Last year the United States celebrated the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty begun by LBJ in 1964. Over that time the country has spent approximately $40 trillion on welfare and redistribution programs of one sort or another – and that number doesn’t include expenditures for Social Security or Medicare. The program started out slow, but has steadily picked up steam so that today the United States spends over a trillion dollars on welfare programs every year. To put that $1 trillion in perspective, that is more than the GDP of every country on the planet except for the 15 largest. It’s bigger than the GDP of Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, the Netherlands and around 175 others.
That’s a lot of money, but it must be worth it as the War on Poverty must have been a success… right? Not so much. Today poverty in the United States stands at approximately 15% of the population. Fifteen percent sounds relatively low, except when compared to the 18% rate it was $40 trillion dollars ago. After $40 trillion dollars and 50 years, the War on Poverty has reduced poverty by a staggering 3 percentage points! What’s worse, the War on Poverty actually stopped the progress that was already occurring: During the 15 years prior to the beginning of the War on Poverty, the poverty rate in the United States had dropped from 30% to 15%!
Indeed, the single biggest accomplishment of the War on Poverty seems to have been the proliferation of single parent households… i.e. children born out of wedlock. In 1964 the percentage of American children born to unwed mothers was approximately 4%… so out of every 20 babies born, only 1 was born to an unwed mother. Today 8 out of every 20 babies born in the United States is born to an unwed mother. And according to studies by HHS and others, that’s largely because the welfare state has made such as choice feasible: Holding constant a wide range of variables, including income, education, and urban vs. suburban setting, the study found that a 50 percent increase in the value of AFDC and foodstamp payments led to a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.
And the proliferation of unwed motherhood has resulted in a dramatic increase in crime, violent crime in particular. According to the Atlantic Magazine: “The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature.” In 1965 there were 20 violent crimes for every 1000 Americans. By 2013 that number was 37. That doubling might not sound bad, until you realize that the incarceration rate in the US tripled over that same period, which means that as a percentage of the population there are three times as many Americans incarcerated today as there were when the War on Poverty began, but with many more criminals locked up the violent crime rate has still doubled.
So almost $1 trillion a year of welfare spending for half a century has basically made a small decrease in the poverty rate, pushed unwed motherhood through the stratosphere and dramatically increased the violent crime rate and prison population in the country. That sounds like a typical government success story.
Now let’s compare that to what a trillion dollars in one year might look like were in the private sector. Below are fifteen companies whose combined North American revenue was $1 trillion last year: Amazon, Apple, Coke, Disney, ExxonMobil, Facebook, Ford, General Electric, Google, J&J, JP Morgan, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, Walmart.
So these companies with a combined $1 billion in revenue, what have they accomplished? Simply put, they have changed the world. Walmart has almost single handedly changed American retailing and driven inflation down everyone. Amazon redefined retail even further. Microsoft and Apple essentially created the computer revolution. McDonalds feeds the entire US population once a month. Facebook has connected a billion people around the world. Disney has entertained generations, ExxonMobil has fueled their journeys and Ford has built their cars and trucks.
Not only do these companies employ millions of people directly, but indirectly via their suppliers they drive the employment of tens of millions of others. So with a trillion dollars in revenue – money that was willingly exchanged for products and services – these companies have directly or indirectly generated an income for tens of millions of Americans who in turn support millions more family members. And they accomplished all of that while providing material benefits to the country as a whole.
One has to wonder what might have become of poverty had the $40 trillion the government siphoned out of the pockets of hard working Americans over the last half century had been left in their pockets. How many more of those children born to a single mother might have been born into a two parent household, gotten an education and gone on to start the next Disney or FUBU or UBER? How many more Spanx or Harpo Productions or Mary Kay Cosmetics were never founded because single mothers were sitting at home waiting for a welfare check rather than coming up with some revolutionary entrepreneurial moonshot? How many Under Armours or Facebooks or Chipotles never got founded because children grew up in poverty with no positive male role models around to help guide them? How much poverty would have been eliminated had each year’s trillion dollars gone into financing new startups rather than creating a dependency ecosystem?
