The War on Poverty Our Longest War

[dellinger63]

Viet Nam lasted eight and a half years and was our longest until June of 2010 when Afghanistan surpassed that mark and took over the title of the longest at eleven and a half years and still running, though I believe we’re now officially peace keeping and no longer at ‘war’.

However just this week we were reminded of a war we’ve been involved in for fifty years and still counting. This is of course the war on poverty.

The programs started and formed to fight this war were noble and well-intended, however what started out well-intended quickly became destructive.

Brand new public housing projects were built with the best intentions and quickly became urine stained, gang infested, crime laden slums no matter where they were built. Though I must acknowledge who could foresee anyone relieving themselves in the stairwells of the same building one calls home?

When welfare programs were designed and set up with focus on single mothers they were put in place to aid single mothers not encourage children to be born out of wedlock, but that’s exactly what occurred. The war on poverty was initiated a year after MLK’s I have a dream speech. I don’t think President Johnson or Dr. King ever foresaw in their wildest dreams, fifty years later, over half, 54% of black children would be born out of wedlock. That Baby Daddy would be more common than Dad.

This trend isn’t exclusive to race as children in white and Hispanic households also have experienced a rise in single parent households albeit at a lessor percentage. Study after study have shown children born and raised in a two parent household do better in virtually everything sans dropping out of high school or being arrested. Unfortunately we are now reaping what we unintentionally sowed.

In 2013 $1.143 trillion was spent on social programs excluding social security. That comes to $3.13 billion a day or $26 a day spread among 120 million taxpayers. Imagine the influx to the economy if every taxpayer had an extra $200 in his pocket every week? How many jobs would that create? How many would escape poverty and no longer live as taxpayer dependents?

The war on poverty is certainly a war we can’t surrender however the plan of attack needs to be drastically changed. What we’ve done the last fifty years has not only been costly but it’s also been destructive to the very people it was designed to aid. It’s time to withdraw and go into peace keeping mode. Allow and have faith/hope in America to do what she does best without government interference.