivers and for ditch diggers. No one should ever be ashamed for filling the needs of others, no matter what that need may be. So whatever your particular niche in life may be, do the best you can, and do it with pride. You CAN make whatever improvements in your life that your particular job or payscale will allow. You DON"T have to sit at home and collect welfare.

But helping the poor is not about paying welfare to able people sitting at home. It's about making sure that those who can't work live in dignity, just as those working the minimal wage.

 

[Sunshine]

LBJ's "War on Poverty" has been a dismal failure


Today, the poverty rate is only slightly below where it was in 1964, and it came with a $20 trillion price tag. What’s more, a record 47 million Americans are now receiving food stamps, which is about 13 million more than when the President Obama took office.

Actually, the war on poverty hasn’t failed. It has done exactly what it was intended to do: enrich and empower the state and its interest groups. One of the problems of being a think-tank is that you must accept the state’s bona fides, or be fired. Only radical criticism, however, criticism that goes to the root, in other words, has a chance of delegitimizing these evil activities.

”

LBJ's war on poverty was nothing more than a mechanism to distract attention from Vietnam which he was cranking up so he could make mega millions off of it. And that's pretty much all there is to that.

 

[Papawx3]

No, you are wrong -- we can't all become business owners. Only some of us can.

It's like a race -- yes, you can beat others by working harder, but there is not enough room on the podium to accommodate every participant. No matter how hard every participant tries, only very few of them end up as winners.

I wanted to come back and address this post with another thought. Yes, there will always be winners and losers in life. Not everyone can be a CEO, or a business owner or a supervisor of computer programmers. Every person can, however, do as much as their education, talents and determination will allow them. Otoh, no matter how much technology is improved upon in our lives, and no matter how much easier those improvements make our lives, there will always be a need for basic laborers. There will always be a need for cashiers, for food workers, for cab drivers and for ditch diggers. No one should ever be ashamed for filling the needs of others, no matter what that need may be. So whatever your particular niche in life may be, do the best you can, and do it with pride. You CAN make whatever improvements in your life that your particular job or payscale will allow. You DON"T have to sit at home and collect welfare.

But helping the poor is not about paying welfare to able people sitting at home. It's about making sure that those who can't work live in dignity, just as those working the minimal wage.

But neither is it about stealing from others to give to them just so that they can feel better about themselves. It's about teaching them how to stand up and make their own way in life.
If a person doesn't make as much at a particular job as they might need to support themselves, then they can take a second job, and if necessary a third. They won't be the first people to ever work multiple jobs and they won't be the last. A little hard work never hurt anyone. To the contrary, it teaches a person the value of both work and money, and teaches them to value both.

 

[Contumacious]

Social Security and Medicare alone moved elderly Americans from the most likely to live in poverty to the least.

Social Security and Medicare are income taxes. NOTHING prevents individuals from saving in their own retirement accounts.

When are folks going to learn that if they don't save the consequences will be deadly.


.

 

[ilia25]

I wanted to come back and address this post with another thought. Yes, there will always be winners and losers in life. Not everyone can be a CEO, or a business owner or a supervisor of computer programmers. Every person can, however, do as much as their education, talents and determination will allow them. Otoh, no matter how much technology is improved upon in our lives, and no matter how much easier those improvements make our lives, there will always be a need for basic laborers. There will always be a need for cashiers, for food workers, for cab drivers and for ditch diggers. No one should ever be ashamed for filling the needs of others, no matter what that need may be. So whatever your particular niche in life may be, do the best you can, and do it with pride. You CAN make whatever improvements in your life that your particular job or payscale will allow. You DON"T have to sit at home and collect welfare.

But helping the poor is not about paying welfare to able people sitting at home. It's about making sure that those who can't work live in dignity, just as those working the minimal wage.

