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War on Poverty: Worth it or not?

Perhaps if the war on poverty stated off with better intentions, it may have been more effective over the past 50+ years. LBJ wasn't being exactly honest about his cause.
 
Perhaps if the war on poverty stated off with better intentions, it may have been more effective over the past 50+ years. LBJ wasn't being exactly honest about his cause.

The war on poverty has been made difficult because the left has created a pit of quicksand with no way out. No one will ever get out of poverty by relying on government programs and minimum wage increases. They have to pull themselves out of the quicksand pit and we should hold out the sticks for them to reach out for but, instead of holding out those sticks to reach our for, everything we do just pours more quicksand into the pit.
 
You need to give medical care, food, and shelter to the poor.

If you can give them opportunity and employment that is even better.

I'm not going to read the whole 46 pages of this thread to see if this has been pointed out, but your latter sentence is exactly what the War on Poverty was intended to be. The centerpiece of it was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which was far more about job training and education than cash assistance. The War on Poverty was encapsulated in the 11 programs in the EOA:

The act included eleven major programs:

1. The Job Corps provides work, basic education, and training in separate residential centers for young men and young women, from ages sixteen to twenty-one.
2. Neighborhood Youth Corps provides work and training for young men and women, ages sixteen to twenty-one, from impoverished families and neighborhoods.
3. Work Study provides grants to colleges and universities for part-time employment of students from low-income families who need to earn money to pursue their education.
4. Urban and Rural Community Action provides financial and technical assistance to public and private nonprofit agencies for community action programs developed with "maximum feasible participation" of the poor and giving "promise of progress toward elimination of poverty."
5. Adult Basic Education provides grants to state educational agencies for programs of instruction for persons eighteen years and older whose inability to read and write English is an impediment to employment.
6. Voluntary Assistance for Needy Children establishes an information and coordination center to encourage voluntary assistance for deserving and needy children.
7. Loans to Rural Families provides loans not exceeding $2,500 that assist low income rural families in permanently increasing their income.
8. Assistance for Migrant Agricultural Employees provides assistance to state and local governments, public and private nonprofit agencies or individuals in operating programs to assist migratory workers and their families with basic needs.
9. Employment and Investment Incentives provides loans and guarantees, not in excess of $25,000 to a single borrower, for the benefit of very small businesses.
10. Work Experience provides payments for experimental, pilot, and demonstration projects to expand opportunities for work experience and needed training of persons who are unable to support or care for themselves or their families, including persons receiving public assistance.
11. Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) recruits, selects, trains, and refers volunteers to state or local agencies or private nonprofit organizations to perform duties to combat poverty.[13]

The legislation also authorized the Economic Opportunity Council, which led to the launch of smaller independent groups that worked with communities to establish better economic climates.[14][15] Government took charge for providing a means to provide basic literacy to adults.[16] The idea was not wealth distribution, but to provide poor families with a means to provide for their family to a decent standard of living.[17]
 
So, why don't you right wingers stop doing that?

Oh please. Blame it on the Republicans when Obama has been here for 7 years? The fact is leftist policies pour more quicksand into the hole and rightest policies do nothing but indiscriminately cut programs, hoping that waste will be cut and not the actual aid to the poor. Both policies suck from both parties. We need someone who will start programs and education so that the poor can dig themselves up out of the hole and not have to rely on aid for the rest of their lives, passing the torch down from generation to generation. In many cases, this means the poor are going to have to get off their duff and actually work for a living. Those legitimately in need of lifetime help should be able to get lifetime help but laziness is not an option.
 
this means the poor are going to have to get off their duff
I have never encountered a poster who holds such low, bigoted opinions of people who they do not know. You expressed this same discriminatory idea when talking about the lack of generosity of the poor. It is sad, it so removed.
 
I have always tried to tip generously, even as i was not yet able to pay the next months rent.

The psychology seems to agree :

"It's not news anymore, but it's still a surprise: the poor are more generous than the rich. "For decades, surveys have shown that upper-income Americans ... are particularly undistinguished as givers when compared with the poor.... lower-income Americans give proportionally more of their incomes to charity than do upper-income Americans." (See, "The Charitable-Giving Divide" in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.)

A PhD candidate at Berkeley, Paul Piff, recently repeated that finding - and more: "lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth. They were more attuned to the needs of others and more committed generally to the values of egalitarianism."

It's tempting to think that the rich are richer because they are more selfish or single-mindedly focused on their own advancement, but Piff's research suggests otherwise..."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201008/why-are-the-poor-more-generous

Looks like it's an in-group out-group thing. The rich think that they're fundamentally different than the poor. Strange. I thought they always claimed that anyone can get rich ?
 
Has the War on Poverty been worth it?

"Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it" - LBJ

Sure, the war on poverty has worked out just as well as the war on drugs has........ Oops, never mind.
 
I have never encountered a poster who holds such low, bigoted opinions of people who they do not know. You expressed this same discriminatory idea when talking about the lack of generosity of the poor. It is sad, it so removed.

What makes you think I don't know any poor gaming the system and could work if they wanted to? That's pretty judgmental but it's always easier to call someone else a bigot and judge them rather than looking in the mirror. I've been around the poor all of my life. I've seen plenty gaming the system for all they could get.
 
Out of all of those it is the poorer class of people who have more of the belief that they should look out for number one and **** everybody else. .
In many cases, this means the poor
What makes you think I don't know any poor .... all they could get.
People that deal in broad, blanket statements, often using absolutes, are folks that rely on empty rhetoric. Their arguments are just empty noise and anecdotes that ignore real world understanding and research. Your postings don't deserve attention, you bring nothing to the discussion.
 
People that deal in broad, blanket statements, often using absolutes, are folks that rely on empty rhetoric. Their arguments are just empty noise and anecdotes that ignore real world understanding and research. Your postings don't deserve attention, you bring nothing to the discussion.

Typical liberal claptrap. Anyone who disagrees with them is called a bigot and told that their opinions don't deserve attention and that we bring nothing to the discussion. I've seen literally hundreds of people over the last few decades playing the system or not working when they could, I have talked to many others who have noticed many as well, and I have even dated a social worker in the past who told me many stories of those they caught playing the system. But, the liberals always try claiming that cheaters are a myth and that aren't any. I wholeheartedly realize that there are many who need and deserve help from the government, many of them lifelong help, and there are also many playing the system and not working when they could. To deny that is having a serious case of head in the sand disease. Obviously, the statistics don't show the people that haven't been caught yet and there are many of those. In fact, the majority of the people me and others personally know of who are playing the system or not working when they could have not been caught so they're not going to show up in any liberal statistics that show that there is no fraud.
 
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