War on Poverty, Part 3

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the war on poverty as explained by Glenn Beck. I explained in Part 1 that the United States of America has been fighting the war on poverty since 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his War on Poverty initiative. The initiative was to use the full force of the U.S. Government to intervene and provide all manner of welfare for those in need. Since that time, the initiative has grown to “70 welfare programs to aid the poor and has spent $22 trillion.” Yet, we have more poor among us now than we did in 1965.

                I explained in Part 2 that the “Great Depression in the United States of America changed the world” because Franklin D. Roosevelt kept instituting programs that made the depression worse.

                In Part 3 Beck explained how Lyndon B. Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty in America” in 1965 while transforming the United States into “The Great Society.”

                “According to Johnson, The Great Society asked `not how much, but how good.’ Perhaps `how much’ was the greater question because the answer was $22 trillion – and counting. The Cato Institute estimates an additional $48 trillion in unfunded liabilities from Medicare alone. Today, Medicare, Medicaid and FDR’s Social Security program account for 47 percent of all federal spending. That’s almost $18 trillion annually. And the total amount of America’s unfunded liabilities are said to be in excess of $125 trillion – more than twice the amount of all money in the world today. Was it worth it? LBJ said `not how much, but how good.’ So how good was it? Sadly, the poverty rate is higher today than in 1965 [when] LBJ proposed [his] many initiatives to launch his War on Poverty….”

                Government handouts do not bring people out of poverty. Work and sacrifice defeat poverty. There is no reason why healthy Americans should receive handouts. I believe that a “hand up” can be very helpful, but I know that a “hand out” destroys the will to do things for oneself.