A 50-year war and still no signs of victory

A few days ago the editors of The National Review reminded us that it was fifty years ago that the president of the United States declared war and despite the expenditure of trillions of dollars not only is there no sign of victory but, alas, every sign of defeat.  Yes, indeed, it was fifty years ago that that arch rogue, Lyndon Baines Johnson, declared war on poverty and thus set in train perhaps one of the biggest cons the world has ever seen.  His strategy was brilliantly simple, by which I mean, of course, simple-minded!  He simply took FDR's ideas from the New Deal and doubled, tripled and quadrupled them which had his Democrat party squealing with delight because, of course, the main beneficiaries were not the poor - heh! who gives shit about them? - it was the Democrat party who were thereby helped to create hundreds of thousands of 'jarbs' to run this giant Ponzi scheme and who could henceforth be relied on to vote Democrat and to join public service unions whose dues would, after the union bosses had creamed off the top, be passed on to the Democrat party itself. 

What about the poor, you ask?  Let the NR editors tell you in their own words but with my emphasis:

This year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s
proclamation of a “war on poverty,” and the progress in this theater has not
been encouraging. Trillions of dollars have been spent, and the number of
Americans living in poverty is higher today than it was in 1964, while the poverty rate has held steady at just under one in five. That contrasts
unpleasantly with the trend before President Johnson declared his war: The
poverty rate had been dropping since the end of World War II. That progress came to a halt as President Johnson’s expensive and expansive vision began to be
implemented in earnest, which coincided with the tapering of the postwar boom.
By the 1970s, the poverty rate was headed upward. It declined a bit during the
Reagan years, crested and receded again in the 1990s, and resumed its melancholy ascent around the turn of the century.

If you are an American taxpayer this blog takes no responsibility for your health if you continue to read: 

The war on poverty has been conducted partly in earnest and partly self-servingly. No doubt programs such as Head Start were launched with a great deal of idealism, but as their ineffectiveness became apparent, it was not idealism that sustained them but political self-interest. Providing at best temporary relief to the poor, the permanent welfare bureaucracies benefit Democrats by creating thousands of well-paid positions for their political allies and subsequent campaign contributions for their candidates. Head Start today is a money-laundering program through which federal expenditures are transmitted to Democratic candidates through the Service Employees International Union, which represents many Head Start teachers. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents, among others, the welfare bureaucrats at the Administration for Children and Families, is a large political donor that gives about 94 percent of its largesse to Democrats. This is not coincidental. The main beneficiaries of the war on poverty have not been and will not be the poor; the beneficiaries are the alleged poverty warriors themselves. The war on poverty is war on the Roman model in which soldiers are paid through plunder.

The old saying is that the best of America eventually reaches these shores which may be true but in that case so does the worst!  'Brown & Balls, the Brokers Men' gave it everything they could whilst in power, borrowing money hand over fist and telling us that it was all to be spent on the NHS, or the poor, or regional development, whilst at the same time they set up huge offices and bureaucracies mainly 'ooop north' where their main power-base lies and tens of thousands of mostly un-civil servants wasted their time and our money shuffling it around on grandiose schemes but always paying their dues to the Labour party by  voting for them at each election, until, of course, the Ponzi scheme crashed, as they always do.

The lesson is clear.  Whenever you hear a politician insisting that he will help the poor, bury the silver, cash in your savings and, even if through gritted teeth, consider emigration to Australia!  I believe the wine 'down under there' has come on rather well recently but, if things turn rough there as well, then you can always hide in the desert which constitutes about 98.7% of their landmass!

 

Related articles

The War on Poverty 50 Years Later

Renewing The War On Poverty, Fifty Years Later

What Was (Is) the "War on Poverty" Anyway and Does it Matter Today?

The War Over Poverty: A Deep Divide On How To Help

The Fifty-Year War

"The War Over Poverty": The Problem Of Poverty Is Part Of The Broader Problem Of Rising Income Inequality

Comments

[dearieme]

"FDR's ideas from the New Deal" is a bit rich. FDR never had an idea in his life; his policies were an incoherent mess, some of them just copied from Hoover.

[Antisthenes]

Prior to reading your article I was reading one on "Cafe Hayek" which was extolling the same non virtues that you describe of left wing policies and practices over there. Or should that be over here as I am currently just north of over there in Canada staying with my daughter for a while. If those considering decamping the UK I suggest not going South, I only got as far as France and that was an experience I would not wish on anyone, go west if you do not mind lots of snow and cold weather and come to Canada. I am not that up on Canadian politics or economics but what little I can observe is that it feels less authoritarian and more prosperous than any part of Europe.

[Michael Adams]

Quite right DM, but do not leave out Wilson.

The crappo economics of the New Deal made a kind of sense, to people born in the 19th Century. Surely we have learned something in the past eighty years? Anything?

Roosevelt was a pretty typical Demagogue Party pol: Dispense largess->get elected to office->power->general goodness all around.

Johnson, no need to say, but I'll say it anyway, was the same, was, in fact, a Roosevelt protege.

Is is very useful for us to examine your politics, and vice verse, because we gain insight into the same ills on our own side of the water. (Somewhat like some of the group therapy sessions I conducted in my misspent youth.Those were not much fun for the participants, either.)

[backofanenvelope]

Personally, I think the USA has had it. It was the creation of a bunch of white heterosexual protestant Christians. It has been turned into something else to accommodate other sorts of people. It won't work; it has never worked anywhere in the world. We, of course, are on the same route as the Americans and it won't work either.

[David Duff]

Oh God, just back from my swim and I read all the above and... well, I think I'll go back to bed!

[Andra]

Well, you can't come here, we already have our quota of Pommies.
Try New Zealand - all the bloody Kiwis are in Australia!

[David Duff]

Disgraceful Kiwi-ism of the first order! I'd ban you but for the fact that I'm too frit!