Where Is The "Great Society" LBJ Promised Us?
"War On Poverty" Was A Scam To Overtax Workers
Last week I invited a volunteer from Peninsula Poverty Response to attend our Peninsula Patriots* meeting to explain his group’s work. I wish I had not learned about the depressing “lifestyles” he described to us. Too many Americans in our little coastal community are living in Third World poverty. He advised us, just blocks from the library where we were meeting, people were living in derelict travel trailers, campers, RV, etc without electricity, water, heat and other “amenities” Americans have long taken for granted. I knew that many locals were struggling to feed themselves since the Biden Regime intentionally triggered massive inflation; but, I had no idea people were living like THIS and worse in the community we moved to in 2020 to escape the Portland riots.
AMERICANS WERE LIED TO
There was no homelessness when I was growing up in a small town in Central Washington. As I was coming of age in the late 60s, the tax code was significantly changing. The new code sucked twice and thrice the amount of federal taxes from Americans at all levels of income. President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with his Democrat House and Democrat Senate promised Americans that “The Great Society” legislation would end poverty in America. Ha! Over the years since, the poverty rate has fluctuated but it has never been below 10%, based upon government data, which one should always take with a block of salt. Even the all powerful, all knowing federal government can’t know everything. I believe the number of Americans living in poverty always was higher than government stats. Under the Biden Regime poverty was intentionally put on steroids.
As you can see, from President Johnson’s detailed “Great Society” speech in May, 1964, not one of his promises was fulfilled, yet Big Government is still overtaxing working Americans and using the money for everything BUT helping those truly in need. To give you just one idea of how your money is being wasted in 2023, the Census Bureau wants TEN MILLION DOLLARS to research how to ask ONE question on one of their surveys. Say what? How many Americans would that much money feed?
The “War On Poverty” was actually a war on earners and freedom. There has been no real improvement. Indeed, I would argue that modest taxation is the main reason that, prior to LBJ’s “war,” most families could and did live very comfortably on one income, as did my family with a father with a 10th grade education. Today, most families are living on two or three incomes, some barely surviving. As estimated by the federal government’s poverty line, 12.6 percent of the US population was poor in 1970; in 1990, it was 13.5 percent; in 2010, it was 15.1 percent; and in 2019, it was 10.5 percent. Keep in mind, every time taxes are increased, more working families are pushed into poverty.
It took the economic policies of President Trump, 10 presidents after Johnson, to push the poverty rate below was it was before the “War On Poverty” began, 10.5 percent. THAT was mainly due to Trump’s cuts which significantly lowered taxes on lower-income households. Last year, 2022, the official poverty rate was 12.4 percent. This is a bogus figure designed by the Biden Regime to hide the massive poverty sweeping across the nation for the first time since the Great Depression.
What are they doing with the enormous amounts of “extra” taxes they are taking from earners? They certainly aren’t using them to provide for poverty-stricken Americans. The Biden Regime is hellbent on pushing ever more Americans into poverty. Needy people are easier to control and they vote for those whom they deem as providing for them. In 2021, a family of four was considered poor, by the same overlords who are overtaxing us, if their income was $31,453. In 2022, that number increased by 10% to $34,518, pushing ever more households down the economic ladder due to Bidenomics.
STATE OF WASHINGTON ABANDONED OUR POOR NEIGHBORS
On November 19, 2020, the Marxist State of Washington closed the welfare office on our little peninsula. The closest welfare office is located 87 miles from this rather isolated community, which is 185 miles from Seattle. Since few homeless people have internet services, how can they learn about what they qualify for and how to apply for their slice of “The Great Society?” Pacific County has long been one of the poorer counties in the state. I can’t help but think Washington’s Ruling Elite who pulled the plug on this community did this to punish the residents for voting for President Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Perhaps they were shifting their resources to accommodate Biden’s Guests which he promised to prioritize over Americans when he invited them to come across our southern border.
*Peninsula Patriots is the local chapter of the John Birch Society. I am a founding member of this chapter which was established in November 2020.
According to a 2019 report by The CATO Institute, "federal, state, and local governments will spend close to a combined $1 trillion to fund more than 100 separate anti‐poverty programs. In fact, since Lyndon Johnson declared 'war on poverty' in 1965, government efforts to fight poverty have cost more than $23 trillion." Who has benefitted? Not the poverty stricken, but the government agencies and NGOs that control the trillions of taxpayer dollars spent to generate more victims of poverty. With a TRILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS in play each year, leftists understand "poverty solving" is good business -- create the crisis, then make money solving the crisis.
Hi Diane-thank you for this article full of unfortunate truths. I was raised in a very nice town in so cal, dad working, mom stayed at home. When I went to college (my dad saved and paid for that too) it was all about women and how we were under represented in the work place. I got a degree and have been in the workplace for over 25 years. My husband and I have good jobs, struggle to provide our kids with vacations, a nice home, cars, eyc because we can’t afford anything. I remember my dad telling me at one point that I wasn’t “trying hard enough “ to stay home with the kids when they were young. It angers me but he is from a generation that was so different. I’m grateful for my parents, now they are helping us financially instead of the other way around. I pray for my kids, and what their future holds.