"War on" or "War for" Poverty?

The title of this story will automatically draw criticism and shut down some communication but it does raise some valid points.

"After 40 years of failure, they still insist that they want to expand this war, that they think they should pour more money into this war," said Star Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. "Already, over $3 trillion has been spent on the war on poverty, and so far, we've not seen results."

Poverty is not a nail that can be driven in by hitting it with a bigger hammer of money. Water and electricity will always take the path of least resistance, are people in general any different? How many people do work to meet the minimum standards? Too many times I have heard the phrase “good enough” (and unfortunately I have said it).
In my job I have to struggle against short term goals and longer term success in fact I left a job because all the company wanted was to meet short term goals. The company has since shut down operation at that location because the longer term success was compromised. In other words they painted themselves into a corner with nowhere to go. The company spent a lot of money looking for longer term success. They are now out of that money because the investment never paid off. The investment was based on a 10 year operation to cover the cost, they got 5 years.

That is what throwing money at poverty is, attacking short term goals and forgetting long term success. Don’t get me wrong, money is most definitely needed for long term success. Money without change the culture is just making a more expensive culture. What is needed is to define the long term goals that will make success. Any symptom that hinders success has to be addressed as far up stream as possible. The current efforts have put black families with a growing number of issues.

She added that the result of the war on poverty for the Black community has been that two out of three pregnancies are ended through abortion, and seven in 10 children are born outside of marriage.

"What are the implications on society?" she asked. "Seventy percent of our incarcerated are coming from these broken homes. Family breakdown leads to government dependency.

One of the failures of the current programs seems to be that it promotes a disruption of a stable family. How important is a stable family to poverty conditions? There have been several studies that show a stable family (this one is from 2006) is the best environment to raise children.

Glenn and Sylvester contend that the research over the effects of the shifts in family structure that started several decades ago is now clearer. "Most family scholars," they comment, "apparently now agree that the preponderance of the evidence indicates that children tend to do best when they grow up with their own two married parents, so long as the marriage is not marred by violence or serious conflict."

It only makes sense (to me at least) that any improvements to living conditions must be constructed on a stable foundation. One does not build on sandy ground unless you want to rebuild after the storms.

Something new has to be done because the old is producing some horrible conditions. It is a requirement to go over the original ideas and seeing what failed or why they were deviated from.

But Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, told Cybercast News Service: "These statements are not consistent with 30 years of research."

"Poverty remains high, not because of a shortage of effective anti-poverty policy options, but because the public and policymakers have not made reducing poverty a high priority," he said.

"The primary reason that poverty persists is not because the research of the war on
poverty planners was flawed, but because the economy failed to deliver the benefits of prosperity widely," Danziger added.

I know from personal experiences that no plan it absolutely correct at the beginning. I also know that parts of the plan are ignored and changed not because it was wrong but because the person carrying out the plan thought it was. For a plan to succeed, wrong starts must be abandoned and a new direction taken. When is America going to recognize the wrong start we are currently on?

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