At the end of the day the War on Poverty has been nothing short of a disaster. Not only has it sucked $40 trillion out of the hands of American workers and entrepreneurs, but it has also created an environment where tragic of circumstances have become the norm for tens of millions of Americans. More crime, more broken families and more broken dreams are the outcome of a half century of government failure. The tragedy is that this abject failure took place during one of the most economically dynamic periods in American history, and as a result of another failed government policy tens of millions of Americans found themselves stuck in the quicksand of government dependency and never had much of a shot at pursuing the American dream and seeing what potential greatness they might have brought to the world.
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I remember the start of the War on Poverty. Its has become another government idea that has gone terribly wrong.
Very old rule: to get more of something, subsidize it. To get less of something, tax it.
So if we subsidize poverty, we get more of it. If we tax progress, we get less of it.
No wonder we are in trouble!
The $40 trillion was spent to buy Dem votes, not to help the poor. The beneficiaries of this spending are Pelosi, Reid, Specter, Durbin, and the other pillars of the left. They are the ones who were helped.
The rest of us: not so much. We got s******.
Or, Prexy’s words, put in the bucket.
In 1965, the US population was about 165 million. Today, it is 325 million. So, 18% of 165 million vs. 15% of 325 million. Looks to me like we are generating poverty for the small fee of $1 trillion a year.
Add to that Obama’s illegal immigrant amnesty. If that went into affect, we could add another 12 million to the poverty roles in one stroke of the pen, because the VAST majority of illegal immigrants can only survive here if subsidized.
This stands right along side of Obamacare which, for a mere $1.2 trillion over a decade will contribute to insuring FEWER than we are now.
Next is climate change, if we allow it. This will suck trillions out of free enterprise and transfer it to the climate change con men. The reason poverty took a precipitous drop after WWII is because, as the only economy left standing, the US boomed. Jobs were abundant and industry needed workers so badly that any prejudices against race were dropped and, for the first time, blacks were able to work in other than the service or agricultural fields. Now, regulations kill manufacturing and the jobs under-skilled people need to make a good living, relegating them back to the service jobs for minimal pay. Boosting the minimum wage is a fool’s errand to compensate for this for it will only result in more jobs lost and a greater cost for goods. So, too will the left wing pursuit of solving the non-existent problem of climate change cause energy costs to “necessarily skyrocket”, further impacting the most those who can afford it the least. Oh, those compassionate liberals.
No wonder all the smart people support Democrats and liberals. Success is addictive.
Looks like LBJ was doing the same thing we saw Obama do:
He saw a strong trend in the direction he wanted and thought he’d just jump on the bandwagon as the trend continued, thereby looking like a hero.
Look that that graph.
Poverty was plummeting down (as a % of the total population) when LBJ pushed his programs onto us.
Then it stalled, as, stated above, bad behavior was rewarded leading to much more of that bad behavior.
Obama, all those years later did the same with his promise of a strong recovery (shovel-ready jobs), his promise of 1,000,000 new manufacturing jobs, his promise of millions of electric cars on US roads, etc.
The trend lines were all in his favor until he subsidized the bad behavior and cause all of the above to stall out.
Obama put up billboards inviting more people to join ”the government dole.”
As a near senior, I got cold calls inviting me to see which programs I qualified for.
People came door-to-door to ”switch out your old energy wasting bulbs with approved ones,”
What did I read just yesterday?
Over 20% of those who do have jobs in poverty-stricken Baltimore work for government!
Government creates wealth like a tick creates blood.
One Baltimore official actually said Baltimore needs to have more of other people’s money from outside Baltimore because the city has run out of people inside the city to tax.
How long can that philosophy last?
Dollars spent by the government don’t evaporate. They go back into circulation within the national economy, where they’re spent again and again paying wages and buying privately produced goods and services.
@Greg:
And just where does the government get those dollars?
So here is the scenario: the government takes $1,000.00 in taxes from me. Then overpaid bureaucrats decided what to do with that money after they take their cut for their salaries and the cost of their agencies. Now that money is reduced to about $750.00 which the government doles out to other agencies that also take their cut before it ever reaches the people.
