Our Poor Poor – The Johnson Legacy

Author Tony De Maio
Once upon a time on a campus far, far away, I was a struggling young student. I came from a poor family, but I didn’t know it. I guess I was pretty poor myself at the time. I didn’t know that either.

The year was 1965, and Lyndon Johnson was the president. Lyndon had a problem. He was searching for a legacy, and didn’t have any money. Kennedy had launched the (expensive) space program and Johnson didn’t dare stop it (so he transferred it to Texas). The war in Vietnam was heating up and usurping all the excess tax money.

Having a significant majority in both houses of Congress and a sympathetic supreme court, Johnson decided to launch another war—a “war on poverty”. He secured funding for this “war” by changing the law that required that Social Security funds not be used for ongoing operational programs.

I was opposed to this “war on poverty” for several reasons:

1. Philosophically, it was apparent that he was transferring funds from one person to another—or more precisely from one person’s retirement fund to another person’s monthly budget. This was 1965 and such transfers were not as common as today.

2. Legally, there is no provision in the Constitution for such a transfer of funds, or for federal involvement in welfare.

3. Financially, he was possibly bankrupting Social Security. I stated to one proponent of this war regarding taking the Social Security funds, “You can’t do that.” He smugly replied, “What do you mean ‘We can’t’, we just did. We’re fighting poverty.” (I sincerely hope that person is the first to be means tested for Social Security—and he fails the test.)

4. Psychologically, I believed it was “bad practice” to make someone “comfortable” (or to use the term in vogue at that time—“give them dignity”) on welfare. The time worn saying of: “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” Has a third line. “If you give a man a fish every day, why SHOULD he learn to fish?”

5. There was no need for the program. A graph of the percentage of people living in poverty in this country shows that it was plummeting from 1900 to 1965.

6. Sociologically I questioned the wisdom of making it financially rewarding for a man to desert his family and provide a higher family income, free medical care, and other assistance—and yet allow him to “visit” as he so desired. I also questioned the wisdom of telling 15 year old girls that if they had a kid, they would be emancipated from their parents, not have to go to school, could do as they wished, and be supported in their own dwelling for the next 18 years. If they had another kid, the support would be greater.

7. Finally, I questioned the government’s capability of launching and maintaining such a program efficiently, since typically less than 20% of government monies goes to clients in most programs. It made much more sense to simply give money to local welfare agencies (which were already set up to perform services.)

Upon reviewing the census data for 1960, I found that our “poor” lived better than the middle class in most countries. They had a higher percentage of indoor plumbing, bigger houses, more disposable income, etc. I looked at the actual figures and thought, “Where are the poor? These folks are living better than ME.” Needless to say, my concerns went unheeded.

Recently, I revisited my views on the “war on poverty”. I noted that the percentage of poverty has remained about the same in this country for the past 40 years in spite of spending over 6 trillion dollars attempting to eradicate it. Ironically, subsequent years after 1965 showed the poverty level graph leveled out (after plummeting for the previous 50 years) as the federal programs made it “respectable” and financially rewarding to be on welfare. I also noted that the folks in “poverty” lived far better than I did both when I was growing up and in my early working years. Many live better than the lower middle class in this country today. I also saw that the illegitimacy rate among our poor has skyrocketed and the percentage of intact families has plunged. I observed that Social Security is going broke and may well take the country down with it. I also noted that many of the problems of the seventies (Jimmy Carter’s term) could be traced directly to the massive infusion of money into the economy required by the “war on poverty”. I took note of the fact that the education level among the poor has plummeted. I suspect they believe there is no need for education since “welfare will take care of them”.

I ask the reader to reflect upon the following (fictitious) story about what it means to live in poverty in this country. Consider Dick and Jane.

Jane is 19. She doesn’t work. Jane had a child at 17, dropped out of high school, and now receives welfare. At 18, she moved out of her parent’s home and into (subsidized) SECTION 8 housing with her child. She receives a cash allowance for her and her child, free medical care, food stamps, and cash allowances for “necessary expenses” (e.g. baby sitting if she goes out to look for a job.) If Jane chooses, she can go to school and get tuition and expenses paid. Jane doesn’t want to go to school.

Dick is 21. Dick works at a minimum wage job. He’s looking for a better job, but he has no skills and no education. He also dropped out of high school. He spends a lot of time watching T.V., playing computer games, and “working out”.

Dick lives with Jane in her apartment. They would like to get married, but if they do, welfare will stop for Jane, and they cannot afford that. It’s the weekend, and they are having some friends over to watch the football game. They are getting ready.

Dick is going to the grocery story to get some beer and snacks for the crowd that is coming over. He gets $50 worth of food stamps from Jane. Dick gets in his car, decides it is too hot to have the top down, so he puts the top up. He turns on the air conditioner, turns on the sound system, and drives to the store. He stops by the gas station where he is known. He gives the station attendant $10 worth of food stamps. The attendant pumps $5.00 of gas into the car.

Once at the grocery store, Dick wanders around the checkout stands until he sees a likely candidate. A woman is checking out at the stand. Dick walks up to her and says, “Lady, I need some gas to go out and look for a job, and all I have is food stamps. If you’ll give me $30, I’ll pay for $40 of your food.” The woman, being no fool, says, “O.K.” The deal is made, and Dick walks out of the store with $30 cash.

