In the mid 1960’s President Lyndon Johnson declared a ‘war on poverty’. Since then the government has spent TRILLIONS on at least 92 different programs to fight poverty. His focus was on the poor families in Appalachia. Families like the one he visited in eastern Kentucky where the Fletcher family of 10 existed on $400 a year. [read_more]
President Johnson convinced Americans that these poor backwoods people desperately needed help. There was less emphasis on helping the poor in cities. Johnson set up welfare, food stamps, medical care and housing for poor people. To receive welfare people were taught the following:
1. Do not work. If you make any money the government will reduce your payments.
2. Do not get married or have a man living in the home, no fathers allowed. A man in the house, you lose money.
3. Have more children, more children means more money.
4. Do not save any money, the government will take it.
5. Do not own anything, the government will take it and/
or reduce your payments.
Every message the government sent the poor was wrong. It destroyed the work ethic, taught people never to save a dime, and worst of all it destroyed families. Is it any wonder that most lower class people don’t marry and feel no shame in having children without a father in the home? We taught them to behave that way! We re-enforced the destruction of families and told men they need not take responsibility for their children, in fact, they couldn’t even be in the home. Prior to the ‘War on Poverty’, 20% of Black children were born to unwed mothers, today it’s 72%. Statistically children unmarried mothers are
This is the legacy of the ‘War on Poverty’, destruction of our families, our communities, our schools, and our society.
It’s poverty that drives the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, poverty brought on by ‘The Great Society’, 50 years of liberal programs that have failed people in our cities and in the country. When welfare was ended during the Clinton administration, disability payments sky rocked. Disability payments are the new welfare payments.
Now we have poor people rioting in Baltimore and Ferguson and other cities across the country. They are beyond frustrated with their lives. They been trained by the government to live in poverty, have children but not families, and they’re stuck in failing schools. All of this because of the TRILLIONS of dollars spent to ‘help’ them.
The best of intentions, the worst of outcomes, and the big fools in the Democratic party say to push on with ever more handouts. It hasn’t worked in 50 years! How many more years, how many more families destroyed, before we abandon these failed policies?
It’s not about race, it’s about poverty created by dependency on government for everything in their lives.
More here.