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.
As mentioned above, trillions of dollars have been spent on Lyndon Johnson's "War on
Poverty," but estimates vary. On another nearby page, there is 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
are now up around 22 trillion dollars.
Federal, state and local governments spent a total of $630 billion on welfare programs in
2009.*
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.