This year, 2019 the federal, state, and local governments will
spend close to a combined $1 trillion to fund more than 100 separate
anti-poverty programs. According to the
Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, since the “War on Poverty was
launched by the Lyndon Johnson Administration in 1964, government efforts to
fight poverty have cost more than $23 trillion.
Imagine that, $23 trillion dollars, yet poverty rates today remain about
the same as during the Johnson Administration.
The Heritage Foundation studied the same issue for a report
in 2014, which marked the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's
launch of the War on Poverty. In January 1964, Johnson declared "unconditional
war on poverty in America."
Since then, the taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on
Johnson's war. Adjusted for inflation, that's three times the cost of all
military wars since the American Revolution.
If you add spending since 2014 you get $27 trillion dollars spent.
In 2018, the government spent $943 billion dollars providing cash, food, housing and medical care to poor and low-income Americans. (That figure doesn't include Social Security or Medicare.) More than 100 million people, or one-third of Americans, received some type of welfare aid, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. If converted into cash, this spending was five times what was needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.
The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report. The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor.
Remarkably, that's almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started. How can that be? How can government spend $9,000 per recipient and have no effect on poverty? The answer is - it can't.
In 2018, the government spent $943 billion dollars providing cash, food, housing and medical care to poor and low-income Americans. (That figure doesn't include Social Security or Medicare.) More than 100 million people, or one-third of Americans, received some type of welfare aid, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. If converted into cash, this spending was five times what was needed to eliminate all poverty in the U.S.
The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its annual poverty report. The report claims that in 2013, 14.5 percent of Americans were poor.
Remarkably, that's almost the same poverty rate as in 1967, three years after the War on Poverty started. How can that be? How can government spend $9,000 per recipient and have no effect on poverty? The answer is - it can't.
Presidents since 1964 include Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter,
Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and Trump. The four Democrats held office for 24 years, while
the six Republicans held office for 23½ years.
The bottom line is both political parties spent about the same money
fighting poverty.
From urban renewal to legal services, manpower programs to Head
Start, high rise apartments to Section 8 single family homes, infrastructure to
beautification, there have been many innovative, successful, and expensive
programs yet little has changed.
At the root of the failure was corruption throughout
government, a failure to test pilot programs before spending massive amounts of
money, and a detachment from attacking the roots of poverty.
I worked over the years trying to identify programs and attack
poverty for Democrats and Republicans alike.
In the 1960s I created a methodology for the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS) to identify pockets of poverty within a metropolitan area, opening the
door for the first time to allow targeted programs within an urban area.
As a policy developer, program analyst, and program
implementer, my job was to use all the resources of all levels of government to
attack poverty. Over the years I was called
in to the Office of the Budget, later the Office of Management and Budget, on
numerous task forces to consolidate the myriad of programs being created, help
the state and local governments set up management and accountability systems,
and identify new programs and strategies to address problems.
OMB was part of the Executive Office of the President and
by 1973 I became part of the New Federalism Task Force in OMB to overhaul all
the federal domestic programs and give the governors and mayor more control
over the tens of billions of dollars being spent.
The New York Times said our “secret” 32-person task force operating
out of the Executive Office of the President was responsible for the most far reaching
reform of federal domestic programs since President Franklin Roosevelt created the New
Deal in the 1930s.
During this time we created the General Revenue Sharing, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Comprehensive Manpower block grants, Housing block grants, Welfare Reform, and many other programs for transportation, health care, infrastructure, and related initiatives.
During this time we created the General Revenue Sharing, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Comprehensive Manpower block grants, Housing block grants, Welfare Reform, and many other programs for transportation, health care, infrastructure, and related initiatives.
For three decades I worked to create, evaluate, repair and
replace programs in cooperation with the state and local governments attempting
to address poverty. During that time, I
worked for city councils, mayors, poverty programs, metropolitan planning,
governors, members of the House and Senate and the Office of the President.
Our work proceeded through economic adversity, racial
riots, corruption, being the target of radical groups, the assassination of Bobby
Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Panthers, massive increases in
gangs and crimes, the explosion of drug trafficking, cop killings, and a more.
We launched many innovative programs to attack poverty and
many efforts fell short of expectations.
So frustrating was the work that years after building high rise
apartments for the low income in Newark, New Jersey alone, over 30,000 housing
units had to be destroyed because of crime, unfit living conditions, drugs and
other reasons.
There were many people saved by these efforts and many
minorities found the door to equal opportunity opened but the failure to
anticipate the degree of corruption and the failure to actively involve law
enforcement in the design and implementation of the many neighborhood programs
kept them from succeeding.
Remember, there was continuous friction between the federal
government and local government as the feds were using the massive infusion of
money to local government as a tool to achieve the integration of police
departments all over the nation.
Without fully integrated police departments there could not
be the cooperation needed between the police and residents to stop the crime, gangs,
and drugs from overpowering the legitimate and dedicated people trying to help.
The problem remains, and our resolve to solve it must be
renewed. We have gained much experience these
past 55 years of fighting poverty, segregation, discrimination, and bias and
must not lose the lessons but build on them to find a solution to poverty and
inequality.
Poverty is not a racial issue it impacts on all races. It is not simply a matter of racial inequality
because there are poor Whites, Blacks, Hispanic, Asian and Native American. It destroys dreams, the quality of life, the
educational opportunities, health care, the availability of good food at reasonable
costs, clean drinking water, and the list goes on and on.
Of course, Baltimore and many other cities face poverty
issues that have changed the nature of the once proud towns and are a deterrent
to future opportunities in many cities.
We all have a stake in assuring a better quality of life for all people and
equal opportunity for all people because poverty is a powerful reminder of the
limits of our success, our wealth, and our determination to be fair and just.
