These pages are here to illustrate several things, but primarily these three: First, people who live in (what we call) poverty in
America are fairly well off, compared to the poor in other countries. Second, decades of
government intervention has only made the problem worse. Trillions of tax dollars have been
spent fighting poverty, but instead of encouraging people to get jobs and get themselves out of
a financial rut, the welfare system creates conditions favorable to pregnancy, childbirth and
illegitimacy. The "safety net" has become a hammock for the laziest people in our society. The third
and most urgent point is that we cannot afford to stay on this ruinous path, where one half of our society depends
on the other half for handouts. Unfortunately, other countries have shown that when the gravy train crashes,
a lot of angry people take to the streets.
Please notice, if you will, that the cities which have the greatest difficulty with homeless bums and
panhandlers are the cities where liberal politicians are in control.
New: As mentioned above, trillions of dollars have been spent on Lyndon Johnson's "War on
Poverty," but estimates vary. At the bottom of this page, I have put together a table
of estimates by various authors, excluding anonymous bloggers
and one-time-only "letters to the editor" and the like. The most widely accepted estimates
seem to be somewhere between 5.0 and 5.4 trillion dollars, although other apparently
credible estimates are much higher.
Federal, state and local governments spent a total of $630 billion on welfare programs in
2009.*
Subtopics:
Overview of the welfare state
The enormous cost of anti-poverty programs
Politicians use handouts to buy votes
Lies about welfare programs
Barack Obama reverses the welfare reform law of 1996
Politicians perpetuate poverty and dependence
Food stamps have been de-stigmatized
Why work when you can claim "disability"?
Welfare recipients are in the habit of making unwise choices
Waste
Fraud
The total cost of the War on Poverty
Many homeless people are violent and/or insane and should be locked up
Many allegedly poor people are not poor at all
Welfare encourages illegitimacy rather that work
Handouts promote an entitlement mentality
Constant expansion and mission creep
Free cell phones!
What happens when the game is over?
Welfare programs attract illegal aliens
The Cloward-Piven strategy
Negative income taxes: People who pay less than zero income tax.
SCHIP
Other countries' experiences
Related topics on other pages:
The Great Debit Card Giveaway after Hurricane Katrina
The demise of stigma
Head Start
School lunches
Medicare and Medicaid
Social Security
The Collapse of the Family Unit as the Building Block of Society
The Wealthy Liberal Elite Pretend to Watch Out for the Little Guy
John Edwards gets $50,000 to make a speech about poverty
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