THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE "WAR ON POVERTY:" ENOUGH BANG FOR THE BUCKS?

LBJ UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH APPALACHIAN POVERTY

The great promise-breaker who famously pledged that if Americans liked their health plans and doctors they would be free to keep them under Obamacare, is now ironically touting "Promise Zones," or economic incentive areas within regions of the U.S. marked by poverty and income inequality.

Along with tax breaks for job-producing businesses willing to locate in the proposed zones, new training programs would also be developed to turn out workers capable of staffing new enterprises.

It so happens that today marks the 50th anniversary of the initiation of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" programs, in which the Johnson administration committed itself to waging an all-out war on poverty in the U.S.

In 1964, with the commencement of Johnson's anti-poverty efforts, there were 350,000 Americans receiving food-stamps.  Today the number of recipients has risen to 46 million.  Government statisticians in 1964 reckoned that 15% of Americans fell below the poverty line.  In 2013 the same percentage still holds true.

Each year approximately 900 billion dollars is budgeted for programs associated with the Great Society. Despite that expenditure, poverty has not been eradicated, and the war to rid our country of indigence continues unabated.

One of the most highly vaunted of Great Society programs is Head Start, which got underway in 1965.  Since that time, the kindergarten-readiness efforts for at-risk children have cost tax-payers somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 billion dollars.  During the last fiscal year alone, Head Start was budgeted at 8 billion.

The Department of Health and Human Services undertook a study on the effectiveness of Head Start, which was finally released at the end of 2012.  What the report had to say was not especially encouraging.  The follow-up of a cohort of third-graders who had gone through Head Start did not reveal any appreciable gains in cognitive ability associated with math, reading and language.   In terms of social skills, the group was not as advanced as their peers who had not experienced Head Start.  If this portion of the HHS study is any indication, the billions that have been spent on Head Start do not appear to have been a good investment. Nevertheless, our representatives in Congress who hoped to improve the program felt that the best way to do so was to appropriate more money for fiscal year 2013.

As is too often the case, money does not serve as a cure-all for societal ills, which in many cases are deeply-rooted in long-standing cultural factors.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan's seminal study in the 1960's, which accurately predicted that government programs not well thought out would serve as wrecking-balls for the family unit, should be required reading for our representatives in Congress.  And, without intact families, the pathology of poverty cannot do other than to become firmly implanted in segments of American society that have been thought to make up a permanent dependent class for at least 3 generation.

Before any further increase of expenditures for poverty-fighting programs occurs, perhaps sustained efforts to curtail abuse of the system should be considered.  For a start, here are just a few suggestions:

1.  Government benefits must be limited to American citizens and legal residents.

2.  Illegal immigration must be totally curtailed.

3.  Efforts to establish eligibility for those who have felony drug convictions must be tightened, and drug testing should be undertaken for all recipients.

4.  More "workfare" must be injected in the system, and minimal public service should be expected of recipients able to work.

5.  Minimal co-payments should be a part of subsidized childcare in order to engender a sense of  responsibility and involvement on the part of recipients.

6.  It should in all cases be determined if applicants are carried as dependents on the tax returns of others.

All in all, the success rate of government poverty programs has not been a good one.  In a time of increasing federal deficits, it should be expected that our "public servants" should move with extreme caution in committing taxpayers to further expenditures to combat poverty without due consideration of the factors involved in explaining why those mired in poverty in 2013 account for basically the same percentage of the population as those Americans similarly affected in 1964.  If growing the government and producing more and more bureaucratic plans would provide all the answers for a successful war on poverty, doesn't it stand to reason that the poverty rate of 15%, which has remained constant since 1964, should have moved downward over 50 years?

Deo Vindice!

God bless Texas, and may the Lone Star State remain forever red!