US Federal Bureaucracy Lost America’s War on Poverty; Media Silent. By Mark Tapscott at The Washington Stand.
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) declared America’s “War on Poverty.”
The government’s distressing record of utter failure decade after decade in the War on Poverty is thoroughly documented in a recent analysis written by Tyler Thurman, a Cato Institute research associate…
“From 1939 to 1963, absolute full-income poverty plummeted by 29 percentage points, from 48.5% to 19.5%. Then, despite the government pouring trillions of taxpayer dollars into combatting poverty, poverty fell only 15.7% points from 1963 to 2023. Barely half the progress in twice the time.”
That sounds like a crucial fact for federal policymakers, to say nothing of American taxpayers, yet such facts are all-but-never reported by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or any of the rest of major outlets in the mainstream media.
And even more significant is this: The full story is not only that the government lost its War on Poverty, but that it was the absence of government and a vibrant free enterprise economy in the two-and-a-half decades prior to the conflict’s declaration that liberated more than twice as many people from poverty than did LBJ’s all-out assault paid for with federal tax dollars. …
Before the rapid expansion of the welfare state, most people were earning their way out of poverty,” Thurman observed. …
“The most powerful anti-poverty program had no enrollment forms, caseworkers, or spending bills. It was a growing economy that helped millions of people earn their way to a better life. As such, subsequent efforts should focus on removing government-created barriers to economic growth, occupational opportunities, and job market entry, rather than adding another layer of expensive, inefficient wealth transfers. …When analyzing the best ways to combat poverty, policymakers should reflect on whether the welfare state was ever the right tool for the job.”
Let it also be noted that such realities won’t surprise anybody familiar with the Bible, which is replete with warnings about the perils for people and nations of failing to encourage hard work, individual responsibility, and personal accountability. To cite just one example, Proverbs 13:4 reminds us that “the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”
Jeremy Kaufman:
The per capita tax burden in the United States is ~$16,600
Eliminate all social welfare and it falls to ~$3,500
The primary purpose of the United States government is violent wealth redistribution.
How much does a vote cost?
And who benefited from the war on poverty? Bureaucrats (mostly lefties) who were paid to “fight” the war. Well paid.
Trump turns the ship, by Stephen Moore:
President Trump is delivering what Washington never would: a smaller government.
Nearly 300,000 fewer federal workers in just one year. More leaving than joining.
No wonder the left hates Trump — all those nice government jobs for lefties disappearing!
Sacking 300k bureaucrats saves the Federal Government at least $30 billion (probably more like double that, considering benefits and admin). At an average tax bill of $30k per worker in the private sector, that’s at least the taxes raised from one million private sector workers.