Which is better? Me putting that $1,000.00 directly into the economy or the bureaucrats taking a 50% cut leaving $500.00 to be put directly into the economy?
Yep, you just confirmed again, you’re an idiot.
The comparative costs of various national defense and social spending items.
For whatever the observation might be worth, few activities irretrievably squander energy and resources like warfare.
Over paid bureaucrats and teachers maybe if the right wingers had worked those jobs things might be more yo their liking but they don’t. They would rather just complain
Retire 05 how about volunteering at an inner city school
@Greg:
Yeah, they go into the pockets of people like Sharpton and Jackson, stealing grant and renewal money and enriching themselves. Obviously, the vast majority of the money is wasted and if it circulates and contributes to someone’s livelihood somewhere, it is definitely not helping the intended recipients; those in poverty actually wishing to better their lot in life.
Which, of course, is the point you are missing, Greg. Before the illustrious “War on Poverty”, a booming economy was working to bring those in poverty OUT of poverty through the power of ambition and work; the very tenets of the conservative ideology. Then, the Democrats began siphoning money that would be working to improve the human condition and started letting the government decide how, when and where it got spent… and wasted. Capitalism works far better than socialism and this is explicit proof.
Yet, national defense is something the government, per the Constitution, is supposed to be doing. Breeding poverty, dependency and corruption does not appear in the Constitution as a function of government.
@Greg:
Heritage puts it at $22 trillion.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
It shows we should have a four trillion surplus in the treasury instead of an 18 trillion debt. It also shows getting rid of the welfare makes for good fiscal policy.
The lib’s pissed and moaned about the war spending…GEE!…I guess we really can afford to kick ass every now and then, absent welfare.
@John: Well, Johnnie, you liberals have a firm grip on the education/indoctrination industry and drive out anyone that does not parrot the party line…. thus, the miserable state of education in the country today. However, if you want conservatives to take over the educational process, rules of engagement concerning discipline, curriculum and political correctness have to be changed drastically… and for the better.
Liberals don’t want that because liberals don’t want smart people hearing their proposals.
John: The life story of Mr. Grey is sad and tragic. However, his life , as the facts unfold should make you re-think your post : A child from a single drug addicted mother. A person who was subjected to lead paint poison which had an effect on brain growth conjoined with a mom who never breast fed and used a pacifier for early childhood development. As school age nears it becomes apparent to the teacher -in-charge at the first grade level that this person is an Ex. Ed student. He is tested, identified and he is under control of Federal and State Mandates from elementary through high school. These costs are heavy to all taxpayers .Mr. Grey has one teacher, many aides, and a host of special professionals :speech, behavior… that he uses his entire school life.
John ,at what juncture does Mr. Grey learn to take responsibility and personal self control in this journey? Can a volunteer change this path to destruction? Moreover, Mr. Grey has now become a truant and most likely a behavior problem. He drops out of school and begins his life via the social service network ,costing any taxpayer ,right and/or left leaning a lot of money. The journey concludes with his drug dealing and the series of arrests which led to his final ride paid for by taxes. Again, this is a sad story ,gut wrenching in that this path is multiplied by thousands of little Greys embarking on a failed journey.
John you need to look for other villains, Retire05 is not one of them.
@Bill, #9:
Typically, the Heritage Foundation article neglects to mention a number of highly relevant facts:
No mention is made that the population of the United States has increased by around 120 million people over the period in question. A rapidly expanding population places rapidly increasing demands on a national economy, and makes the effects of every downturn in the economic cycle much worse. This puts more pressure on a society’s social support mechanisms;
Increasing automation and the mechanization of farming have reduced the demand for labor. Some occupations that I recall from my own early years no longer exist;
The average U.S. life expectancy has increased by over 6 years since 1965, which means that the there are a lot more people living for an increasing number of years after their working years have ended. Real wages have been stagnant or falling, so many people haven’t been able to save enough for retirement. (No to mention the fact that the nation’s financial system has been rigged to the advantage of those who control it and who want to benefit from stock market inflation. Have you checked savings account interest rates lately?)