But neither is it about stealing from others to give to them just so that they can feel better about themselves. It's about teaching them how to stand up and make their own way in life.
If a person doesn't make as much at a particular job as they might need to support themselves, then they can take a second job, and if necessary a third. They won't be the first people to ever work multiple jobs and they won't be the last. A little hard work never hurt anyone. To the contrary, it teaches a person the value of both work and money, and teaches them to value both.

Well, here lies the real difference between liberals and conservatives.

You, the conservatives, think it is fair when millions have to choose between working 80 hour weeks and living in poverty, so that a few thousands families could drown themselves in luxury.

We, liberals, think that this is nuts, pure and simple. That this is not America we should be proud of.

 

[Papawx3]

So you would have the US Government tell people that all their education, dedication and hard work are for naught? And you would have that government tell individuals that they have too much or make too much so they are going to have to give some (most) of it up to that same government to be redistributed among those who have less? (Keep in mind that in such a scenario, the "government" would keep 90%+ of what it extorts for itself and "redisribute" what they think is "appropriate".)
You're kidding, right??

 

[ilia25]

So you would have the US Government tell people that all their education, dedication and hard work are for naught?

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?

And you would have that government tell individuals that they have too much or make too much so they are going to have to give some (most) of it up to that same government to be redistributed among those who have less?
You're kidding, right??

Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

 

[Papawx3]

So you would have the US Government tell people that all their education, dedication and hard work are for naught?

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?

And you would have that government tell individuals that they have too much or make too much so they are going to have to give some (most) of it up to that same government to be redistributed among those who have less?
You're kidding, right??

Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

Yes, I know. But the only thing they have succeeded in doing over that 100 years is to create more people with no pride about themselves and who are content to live off the public teat.

 

[ilia25]

So you would have the US Government tell people that all their education, dedication and hard work are for naught?

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?

And you would have that government tell individuals that they have too much or make too much so they are going to have to give some (most) of it up to that same government to be redistributed among those who have less?
You're kidding, right??

Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

Yes, I know. But the only thing they have succeeded in doing over that 100 years is to create more people with no pride about themselves and who are content to live off the public teat.

You know, it's kind of arrogant to suggest this is the only thing this country has achieved in the past 100 years.

Even more arrogant is to suggest that people working low paying job have no pride in them. Not for a conservative though -- you have no respect for hard working people unless they are business owners or otherwise making at least a six figure salary.

OK, emotions aside, here is your problem -- you think that whatever income distribution market creates is fair by definition. Even if market creates a banana republic outcome, with a tiny super-rich elite pocketing most of nation's income -- you think this is fine, and for sure better than any attempt of income redistribution by the government.

The question you should ask yourself is why do you think that way?

 

[Bfgrn]

That's not empirical proof, just a quote. Now, tell us when the War on Poverty has ever been successful. Nuh-uh, no running!

You should reflect on that quote by Edmund Burke before spewing your fog of words, Bfgrn.

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde

The [in quotes] statement is based on facts...

"During the Shriver years more Americans got out of poverty than during any similar time in our history. (The Clinton years - employing the same philosophy - were the second best.)"

Everything you need to know about the war on poverty

Many of the war on poverty's programs — like Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, Head Start, Job Corps, VISTA and Title I — are still in place today. The Nixon administration largely dismantled the OEO, distributing its functions to a variety of other federal agencies, and eventually the office was renamed in 1975 and then shuttered for good in 1981.

5. Did it reduce poverty, actually?

It did. A recent study from economists at Columbia broke down changes in poverty before and after the government gets involved in the form of taxes and transfers, and found that, when you take government intervention into account, poverty is down considerably from 1967 to 2012, from 26 percent to 16 percent:

While that doesn't allow us to see how poverty changed between the start of the war in 1964 and the start of the data in 1967, the most noticeable trend here is that the gap between before-government and after-government poverty just keeps growing. In fact, without government programs, poverty would have actually increased over the period in question. Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty in 2012 than we did in 1967.

