50 years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a War On Poverty In America, and poverty levels dropped about 40 percent over the next five years.
But then the conservative counterrevolution began under Richard Nixon, and was accelerated under Ronald Reagan, and today, poverty is spreading in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
And what is the Republican Party doing about this reality? It is declaring the War on Poverty failed, and doing everything to kick poor people and middle class people down into the gutter, fighting against extension of unemployment compensation to desperate people, having no problem in cutting food stamps to people who have inadequate nutrition, and fighting to avoid raising the minimum wage, which, if it was keyed to inflation, would be over $20 an hour right now!
The War On Poverty never got a full chance to succeed, as Democrats Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, and Walter Mondale never had the opportunity to continue the mission of LBJ, and instead, selfishness, greed, and lack of compassion for those less fortunate, set in!
On this 50th anniversary, it is essential to recommit ourselves to dealing with poverty in America, realizing the majority of people in poverty are children, and also a majority are white, not minorities, which are used as an excuse to promote racial prejudice!
As per usual the socialist progressive left believe the failure of their policies are only a indication they have not been allowed to do enough of their confiscatory redistributional works.
50 years and 20 trillion dollars later with nothing to show but ruination of the black family unit and record poverty.
Dave, you are truly delusional and ignorant! 20 TRILLION DOLLARS spent on poverty? Are you high on something? Do you have any concept of the difference between 20 TRILLION and 20 BILLION? The War on Poverty over five years spent ONLY $5 billion, compared to $100 billion on the war in Vietnam. With cutbacks after that, maybe in total, $20 BILLION might have been spent between 1970 and the present, not 20 TRILLION! Instead, giving big tax cuts to the wealthy and funding unnecessary wars has cost $20 TRILLION and more!