President Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964. Since then we have spent over 22 trillion dollars to fight the war on poverty. That is more than have spent on all of our military interventions (real wars ) combined since the American Revolution. Could this money have been better spent somewhere else? (Infrastructure?) Would the poverty rate still be at 15% as it is now or would it have skyrocketed? Not sure of the answer but I think that without the social programs that we now have (welfare, food stamps, public housing, etc....), we would still have the same 15% poverty rate. And we would have 23 trillion more dollars!! What say you?
http://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/commentary/the-war-poverty-50-years-failure
http://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/commentary/the-war-poverty-50-years-failure
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