Comments about ‘Jay Evensen: War on poverty has been an abject failure’

Democrats have created an entire generation of dependency; just another form of slavery! Intelligent Americans are starting to learn and see that poverty, in the vast majority of cases is the consequence of bad behavior and poor personal choices, not lack of opportunity, not GWB, not racism and not bad luck! Romney in 2012!

War on poverty has been a failure?

Not really, I watched a documentary where Robert Kennedy took a trip to the south and visited poor families. This documentary shows him visiting a poor black family where the kids were often hungry.

Because of food stamps kids in this country not don't have to go hungry. So has only half the problem been solved? Yes, poor families still tend to have poor kids it goes on generation after generation.

This doesn't mean that the war on poverty was a failure, it has great successes. It will take a second round of attacks it seems to make further progress however.

Mountainman - your commenbt is an indication that you really didn't read the evidence presented by Mr. Evenson.

"Don't think that war ended with the '60s, or that it ebbed and flowed during Republican and Democratic administrations.'

It sounds like both parties are complicit in this problem and the sooner we all stop pointing fingers and start working together for solutions the sooner we will solve the problem. Evidence shows that a welfare system that does not require some sort of work or contribution for benefits only makes those receiving it more dependent. And a system that rewards one parent households more than one where both parents are present, and hopefully married, also sends the wrong message. Cheaper educational opportunities can only be achieved when we all contribute to the cause with our tax dollars and a more educated population can only contribute to the betterment of our communities.

I certainly hope that Taxenough is not suggesting that our $15 trillion dollar debt was run up by only our spending on the poor. But let's acknowledge that that spending has not always been spent wisely and let's commit ourselves to working together for a solution.

The primary but superficial objective of anti-poverty programs is to make us feel better about paying taxes. The actual and deeper objective has been to accrue power and wealth to federal workers and their cronies.

Any study of this subject needs to discuss the changes in the economy since LBJ's time. Back then a male high school graduate could be pretty well assured of getting a decent job that would support a family. That is no longer even remotely true. Even college grads no longer can take that for granted.

The Supreme Court has given us the answer. A tax on not finishing school, not being married, not having a job, and not having enough children to support your SS payments.

yes... WAR on poverty, sounds awful. I wonder what the casualty rate is.

Maybe instead of building nations of Iraq and Afghanistan we could focus just a lil bit on our own?

Just a lil bit repubs? Please?

I know your Romney wants to make war with Iran now. But before then, can we help out our own economy? We can wage war with Iran here in a few years. Move the troops out of Iraq and into Iran. But I'd prefer to get unemployment under 8 percent by then.

Oh, and maybe the rich could help us out a lil bit in paying the taxes? We're disappearing, being overburdened by your decisions. We pay for everything, fight the wars, and finance your bailouts, golden parachutes, and subsidies. Help us out a lil bit, please?

Signed,

The American Middle-Class

The problem is that government officials too often think that throwing money at the problem will solve it. It rarely does because we focus on all the wrong metrics. We look at spending as a success metric, but spending is no measure of success. Even many comments above imply people are focused on the wrong side of the equation. We need to look at outcomes, not inputs!

In 1996 the Republican Congress undertook welfare reform, which Clinton signed.
The legislation was named the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

The legislation included numerous measures designed to reverse the epidemic of welfare
dependence. These reforms included:
(1) ending the individual entitlement to welfare checks (which previously ensured payment of
benefits regardless of whether recipients were willing to work or train for them);
(2) expecting a rising share of welfare recipients in each state to work or participate in education and training in exchange for welfare checks;
(3) crediting states with successfully helping families leave or stay off welfare;
(4) setting a five-year lifetime limit on receipt of federal welfare checks; and
(5) creating a new fixed block grant program (TANF), which gave states record but fixed federal funds to provide for welfare needs.

A report done by the Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Republican Bill Thomas, in 2006 stated:

"Overall, the most recent data shows that compared to August 1996 when the welfare reform law
was signed, the number of families on welfare has dropped 57 percent, and 1.4 million fewer children are now living in poverty."

As I pointed out in another post yesterday, perhaps it hasn't been the failure of welfare programs but other factors which affect the poverty rate: such as increasing inequality, manufacturing jobs being replaced by lower-paying service jobs, the rise in single-parent, female homes (females earn less than males). High incarceration rates and racial bias in sentencing have devastated black communities. Loss of jobs in large cities and poor education are also factors which increase poverty. Research as shown that a child with average intelligence living in a middle class environment has a significantly greater chance of succeeding in life than a highly intelligent child living in poverty.

Eighty-five percent of households receiving foodstamps include a child, an adult over the age of 60 or a disabled person. The average household income of a foodstamp recipient is $731/mon. Thirty percent of foodstamp households report earned income. Sixty percent report unearned income.

