Political Quotes

“When President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty in his 1964 State of the Union address, the poverty rate in this, the richest country on Earth, was 19 percent. His Great Society legislation, a continuation of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and President Harry Truman's Fair Deal, launch a plethora of programs and priorities to serve and protect the neediest and the most vulnerable among us. At the time, President Johnson cautioned that the war on poverty would be long and difficult. But by 1973, only 9 years later, the poverty rate had been brought down to 11 percent. We were definitely winning the war on poverty. Unfortunately, many politicians found success, creating myths about the poor and inventing phantoms like the so-called ``welfare queen.'' They popularized a narrative that the war on poverty was not worth fighting, but nothing could be further from the truth. For example, Medicare and Medicaid, both war on poverty initiatives, have made a tremendous difference in the health and security of older Americans and all Americans of modest means. These two very successful anti-poverty programs, when they were initiated, the poverty rate among seniors was over 30 percent. Today, the poverty rate among seniors is under 10 percent. By what measure can one conclude that these two programs are failures? In addition to Medicare and Medicaid, President Johnson signed into law the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.…”