Liberals created the Great Society in the 1960s that was supposed to end poverty as we know it. It was called the War on Poverty. The war on poverty involved welfare programs where you take from the working class and give to the poor and not-working class. The decline in poverty has been so minimal we can consider this effort an abject failure.
Why is it an abject failure. The reason is that you can give people money up the ying yang but it will not change the person. As Bill O'Reilly notes in his February 2, 2012, Talking Points, people are poor for one of the following four reasons:
- Poor education
- Addiction
- Irresponsible behavior
- Laziness
You can throw money at the poor, but it will not change the above four things. And since 1960 the Federal Government has proven this over and over. As O'Reilly notes:
"Right now there are close to 50 million poor people in the U.S.A. Back in 1964 the poverty rate stood at 19 percent of the population. And so the great society programs were launched by President Lyndon Johnson. Since that time more than $16 trillion have been spent on welfare payments to the poor. And the Heritage Foundation estimates that over the next ten years, an additional $10 trillion will be spent.... Yet the poverty rate is only down four points. So do the math; $16 trillion, four percentage point decline. Obviously welfare is not the trampoline Newt Gingrich is talking about."So liberals have proven that the way to end poverty is not to give money to the poor. The way is to improve education by getting better teachers to impoverished areas, and help kids in poor families make better choices perhaps by choosing God or by improving the family. There are many other methods, these are just a few ideas.
Or, as the old saying goes: You can give a man some fish and he can eat for a day, and you can teach him to fish and he can eat for a lifetime."
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