2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMarco Rubio Is Wrong: The War on Poverty Worked
By Michael Tomasky
On the 50th anniversary of LBJs initiative, Marco Rubio says it failed. After all, poverty still exists. But the policies did succeedDemocrats are just afraid to say so.
So now Sen. Marco Rubio is trying to join Rep. Paul Ryans conservative bleeding-hearts club band. The Florida senator is releasing a video timed to Wednesdays 50th anniversary of the launch of the war on poverty to declare said war a failure and launch his own. Woot woot. That isnt necessarily stupid politics, at least as a general election strategy for 2016. How the guy whos already alienated the wingers on immigration expects to make it through the primary season trying to get conservatives to care about poor people is another question, but thats his problem.
Our problem is when conservatives like Rubio talk gibberish: Isnt it time to declare big governments war on poverty a failure? No, it isnt. Its high time to say the war on poverty was a success. A wild success, indeed, by nearly every meaningful measure. But no one thinks so, and a big part of the reason is that most Democrats are afraid to say so. Theyd damn well better start. If were really going to be raising the minimum wage and tackling inequality, someone needs to be willing to say to the American people that these kinds of approaches get results.
You may have seen the big Times piece Sunday that looked back over the half-century war on poverty, kicked off by Lyndon Johnsons 1964 State of the Union address. The article noted that in terms of health and nutrition and numerous other factors, the poor in the United States are immeasurably less immiserated today than they were then. But it did lead by saying the overall poverty rate in all that time has dropped only from 19 to 15 percent, suggesting to the casual reader that all these billions for five decades havent accomplished much.
Whats wrong with thinking is that we have not, of course, been fighting any kind of serious war on poverty for five decades. We fought it with truly adequate funding for about one decade. Less, even. Then the backlash started, and by 1981, Ronald Reagans government was fighting a war on the war on poverty. The fate of many anti-poverty programs has ebbed and flowed ever since.
more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/06/marco-rubio-is-wrong-the-war-on-poverty-worked.html
Laelth
(32,017 posts)We'd be much worse off were it not for LBJ's accomplishments.
More here: http://laelth.blogspot.com/2011/01/turning-american-ship-of-state.html
-Laelth
erpowers
(9,350 posts)Lyndon Johnson does not get enough credit for the progressive things he did. He made some mistakes, but he did a great deal of good. Many, if not all, of his policies have helped millions of Americans.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)House of Roberts
(5,120 posts)and where were we at the end?
Triana
(22,666 posts)And they won.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)I don't think so, as much as they like to bad mouth these programs.
Also the Food Stamp Act of 1964 and other nutrition programs such as the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, which provided for free breakfasts for needy school children, among other things. Is Rubio claiming that these programs are failures as well? Then he should damn well say so instead of blathering about the War on Poverty. Of course he won't because once he gets specific, his arguments fall of their own weight.
mountain grammy
(26,568 posts)erpowers
(9,350 posts)Am I the only one who thinks he looks stoned, hungover, or like something is wrong with him?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)that can be overcome by extending the "war" analogy.
The right points to the continuing existence of poverty and poor folks, and the continuing need to anti-poverty programming to argue the war HAS failed.
To this I respond by asking: "Point to any war that the U.S. won."
And they will say WWI or WWII.
And I say: "But how could we have won that (those) war(s) ... there is still a Germany and Japan?"