The War on Poverty Turns 40

The poor lost.

by Rod D. Martin
January 22, 2004

"The War on Poverty is over -- and the poor lost."

So said Jack Kemp well over a decade ago. Kemp was half-right. Today, the poor are with us still -- but so is LBJ's War, now entering its 40th year.

Hailed as a cure-all, this liberal-led War has bled America dry -- materially and morally.

Through Medicare and Medicaid, it replaced free markets and personal choice with the shackles of a one-size-fits-all bureaucracy, creating a costly, unaccountable, hydra-headed monstrosity that slouches towards bankruptcy and entraps those it was meant to help.

Through tampering with Social Security, Great Society architects created sham budget surpluses, postponing the day of reckoning for a system that operates like a Ponzi scheme.

Through exponential expansion of the welfare system, it ignored the prescience of liberal icon FDR, who once deemed permanent welfare "a narcotic [and] destroyer of the human spirit." This abominable system not only weakened personal initiativ…