Women are now part of the workforce. That has become the norm. It isn’t necessarily a matter of choice. It simply takes two paychecks for the average family to pay the bills;
In addition to all of that, the global economic environment has drastically changed. Between 1945 and 1965 the United States had far less economic competition, because much of the industrial infrastructure of Europe had been reduced to ruins during World War 2, and because Second and Third World industrialization was negligible. Millions of American jobs hadn’t yet been lost owing to corporate efforts to boost profits by exploiting dirt cheap overseas labor.
We are talking about the Heritage Foundation, of course, so we can expect such factors to be overlooked when they’re attempting to place blame.
If you’re not doing as well as you think you should be, it’s all because there are families receiving food stamps who are connected to the internet and have cable, or have a flat-screen television. (As if you can find any other sort for a couple of hundred dollars or less these days. Probably you can at the local Goodwill Store, but you’ll need a converter box to use it, unless you have cable.) Or maybe it’s because two-thirds of the poor have a car or truck? (That often being the beater the parent drives to work, where he or she earns a bit less than enough to meet the monthly bills.)
In any case, the Heritage Foundation suggests that such extraordinary excesses on the part of the poor indicate that social support mechanisms are not only unnecessary, but quite likely a driving force behind poverty. We’re apparently making more poverty by providing assistance to the poor, so we should just stop it and everything will get better. The absurdly rich getting even richer even more quickly should do the trick.
@John:
I spent almost two years of my life (23 months to be exact) volunteering after Katrina hit the Gulf coast. What the hell have you ever done? Running your liberal mouth seems to be the only thing you are capable of.
@Greg:
And your point is? Increased population creates an increase for goods and services. Money is not finite.
Tell that to all the illegals that are working in the farming industry. If we have such automation, why do we need illegals?
Women have been part of the workforce since the end of WWII when women decided they wanted their own paychecks.
No, it takes two paychecks to be able to afford those things, like 3-4 bedroom homes in tony subdivisions, that our parents could never have afforded. Material expectations have increased, not the requirements for a decent life.
Why do you fail to recognize that the unions priced themselves out of the market place? Do you really think that a guy who puts tires on a car at a GM assembly line is really worth $40/hr in pay and benefits? Robots could do that job.
So you admit that the “poor” are not really poor, according to basic standards? If you are poor, you cannot afford cable TV, flat screen TVs, X-boxes, expensive athletic shoes, patios, or anything other than the basic housing requirements. And 3-4 bedroom homes are not basic housing.
What welfare has reaped is Baltimore, St. Louis, Ferguson, Chicago and Detroit. Socialist utopian dream cities.
@Greg: Damn you, retire05…. you got to it before I could. You pretty much eviscerated the silly and weak argument lamely offered up by Greg.
I wonder, Greg, why the left can completely overlook the disastrous effects of the Community Reinvestment Act and, instead, blame the ’07 recession on ambiguous, never identified and amorphous “Bush economic policies” yet you can invent a plethora of lame excuses for the utter and complete failure of the “War on Poverty”? Both failures are the results of liberal social engineering.
Notice how you point out the very point I made; the population grew by almost 50% yet you leftists were able to buy down only 3% of the poverty rate with $22 trillion dollars. You further re-make the point that when the economy was humming, poverty was dropping but when the economy stagnates (caused by high taxes, onerous regulations and loss of manufacturing power due to regulations and unions) poverty skyrockets.
Bottom line is, as it always is, capitalism provides the opportunities for personal advancement (if liberals can get over the fact that the harder one works, the more one can earn) and liberalism provides nothing but misery and failure.
Again, retire05…. damn you.
I’m not so much in favor of “buying down poverty” as I am of dealing directly with the reality that 1 out of 5 children isn’t getting enough to eat in a nation where oblivious fat cats whine about high-end tax rates that are presently lower than they were when Ronald Reagan was in office.
@Greg: Ever notice how “fat cats” like the Clinton’s, Soros, Sharpton, Steyer, Pelosi, etc… you know, your usual far left big mouths… never kick in any of THEIR cash to help the plight of those they make all their efforts about keeping in poverty?
