"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
The American Welfare State: How We Spend Nearly $1 Trillion a Year Fighting Poverty - And Fail
"On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a State of the Union address to Congress in which he declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America." At the time, the poverty rate in America was around 19 percent and falling rapidly. This year, it is reported that the poverty rate is expected to be roughly 15.1 percent and climbing. Between then and now, the federal government spent roughly $12 trillion fighting poverty, and state and local governments added another $3 trillion. Yet the poverty rate never fell below 10.5 percent and is now at the highest level in nearly a decade. Clearly, we have been doing something wrong."
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You are missing the point, the "nearly $1 Trillion a Year" isn't being spent to "fight poverty", rather the aid is used as a form of quid pro quo.
Which is all the better at keeping the disaffected great unwashed safely ensconced in cheese doodles, NASCAR and Entertainment Tonight (etal), rather then protesting the US governments theft of their property and liberties.
Persona non grata: Bread and circuses all over again, eh? :-)
Actually, the war on poverty has been wildly successful. It has created a giant jobs program for social workers and bureaucrats. It has turned a segment of the population completely dependent. It has spawned hoards of new problems for government to "fix". It has helped the "Divide and Conquer" strategy. It has almost killed private and church charity. I can't think of a program more successful at its actual aims than this one has been, except perhaps for the War on Some Drugs.