FreedomWorks

In his State of the Union address forty years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America."

Since then, the federal government has created vast new bureaucracies and raised taxes to a staggering level not seen since World War Two. L.B.J. helped create welfare (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), Medicare, Head Start, the Job Corps, and Medicaid.

Worst of all, most of L.B.J.’s War on Poverty was a failure.

Certainly, many of the programs created by L.B.J. and his successor Richard Nixon have done some good. You can’t spend billions—actually, trillions—of dollars and not deliver some positive benefits. But welfare as L.B.J. conceived it completely backfired. Instead of giving a helping handout, welfare trapped several generations in a vicious cycle of lawlessness and dependency. By making welfare a federal government responsibility, L.B.J.’s policies crowded out many of the private self-help networks and societies that helped the downtrodden in the past. Further, a lot of L.B.J’s ideas—his “War on Poverty” later expanded into the “Great Society”—have resulted in programs like Medicare that are actually transfers of money from the working poor to relatively wealthier seniors.

When L.B.J.’s War on Poverty initiatives are balanced against costs—the lost economic growth, the massively expanded taxation, the substantial increase in the size and scope of government, and the creation of a class of citizens completely dependent upon the government—the War on Poverty looks more Waterloo than America’s recent march to Baghdad.

No doubt, viewed broadly, L.B.J.’s War on Poverty was a failure.

But the failure is because of L.B.J’s flawed battle plan. Poverty can be defeated by fighting it with freedom. As Armey’s most important axiom says, “Freedom Works.” An America based on limited government and unlimited opportunity—an America that rewards the hard work and initiative of its citizens—will not suffer from widespread poverty. That’s the society we’re trying to build with the CSE Freedom Agenda.

For example, the most successful anti-poverty initiative of the past half century wasn’t the creation of welfare, but rather the 1996 welfare reform bill.

Before 1996, welfare was Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the country’s largest cash assistance program and the centerpiece of Johnson’s War on Poverty. In 1996 welfare reform changed the program’s name to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This wasn’t just a superficial change in name. Rather, the 1996 reforms eliminated welfare’s “entitlement” status—ending the automatic “right” to benefits. If you are able-bodied and need assistance, you now have to get training or work to receive benefits. Since 1996, welfare is properly understood as temporary assistance in tough times, rather than as a way of life.

This is a critically important change that breaks the poverty of spirit and dependency that hand-out based welfare used to create. By emphasizing work and responsibility, the 1996 reforms push all able-bodied Americans towards the independence, self-respect, and self-sufficiency that comes from working. The War on Poverty may have begun in 1964, but it wasn’t until 1996 that we truly began winning it. According to the Census Bureau, 3.5 million fewer people now live in poverty today than in 1995.

Of course, we’re not done. There is still too much despair and poverty in America. That’s why we’re pushing Congress to renew and strengthen the 1996 reforms. And of course, broad economic growth is by far the best anti-poverty program ever devised.

Further, conservatives and liberals all agree that education levels are critical to reducing poverty. Unfortunately, many of our inner-city public schools fail to provide their students with even basic literacy skills. Another huge step in reducing the roots of poverty will be expanding school choice to all students and ending the public school monopoly.

Government handouts will never solve poverty. They only encourage and subsidize irresponsibility and trap the poor in a vicious cycle of dependency. The War on Poverty as L.B.J. defined it is lost; however, our new war on poverty continues. CSE is fighting to create an America where all citizens have the freedom, opportunity, and responsibility to better their condition and fulfill their dreams.