Meanwhile, $22 trillion of everyone ELSE’S money has wrought nothing but MORE poverty…. and all you leftists can come up with is, “gimme more”.
@Greg:
So what are their parents spending all the money the get for food stamps on? Children who live in lower income families not only receive food stamps, they get free breakfast and lunch at school, and in the summer, all towns have local places where children under 18 can get free lunch. So why are they hungry if they have access to all those services?
Perhaps we should stop tying food stamps to other programs and limit what can be purchased with food stamps so parents stop buying soft drinks, snack foods and other junk.
In the last year of Reagan’s administration, 1988, the highest income tax rate was 28%. Now it’s 39.6%. Once again, you show what an idiot you are.
The 28 percent rate applied through only one year of the Reagan administration, 1988. The experiment was a total flop, despite the fact that capital gains rates were increased from 15.9 percent (1981) to 23.9 percent (1988)—a hike of a full 8 percent—to help offset revenue losses. Deficits immediately began climbing. The top income tax rate was increased to 31 percent for 1992, and then to 39.6 percent for 1993. Both of those rate increases were enacted while George H. W. Bush was president, with a Democratic majority in Congress.
Raising rates again was a rational response to a clear demonstration of what happens when you cut taxes while relying on an unsound principle to automatically make up the difference. Cutting taxes only increases revenues to a point. When you cut beyond that point, you add to the deficit. That was demonstrated a second time on George W. Bush’s watch, for anyone who missed the lesson the first time around. We had almost achieved balance by the end of the Clinton administration until we turned the whole thing around again, this time cutting not only income taxes but capital gains taxes as well. By this point the idea that tax cuts increase revenue (without end, Amen) had become the central tenet of a political cult, and Grover Norquist a behind-the-scenes cult leader. (Interestingly, the fact that he’s also a founder of the Islamic Free Market Institute—whatever it’s significance might be—is lost on the right. The political right is rather a strange place.)
So, tax rates were higher than now during all of the Reagan administration with the exception of one year out of eight, and what happened following the cut and because of that cut should be obvious.
@Greg:
I guess you aren’t aware we have an obesity problem in America not a starvation problem. Without even ever seeing you go look in the mirror, pull up your shirt. Do you see ribs or belly fat? Case closed.
We have free school lunches and breakfast for poor children. We have food stamps and local religious organizations providing meals to the poor. So if you are right, we’ve spend 15 the 20 trillion on poverty, and we still have starving children. I’d say it’s time to do something else because the government has failed. You instead probably want to do more of the same. Your solution is if it’s not working, keep doing it and fund it more.
Why do libs like yourself always hate low taxes? Why do you get such joy at the government stealing other peoples money? The government is about the least efficient way of spending money yet your kind worship at its altar.
@Greg: Reagan had to spend loads on the military to rebuild it after Carter let it go to seed. Notice, that due to Reagan’s efforts, the Soviet Union had to throw in the towel (yet another victory squandered by the Obama administration, by the way). Also of note is that Reagan rebuilt a stagnate economy (with high taxes) left him by Carter. So, no, Reagan’s tax cuts were in no way a failure.
Clinton “turned the whole thing around” under pressure and duress from the Republican majority, if you would be honest enough to remember. Republicans forced Clinton to work with them (something Obama never learned to do) and, together, they enacted far reaching welfare reforms (much of which Obama gutted), resulting in the perceptible dip in the poverty rate on the chart provided.
Raising taxes harms economic activity, which is vital to address poverty.
@Mully: Practically no one in government, particularly liberals, give a moment’s thought to where the money comes from. Far too many have lived off government-funded programs for so long that they have lost any connection with where money comes from (NOTE: it’s not just as simple as printing more). So, wasting 6 out of every 10 dollars on waste, fraud and corruption and THEN seeing the programs fail altogether is no big worry at all…. just get more money and flood the project with so much that regardless of how much is stolen, a sufficient amount gets to the point of interest.
Greg, obviously, fits into this mold perfectly; “gee, $22 trillion failed to cure poverty; in fact, poverty grew. I know; let’s feed more money into the machine.”
