War on Poverty Proves All Wars Aren’t Bad
By Michael Lang on Nov 1, 2008 in Featured
When asked about war, most people would probably say that they don’t advocate for it unless provoked by serious events. Recent American history has the Unites States having entered into several wars that could and probably should have been avoided except one….the War on Poverty.
The War on Poverty is the name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to the difficult economic conditions associated with a national poverty rate of around 19% (current rate approx. 12%).
President Johnson was “thinking out of the box” (phrase originated in 1969) when he created the Great Society which was a set of domestic programs and social reforms he proposed and initiated with the goal of eliminating poverty and of racial injustice. The Great Society was an extension of FDR’s New Deal reflecting the rapidly changing times we nostalgically call “the 60s.”
Even though President Johnson knew the Great Society would be a tough sell he persevered anyhow when he authored the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 which created the Office of Economic Opportunity to oversee a variety of community-based anti-poverty programs and administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty.
Directors of the OEO included Sargent Shriver, (father of Maria “Shriver” Schwarzenegger) Bertrand Harding, and Donald Rumsfeld (yes, the very same
Johnson’s success depended on his persuasive skills, coupled with the Democratic landslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress. Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare, Medicaid, and federal education funding, continue to the present. The Great Society’s programs expanded exponentially under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
The above paragraph eerily mimics today’s current events. My hope is that after Barack Obama is elected to be the 45th President of the United States, (and the Congress becomes filibuster-proof) he will revitalize some of the wars that DO make sense, like poverty, universal health-care and education.
The OEO launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965. The project was designed to help end poverty by providing preschool children from low-income families with a program that would meet emotional, social, health, nutritional,and psychological needs.
President Johnson also announced a second project to follow children from the Head Start program. This was implemented in 1967 with Project Follow Through, the largest educational experiment ever conducted.
I must admit that this is the first time that I’ve heard about “Project Follow Through” and am very pleasantly pleased to hear about any program that follows through on its primary objectives. The government is notoriously known for enact legislation and “hauling ass” instead of taking responsibility for its actions.
In the decade following the 1964 introduction of the war on poverty, poverty rates in the U.S. dropped to their lowest level to date: 11.1% . They have remained between 11 and 15.2% ever since. Since 1973 poverty has remained well below the historical U.S. averages in the range of 20-25%.
In 2004, more than 35.9 million, or 12% of Americans including 12.1 million children, were considered to be living in poverty with an average growth of almost 1 million per year!
I ask…is this Ok with you? Is this the kind of mediocrity that the freest, richest and most powerful country in the world should settle for? The response by any real American should be NO….ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I believe that the primary reason that our Presidents do not try is that they are always trying to save their face and their ass at the same time. An impossibility! So what if the President was elected to one term only and reelection was not an issue, How then would they behave? What greatness might they achieve if they needn’t be concerned about how their decisions would be perceived?
WHAT OTHER “GREAT SOCIETIES” COULD WE CONSTRUCT IF AN AMERICAN WISH LIST WAS OUR SOLE CONCERN……THINK ABOUT IT
NOT ALL WARS ARE BAD….ARE THEY?
AROUND the BLOGOSPHERE:
The war on poverty becomes the war on the poor – Far right radio blowhard Bill Cunningham: People are poor in America not because they lack money. They’re poor because they lack values, morals, and ethics."
We Need a New Type of War on Poverty – City Journal has a story arguing that the country does not need another war on poverty. Because LBJ’s War on Poverty treated the poor as victims rather than citizens, it fostered dependency rather than empowerment. …
Casualities of the War on Poverty. – At this time we have spent $11000000000000 on the "War on Poverty".. I’d like to ask you where you think this money went? what good did it do? did it end up in the pockets of the people it was intended to help? …
Barack Obama’s Innovative War On Poverty – And the war on poverty is littered with well-intentioned efforts that have failed to meet their objectives. As Boyte argues, Obama’s approach is in many regards an extension of the policies adopted by Geno Baroni, the assistant …
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