Dick waits until the woman leaves the store, then goes back and buys several six packs of beer, dip, potato chips, and other food he cannot buy with food stamps. He also gets a prepared chicken so Jane won’t have to cook lunch before their friends arrive.

Upon returning home, Dick puts the chicken in the micro-wave, turns on both color T.V. sets to different cable stations, and sets up the two DVD players so that he can record the games. He adjusts the temperature on the air conditioning and turns on the sound system to play music until the games start. Friends start arriving.

One friend asks where Jane’s kid is. Dick replies, “In the hospital.” The friend asks, “Is she all right?” Dick replies, “Sure, we just needed some baby sitting. Baby sitters are so expensive. We checked her in Friday night, and we’ll pick her up Monday. Jane and I needed some time to ourselves, and we didn’t want the football party spoiled by a screaming kid. Everybody is happy. The doctor gets paid for the visit, the hospital gets paid, the kid gets good care, and we get some time off. It’s great and it’s all free.”

Dick goes on, “Jane found out about that before we hooked up. They pay such a low amount of welfare that she would run out of food before the end of the month. She would have to check herself into the hospital in order to eat. This country is so stingy.

“One month, as long as she was going to be there anyway, she got a nose job. It really looks good. Turns out that welfare will pay for that too—if you claim you can’t get a job because of it. They don’t ever check, they just pay the bills.”

Dick asks. “Hey, how about signing this chit for baby-sitting? We can get reimbursed for the cost. Tell you what. I’ll give you $5 if you’ll sign a $20 chit. We tell the welfare folks that it’s so Jane can look for a job—they don’t question it at all, they just add it to her check.” The friend replies, “Sure, be glad to—but why not make it ten bucks and I’ll sign two.” Dick says, “I don’t have $10, but I’ll throw in two joints.”

Dick continues, “Yeah, one month Jane got hit with a car repair bill. She didn’t have the money, so she got some friends to sign babysitting slips. She turned them in but welfare said she would have to wait until the next month to be paid. Poor kid, she had no money, no food, and no car. She had to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital so she could check in. Can you believe it?? She had to take a BUS back home—they wouldn’t even pay for a cab. At least she had the bus pass that welfare gave her. What a cheap country. Hey, the game is about to start. There’s beer and coke in the refrigerator; ice in the freezer; hot snacks in the crock pot. We’ve got one game here in the living room, and another in the third bedroom I use for an office. One bath is in the hall, the other is off the master bedroom. Dump the food you don’t want down the garbage disposal, and stack your dirty dishes on the sink by the dish washer.”

One of Dick’s friends walks into the office and asks, “Hey, what kind of computer is that? It looks top of the line.”

Dick replies, “Yep, it’s a pretty good one. Jane told welfare she wanted to study to become a secretary. She told them that she needed a computer, and they bought her this one. This little sucker has everything—internet connection, stereo, printer, CD burner, video port, and tons of software. They even threw in a digital camera so she could learn to insert pictures into her writing. Not only that, but welfare is picking up the tab for the internet connection and all costs associated with that. Look at this neat triple x rated site—courtesy of your local welfare office. I have a bunch of them. Welfare pays for them. Neat, huh? We tell them that it’s training. I download the films and make copies—then sell and trade them. I got this box of joints for 3 CD movies.”

After the game Dick suggests that they rent a movie. He goes down to the local movie rental place, signs for three movies, and returns to the apartment. Upon returning home, he orders some pizzas to be delivered.

The next day, Dick goes to work and Jane sleeps in late. Upon rising, she turns on the air conditioning, gets into her car, turns on the car air conditioning and stereo, and drives to the hospital to pick up her kid. The child is released to her, along with some medication. She looks up a friend and sells the medication for ten dollars. On the way home, she stops by a fast food restaurant and buys breakfast for herself and her child. The remainder of the ten dollars is spent on gasoline for her car.

Upon returning home, she looks at the mess from the day before, decides to “clean it up later,” turns on the TV to a soap opera, lights a joint, and sits down to watch the show. She idly thinks that if she had another kid, welfare would pay enough so she could get some help with the housework.

Such is the hard life of the poor and poverty stricken in this country. Such is the “War on Poverty.” Such is the Johnson legacy.

Of the folks deemed “poverty stricken” in this country, 31% owned their own homes and 48% owned a car. Their average net worth was $30,000. Non-cash benefits such as rent subsidies, free medical care, and food stamps are not counted in determining “poverty”. Only in America could such people be termed “poverty stricken”.

Wot’s the old joke??

A guy walks into the welfare office and says to the worker, “You know, I really hate being on welfare. I’d do just about anything to have a job and work for a living.”

The welfare worker replies, “You’re in luck. We just got a job in from a millionaire. He wants a chauffer/body guard for his 21 year-old nymphomaniac daughter. You drive around all day in a Mercedes and accompany her on worldwide trips and cruises. You live on-site in a two-bedroom apartment above the garage, and eat with the family—all meals are provided. They have a world class chef. The salary is two hundred thousand a year—and they pay the taxes.”

The guy says, “You’re bulling me.”

The welfare worker replies, “Well, you started it.”

Related posts:

1. THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET POORER
2. Net Gain — Negative; A Fishy Story

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 10:10 am and is filed under Authors, Economics, Opinion, Tony Demaio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.