LOL. No. 47 million people are in poverty.

Government is the cause of poverty, not the cure for it.

You come back with an opinion POLL?

WOW, how 'scientific'

You are an idiot...lol

 

[Bfgrn]

One burning question:

If the war on poverty actually succeeded, why are there 91 million people sitting at home right now not working?

Oh yeah that's right. You'd rather build the fire for the man and keep him warm for a day, not teach him to build it and be warm for the rest of his life.

Because there hasn't been enough bureaucracy and money thrown at it, even after the erection of uncountable agencies, programs and the expenditure of tens of trillions of dollars.

We just have to put the *right* Marxist central planners in place, then everything will be sunshine and peace beads.

Seriously?

There are not enough JOBS.

1 job for every 3 unemployed Americans

That's better than the 7 Americans competing for every open position in 2009, but it's still double the prerecession levels.

1 job for every 3 unemployed Americans- MSN Money

Your beloved private sector f***ed you in the ass, and you folks bring the Vaseline...

 

[Contumacious]

Why is Medicaid a failure? More importantly, what conservative plan would work better than Medicaid?

Medicaid and Medicare are two primary reasons healthcare is so expensive for those not covered by those programs.

.

 

[Papawx3]

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?



Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

Yes, I know. But the only thing they have succeeded in doing over that 100 years is to create more people with no pride about themselves and who are content to live off the public teat.

You know, it's kind of arrogant to suggest this is the only thing this country has achieved in the past 100 years.

Even more arrogant is to suggest that people working low paying job have no pride in them. Not for a conservative though -- you have no respect for hard working people unless they are business owners or otherwise making at least a six figure salary.

OK, emotions aside, here is your problem -- you think that whatever income distribution market creates is fair by definition. Even if market creates a banana republic outcome, with a tiny super-rich elite pocketing most of nation's income -- you think this is fine, and for sure better than any attempt of income redistribution by the government.

The question you should ask yourself is why do you think that way?

I never said it was the ONLY thing this country has achieved in the past 100 years. But like a true liberal, you take what is said, twist it, turn it and then try to make it sound like something entirely different. But why should I be surprised?

 

[HelenaHandbag]

So you would have the US Government tell people that all their education, dedication and hard work are for naught?

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?

How sporting of you to allow someone you have mugged, to keep enough money for cab fare home.

And you would have that government tell individuals that they have too much or make too much so they are going to have to give some (most) of it up to that same government to be redistributed among those who have less?
You're kidding, right??

Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

Yes, you are telling them that they are making too much, by taking away a portion of what you deem to be too much, in order to give to people who have done nothing to deserve those resources.

But at least you're a semi-honest Marxist, which is more than seems to be customary around here.

 

[HelenaHandbag]

One burning question:

If the war on poverty actually succeeded, why are there 91 million people sitting at home right now not working?

Oh yeah that's right. You'd rather build the fire for the man and keep him warm for a day, not teach him to build it and be warm for the rest of his life.

Because there hasn't been enough bureaucracy and money thrown at it, even after the erection of uncountable agencies, programs and the expenditure of tens of trillions of dollars.

We just have to put the *right* Marxist central planners in place, then everything will be sunshine and peace beads.

Seriously?

There are not enough JOBS.

1 job for every 3 unemployed Americans

That's better than the 7 Americans competing for every open position in 2009, but it's still double the prerecession levels.

1 job for every 3 unemployed Americans- MSN Money

Your beloved private sector f***ed you in the ass, and you folks bring the Vaseline...

That there aren't enough jobs relates to my point in what way?


My beloved private sector would be far better off without smug Marxist plunderers like you, pretending that you know better how to dispose of the earnings of another, more so than those who have done the earning.

 

[ilia25]

Yes, I know. But the only thing they have succeeded in doing over that 100 years is to create more people with no pride about themselves and who are content to live off the public teat.