I usually don't respond directly to posters, but in Henderson's case, I will. Either you don't know history or choose to willfully ignore it. LBJ ( that is Lyndon Bain Johnson for you) was a Democrat. He felt taxing everyone would help the poor. As this article point out, that has been a failure. The article also states that it is both Republicans and Democrats who have failed in this. On taxing the rich, you must have missed the story yesterday that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) released a report showing that the "rich" pay 94% of taxes. Is that fair???? Finally, Romney is not the president yet and can't send soldiers into harms way. President Barack Obama has continued to increase our forces in the Strait of Hormuz. An article in todays paper says he is now sending underwater submersibles to clear mines. Please stop blaming one party and following one party blindly. I will agree with you that I would like to see a little more "nation building" of the USA and not third world hell holes.

@ Truthseeker
What research has shown that a child with average intelligence living in a middle class environment has a significantly greater chance of succeeding in life than a highly intelligent child living in poverty? Were there not many highly intelligent children who lived in poverty in the 1930s and 1940s who succeeded in life, some spectacularly?

@SpaceCowboy
"On taxing the rich, you must have missed the story yesterday that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) released a report showing that the "rich" pay 94% of taxes. Is that fair????"

Well considering 84% of the wealth is held by the top 20% and considering that wealth and income inequality has been increasing the last few decades with more and more concentrated at the top... yeah I'd consider it pretty fair.

" He felt taxing everyone would help the poor."

False. Taxes were higher before LBJ was even President. And we flourished under higher taxes too.

"As this article point out, that has been a failure."

No it hasn't. Trickle down economics has been a failure. We adjusted the "War on Poverty" to helping the rich and believing (falsely) that they'd help bring the rest of us up.

If Trickel-Down economics worked, then we would have seen a boom under Bush, not bust. If Trick-Down worked, then why was the past decade the worst in job creation? If Trickle-Down worked, then why isn't Mr. Romney creating jobs and helping the middle-class expand? Instead, he's hiding his wealth in Swiss bank accounts as the Middle-class is disappearing.

it would sure be helpful if repubs could back up their opinions with just a tad bit of fact.

It’s not a War on Poverty – but a War between the Haves and the Have-Nots.
– and Like Warren Buffet stated, “and MY side is winning.”

When College Graduates are the ones flipping burgers because there are NO other jobs – then there is no other recourse than the poor will get poorer, while the rich get richer.

Where is the whiny and crying about wasted tax dollars on other stupid loosing
War on Drugs,
and
War on Terror?

All those $Trillion spent and we're still fighting Drugs and Boogiemen.

Republicans, everything boils down to needing be settled by somesort of war…

BTW Jay,
You really should give back your Cameron Duncan Media Award, given annually in Washington, D.C., by the advocacy group RESULTS.
I seriously question you being a journalist judged to have done the most to further the cause of the world's poorest people.

Your pattern seems to be one of constantly trampling and putting them down….

But we're winning the war on drugs, right?

Mr. Evensen,

I cannot decide if you've been wry in your conclusion or if you've been duped. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you've been wry.

"But real solutions require public officials of all stripes to push policies that foster marriage and education..."

Having concluded that you've been wry, I believe the policies you would have public officials push are policies that get the government OUT of the relationship and marriage business as well as OUT of the education business. In so doing perhaps you believe society will get along even better without government's judging who can contract to join their property with whom. Perhaps you believe that the quality of education will go up, the cost come down, and that students will get ever more able to be self-reliant as they and their parents shoulder the responsibility of planning and providing their own education.

Perhaps you've arrived at this conclusion in the face of such overwhelming evidence (some of which you've presented here) that the government is inept at improving things that are none of their business.

If this is your conclusion, I agree 100%.

I have one suggestion to help get people out of poverty: get rid of the minimum wage. It's been proven over and over that it hurts unskilled workers chances of getting a job and Democrats want to keep raising it. It just shows how Democrats/ Liberals just ignore the basic facts of life.
A few questions- If you are an employer why would you pay 10-12.00 an hour in wages (including payroll taxes) for 5-6.00 an hour worth of productivity? It makes no economic sense. And if you're looking for a job- isn't any job better than no job? How do you enter the world of work and move up the economic ladder if you can't land a first job because the minimum wage prevents anyone from giving you a chance? Entry level jobs are not supposed to pay enough to support a family. But if you never get a first job you can never ever support a family.

I don't think that it has been a failure. Yeah, the numbers of have stayed the same. But they have stayed the same during a time of rising out of wedlock births. Without the war on poverty it might be much higher.

The cultural changes of the 1960's have created a lot of poverty.

How many of the poor in 1964 moved out of poverty? How many middle class people in 1964 moved into poverty because of an out of wedlock births. I have seen immigrant families come to the US and either moved out of poverty or have trapped themselves into poverty by choices relating to either education or out of wedlock births.