@Greg:
As ususal, you’re full of crap. The top marginal rate of 28% was in effect for 1988, 1989 and 1990.
Hey, since when do you liberals worry about how high the taxes are on capital gains? I thought you believed that people “didn’t earn that” so any money they make on investments should be taxed sky high. Glad to see you’re changing your attitude on investment income.
You mean like they are now under Obama, in record dollars?
So you’re admitting that increased tax rates are the fault of the Democrat Congress? Again, it’s about time that you admit that Democrats are just greedy redistributionists.
There might be hope for you after all, Gullible Greggie, but you have a long way to go before you are nothing more than a useful idiot.
@Mully, #21:
This from the side that ridiculed Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to address America’s childhood obesity epidemic? I also seem to recall all but 17 House Republicans voting against the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which has resulted in much healthier elementary school lunches for a generation of American children.
@retire05:
Actually, I’m correct. The final year of the Reagan administration was 1988. George H. W. Bush was sworn in as President in January, 1989.
The 28 percent rate applied through only one year of the Reagan administration, 1988.
@Greg:
Who was critical of the initiative? It was the execution that was a failure.
Much healthier, but all but inedible. Kids were throwing the food away rather than eat the crap. So, in your opinion, healthy food (paid for by taxpayers) in the garbage is better than less-healthy fare in the stomach? Typical liberal viewpoint; eat what I tell you to eat, or eat nothing at all.
First, liberal policy failures keeps people in poverty, then liberal policies provide inedible crap to eat, then liberal policies prevents those they have relegated to perpetual poverty to stavation unless they hold their noses and eat the inedible food (which, by the way, Michelle does not exactly imbibe in). Meanwhile, sports are frowned upon, Boy Scouts (camping, hiking, execise) is banned unless it meets the political correctness standards and even going to a park unless parents can accompany is now forbidden, having been made potentially deadly by liberal policies promoting poverty and crime. See the problem with this scenario?
@Greg:
Wrong. The 1989 tax rates were set by Congress in 1988, when Reagan was still in office.
Give it up, Gullible Greggie. You’re not smart enough to debate anyone. You’re just a useful idiot and a mouthpiece for the Democrats.
@Bill:
No, Gullible Greggie doesn’t see the obvious. He is only capable of being a parrot for the left wing taking heads. That’s why he is so familiar with sites like Mother Jones. If an original thought ever enters Gullible Greggie’s head, it is subject to explode.
Yet you’ll argue ’til the cows come home that the Status of Forces Agreement troop withdrawal timetable, finalized by the GWB administration during it’s final months, is entirely the fault of the administration that followed it, not of the administration that actually did it. You seem to apply whatever rules are to your liking at the moment in assigning credit or blame.
In any case, what I said, verbatim, was this:
That’s a totally accurate statement. Your response was not, and I’ll not waste any more of my time arguing about it.
@Greg:
Hey, dumass, you’re trying to argue apples and oranges. The Congress passed the 1989 tax rates. It was law. The SOFA was subject to being renegotiated, except you have already admitted that Obama was too inept to do any renegotiations. The SOFA was NOT law. It was an agreement between two nations that did, in fact, change with the entry of new leadership in both the U.S. and Iraq. Those, who, unlike you, were actually on the ground in Iraq at the time of discussions on the SOFA have already said that Obama was not interested in changing it. He wanted us out of Iraq, no matter the cost that he was warned about. We have now seen that cost come to fruition.
As I have told you before, I feel sorry for you, Gullible Greggie. You have been so indoctrinated by your leftist handlers you are no longer capable of even hinting at the truth. You are a marionette, a joke, a useful idiot who dances to the tune of your progressive handlers. How sad.
@Greg:
Taxes aren’t the problem Greg, they usually ever are. The problem is the federal government and the huge waste involved with having all the power consolidated in one location. They either need to block grant most of the money back to the States or lower taxes and allow the States to increase revenue for the problems.
Here is the governments latest Waste Report. $294 Billion just on expired government programs. Even liberals can say “that’s just a drop in the bucket.”
http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/47c2a7c2-832f-4d35-91e9-bdddb5c819f6/americas-most-wasted-report.pdf