You know, it's kind of arrogant to suggest this is the only thing this country has achieved in the past 100 years.

Even more arrogant is to suggest that people working low paying job have no pride in them. Not for a conservative though -- you have no respect for hard working people unless they are business owners or otherwise making at least a six figure salary.

OK, emotions aside, here is your problem -- you think that whatever income distribution market creates is fair by definition. Even if market creates a banana republic outcome, with a tiny super-rich elite pocketing most of nation's income -- you think this is fine, and for sure better than any attempt of income redistribution by the government.

The question you should ask yourself is why do you think that way?

I never said it was the ONLY thing this country has achieved in the past 100 years. But like a true liberal, you take what is said, twist it, turn it and then try to make it sound like something entirely different. But why should I be surprised?

You said "the only thing they have succeeded in doing" -- while commenting on the central feature of the US domestic policy for the past 100 years.

And sure you've ignored the important question -- are you OK with America turning into a banana republic, if it is the market that creates such an income distribution?

And if you think that "banana republic" is a wild exaggeration, here is anoter picture for you:

 

[hazlnut]

LBJ's "War on Poverty" has been a dismal failure


Today, the poverty rate is only slightly below where it was in 1964, and it came with a $20 trillion price tag. What’s more, a record 47 million Americans are now receiving food stamps, which is about 13 million more than when the President Obama took office.

Actually, the war on poverty hasn’t failed. It has done exactly what it was intended to do: enrich and empower the state and its interest groups. One of the problems of being a think-tank is that you must accept the state’s bona fides, or be fired. Only radical criticism, however, criticism that goes to the root, in other words, has a chance of delegitimizing these evil activities.

”

Um… they stopped funding most of those programs when we went to war in vietnam.

If you want to call medicare a failure and defund it…. you're very brave.

 

[ilia25]

So you would have the US Government tell people that all their education, dedication and hard work are for naught?

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?

How sporting of you to allow someone you have mugged, to keep enough money for cab fare home.

You have to be quite a nutjob to equate paying taxes to being mugged. Or, for that matter, a few millions of after tax income to a cab fare.

And you would have that government tell individuals that they have too much or make too much so they are going to have to give some (most) of it up to that same government to be redistributed among those who have less?
You're kidding, right??

Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

Yes, you are telling them that they are making too much, by taking away a portion of what you deem to be too much, in order to give to people who have done nothing to deserve those resources.

OK, I guess I am telling that rich are making too much in this country. 'Cause it's true.

You, the other hand, claiming that hard working people have done nothing to deserve their fair share of the wealth they helped to create -- well, I was about to describe it as a new low, but on the second thought, this is something conservatives always believed.

Simply working hard a honest job is not something a person should be proud for or being respected for -- not in your book.

 

[Papawx3]

Of course not! Even if someone making millions have to give up "most" of his/her income in taxes, what's left would still make for quite a bit more than a decent living, don't you think?

How sporting of you to allow someone you have mugged, to keep enough money for cab fare home.

You have to be quite a nutjob to equate paying taxes to being mugged. Or, for that matter, a few millions of after tax income to a cab fare.

Nobody is telling anyone that they make too much. But redistributing income from the rich to the poor is a good policy -- and no, I am not kidding you, the US government is doing it for the past 100 years at least.

Yes, you are telling them that they are making too much, by taking away a portion of what you deem to be too much, in order to give to people who have done nothing to deserve those resources.

OK, I guess I am telling that rich are making too much in this country. 'Cause it's true.

You, the other hand, claiming that hard working people have done nothing to deserve their fair share of the wealth they helped to create -- well, I was about to describe it as a new low, but on the second thought, this is something conservatives always believed.

Simply working hard a honest job is not something a person should be proud for or being respected for -- not in your book.

Yes, working hard at an honest job is something to be respected. It is demanding that others who work just as hard at other jobs give up part of their wage and give it to you that is both dishonest and disrespectful.