Since today is 50 years since Lyndon Johnson declare war on poverty in America, I thought it worth asking just one more question about that effort. Over the last 50 years, the USA has spent 20 trillion dollars as part of the effort to fight poverty. There are disputes about the true extent of that spending, but even the folks who think the number is lower agree that at least 15 trillion was spent. There have been literally many hundreds of federal programs put in place as part of the effort, a fact which leads to my question. As of today, none of the programs begun to "fight" poverty has been terminated. To be fair, a few have been merged with others, but the resulting programs continue on without any end it sight. So here is the question: have any of the hundreds of anti-poverty programs failed to work well? Has even one program been a flop? Are we to believe that every single anti-poverty program put in place since 1964 has been successful?
While you consider your answer to this question, you may also want to ponder some additional information. In 1973, the rate of poverty in America was 11%; today it is 15%. That's right, after the last 40 years of anti-poverty programs, the percentage of Americans living in poverty is much higher (and that does not even fully include illegal aliens.) These are not my figures; they come directly from the Bureau of the Census of the federal government.
If you are a liberal Democrat, we know that your answer to the question here is that we should never consider whether or not a government program works. All we need to consider is whether the program was created with good intentions. If the program was started to fight poverty, then according to the liberals, it must continue even if it does no good at all. Indeed, whenever someone in Washington tries to get rid of a non-functioning program, that person is attacked by the left as unfeeling and uncaring. Remember the report two years ago that the federal government had over 100 separate job training programs, each with its own overhead? By combining these programs into just three or four, the same people could be served, but the cost could be reduced by billions each year, money that could be used to serve more of the jobless or to reduce the deficit. Of course, nothing was done to consolidate the training programs. President Obama did not ever mention it. The Democrats in Congress would not consider it.
Even worse that the confused nature of many programs is the large number that have not worked at all. The best example is Head Start. It sounds wonderful and beneficial to have a program to start educating children at a younger age so that they will perform better in school in the long run. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this program since it was begun decades ago. Even now, Obama wants to expand the program so that it is available to all American children. But here's the problem: studies done by the Obama's own Department of Education show that by the time children reach third grade, those who attended Head Start classes perform no better than those who did not participate in that program. In other words, any benefit from Head Start disappears after just two years. Simply put, the Head Start program is a total failure. But the liberals don't care. They think the program has good intentions, so it does not matter whether or not it works. Indeed, how else could one explain Obama's intention to expand Head Start rather than to eliminate it.
While you consider your answer to this question, you may also want to ponder some additional information. In 1973, the rate of poverty in America was 11%; today it is 15%. That's right, after the last 40 years of anti-poverty programs, the percentage of Americans living in poverty is much higher (and that does not even fully include illegal aliens.) These are not my figures; they come directly from the Bureau of the Census of the federal government.
If you are a liberal Democrat, we know that your answer to the question here is that we should never consider whether or not a government program works. All we need to consider is whether the program was created with good intentions. If the program was started to fight poverty, then according to the liberals, it must continue even if it does no good at all. Indeed, whenever someone in Washington tries to get rid of a non-functioning program, that person is attacked by the left as unfeeling and uncaring. Remember the report two years ago that the federal government had over 100 separate job training programs, each with its own overhead? By combining these programs into just three or four, the same people could be served, but the cost could be reduced by billions each year, money that could be used to serve more of the jobless or to reduce the deficit. Of course, nothing was done to consolidate the training programs. President Obama did not ever mention it. The Democrats in Congress would not consider it.
Even worse that the confused nature of many programs is the large number that have not worked at all. The best example is Head Start. It sounds wonderful and beneficial to have a program to start educating children at a younger age so that they will perform better in school in the long run. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this program since it was begun decades ago. Even now, Obama wants to expand the program so that it is available to all American children. But here's the problem: studies done by the Obama's own Department of Education show that by the time children reach third grade, those who attended Head Start classes perform no better than those who did not participate in that program. In other words, any benefit from Head Start disappears after just two years. Simply put, the Head Start program is a total failure. But the liberals don't care. They think the program has good intentions, so it does not matter whether or not it works. Indeed, how else could one explain Obama's intention to expand Head Start rather than to eliminate it.
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